During a panel on CNN’s Newsroom with host Brooke Baldwin, Paris Dennard, a Republican supporter of President Donald Trump, blasted another panelist for questioning whether he was truly Black.
The meltdown started when Keith Boykin, who served under Democratic president Bill Clinton, told Dennard that he was “ashamed that you as an African-American” had not denounced Trump for his tepid response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“Get your guest under control. Get him under control because I will not come on this show to be disrespected and have my ethnicity attacked,” Dennard told Baldwin, who tried to tell them to take their argument off the air and to “have respect.”
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“I don’t need you to try to pull my Black card. I am well aware of my Blackness and don’t need you to try to classify me as being one,” Dennard said before adding that he was proud Trump had denounced the KKK and other hate groups on Monday.
When Boykin questioned him, Dennard said, “Keith, do not go there. Do not go there. I know what it means to be a Black man in this country. I know and I experience racism on a regular basis by being a Trump supporter and by being a proud American who happens to be a Republican.”
“Keith, if you really want to get down to it. My family is from Georgia — Keith, let me finish!” he continued over Boykin’s attempts to get a word in. “We have members of our family that went missing because of the KKK taking them up. So don’t come to me and tell me what it means to be a Black man in this country. I fought every day in the George W. Bush White House.”
