On Monday, John Kelly gave an interview with Laura Ingraham in which he suggested that Confederate General Robert E. Lee was an “honorable man” and that the Civil War was simply a case of two parts of the country that couldn’t compromise.
While Kelly’s comments drew widespread criticism, Roland Martin’s comments on MSNBC on Tuesday morning didn’t hold anything back at all.
“Yeah. I’m not going to allow four stars to allow stuck on stupid to simply go on,” Martin said of Kelly, calling him “utterly clueless.”
— When Black men are healthy, our nation is healthy —
Martin took down Kelly’s suggestion that the Civil War was a failure to compromise by references all the concessions and compromises made to the South, such as the three-fifths compromise in the Constitution in which slaves counted as three-fifths of a person.
“I need John Kelly to actually go back and read a history book that my 12-year-old nieces are reading right now because clearly he fell asleep in history,” Martin said.
Martin then blasted Kelly for calling Lee honorable, saying that this was “how we normalize white supremacy.”
“And then to say, well, we don’t have an appreciation of history. I love this whole deal about how, well, you know, he was an honorable man. Really? There were abolitionists during that particular period who did not believe in slavery. So, don’t call them men of their time,” Martin insisted.
He concluded with a shut down of Ingraham as well, saying, “Laura Ingraham, you need to go read a history book too because if you let him lie like that in front of you, you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.”
