CNN’s Van Jones is often seen as a moderate voice in politics, but this week he pulled no punches when calling out white liberals like Amy Cooper who pretend to be allies while actually proving to be just as dangerous as card-carrying white supremacists.
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“It’s not the racist person in the KKK that we have to worry about,” Jones said Friday morning while discussing the racial tensions that have reached a boiling point this week following the protests that erupted in Minneapolis.
“It’s the white, liberal Hillary Clinton supporter walking her dog in Central Park who would tell you right now, ‘Oh I don’t see race, race is no big deal to me, I see all people the same, I give to charities’,” he continued, mimicking people like Cooper who keep getting caught making false police reports against Black citizens.
Van Jones on CNN just now:
“It’s not the racist person in the KKK that we have to worry about. It’s the white, liberal Hillary Clinton supporter walking her dog in Central Park” we have to look out for.
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) May 29, 2020
“But the minute she sees as Black man who she does not respect, or who she has a slight thought against, she weaponized race like she had been taught by the Aryan Nation,” Jones said.
“A Klan member could not have been better trained to pick up her phone and tell the police it’s a Black man,” he declared.
He also warned that “even the most liberal, well-intentioned white person” has a racist “virus” in the way they’ve been socialized that can be “activated” at any moment.
“What you’re seeing now is a curtain falling away,” said the CNN commentator. “Those of us who have been burdened by this every minute, every second of our entire lives are fragile right now… we are tired.”
While Jones is calling out people like Cooper, in a surprise development, Christian Cooper the bird watcher she racially profiled, appeared on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon on Tuesday to ask the public to temper their reactions.
READ MORE: CNN reporter arrested while covering Minneapolis protests, governor apologizes
“While she may not be or consider herself a racist, that particular act was definitely racist,” he told CNN’s Don Lemon. “And the fact that, that was her recourse at that moment—granted, it was a stressful situation, a sudden situation—you know, maybe a moment of spectacularly poor judgment. But she went there and had this racist act that she did.”
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