In a town hall with CNN moderator Jake Tapper Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley told the anchor that she dealt with "plenty of racism" as the child of Indian immigrants in a rural South Carolina town, but is happy that her parents never told her she lived in a racist country.
This comes after she stated that the United States has "never been" a racist country and that she believes the country's intent was always to "do the right thing."
When Did Haley Make These Comments?
Her initial remarks, made during an interview on "Fox & Friends," alluded to a belief that the U.S. was never racist. Tapper, however, pointed to Constitutional protections for slavery and the fact that South Carolina, Haley's home state, seceded from the Union in part to defend slavery.
"When you look it said, 'all men are created equal,' I think the intent was to do the right thing," she said. "Now, did they have to go fix it along the way? Yes, but I don't think the intent was ever that we were going to be a racist country."
"The intent was everybody was going to be created equally," she added. "As we went through time, they fixed the things that are not, 'all men are created equal."
While conceding that measures taken to promote women's right to vote happened over time, she did not believe the premise of forming the country was racism. She also stated that she believed telling people of color that the country in which they live is racist would be tantamount to telling them they don't have a chance to succeed.
"We have too many people with this national self-loathing. It is killing our country," she said.
"I have to know in my heart and in everybody's heart that we live in the best country in the world, and we are a work in progress, and we've got a long way to go to fix all of our little kinks, but I truly believe our Founding Fathers had the best of intentions when they started," Haley said. "And we fixed it along the way and we should always look at it that way," she continued.
