"Time to end the weaponization of race": Indian-American Vivek Ramaswamy
Aug 29, 2023
Washington [US], August 29 : Indian-American US Presidential Election candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said that there is nothing more racist than predicting someone’s viewpoints with their skin colour.
Taking to social media platform X, Ramaswamy said, “Congresswoman @AyannaPressley says “we don’t need any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice.” There’s nothing more racist than to assume the color of someone’s skin predicts something about the content of their viewpoints. Time to end the weaponization of race."
The Hill reported, Ramaswamy at the campaign event Friday was responding to remarks by Pressley in 2019 in which she said: “We don’t want any more Black faces that don’t want to be a Black voice. We don’t want any more brown faces that don’t want to be a brown voice.”
At the time, Pressley’s spokesperson reportedly said that the congresswoman was making the point, in reference to Democrats, that “diversity at the table doesn’t matter if there’s not real diversity in policy.”
When further pressed on his comments, Ramaswamy said he was saying out loud what people said privately.
“I stand by what I said to provoke an open and honest discussion in this country because there is a gap, Dana, between what people will say in private today and what they will say in public. I think we need to close that gap,” reported The Hill quoting Ramaswamy.
“I think we need to have a real, open, honest raw conversation as Americans. That is our path to national unity. And there are many Americans today who are deeply frustrated by the new culture of anti-racism, that’s really racism in new clothing, and we need to have that debate in the open,” he continued.
According to The Hill, Ramaswamy reiterated his suggestion that those who sound most like the KKK today are people who promote “discrimination on the basis of skin color” — a description often invoked by those who oppose affirmative action to describe those in favor.
“We all agree that the KKK was an awful organization. That is a toxic stain in our national history. So given that, we can start from that point of agreement. Now that allows us to say, well, who actually sounds more like that organization today? The people who are calling for more racial discrimination on the basis of skin color,” he said.
