Mitch McConnell, the minority leader in the Senate, has sparked widespread outrage by referring to Americans and African Americans as two separate groups. This was done in a series of comments about Black voters that has, naturally, gone extremely viral. The Republican from Kentucky had been speaking after the senators from the Republic end again blocked the voting rights legislation of the Democrats on Capitol Hill on the evening of Wednesday.
Mitch McConnell’s Comments Takes A Turn Towards Racism
After that, Mitch McConnell went on to speak to reporters after the bill failed and the Senate rejected any change to the filibuster rule that could facilitate the passage of the bill, where he was asked for his message to voters who belonged to the minority communities who were concerned that the restrictions to voting could be enacted in many states. Needless to say, this would keep them from the ballot box without any new circumnavigating federal laws.
To this, Mitch McConnell stated that the concern was completely misplaced because if one were to take a look at the statistics, African American voters were voting in just as high a percentage as most Americans. But the truth, keeping McConnell’s statement aside, presents quite a different picture as the voting restrictions passed by 19 states the last year do disproportionally impact voters of color.
Bobby Rush, the Democratic congressman from Illinois, rightly called out Mitch McConnell for his comment, stating that African Americans are Americans. A colleague of Rush, Diana DeGette of Colorado, made a similar assessment, stating that the comment made by the Senate minority leader was disgusting. In her tweet, she stated that African-American voters are Americans, and to suggest anything else would simply be racist.
