MSNBC's Velshi and Nikole Hannah-Jones Say Biden Must Adopt Radical Leftist Policies

November 29th, 2020 7:32 AM

MSNBC is not a news network, but a forum for radical leftism.

On Saturday morning’s Velshi, MSNBC host Ali Velshi brought on Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Times Magazine correspondent on racial injustice, to discuss how Joe Biden should take the government even farther left with its policies. He insisted that Biden’s administration needs an "all-of-government" solution to address "social inequities."

 

ALI VELSHI: So when we look at the -- the priorities that this government has, whether its COVID or climate, what the administration -- the incoming administration is doing is they’re thinking about as an all of government solution. So they’re putting COVID people in every department. They’re putting climate people, you know, they're going to have a domestic climate czar who’s going to oversee every department's interaction with climate and climate change. It feels like that's what really has to happen with social justice. It’s not sort of one person or one job, it's the idea that everybody all over government has got to look at what the social inequities are and figure out how to address them across the government and the private sector. 

Velshi has long been pushing for radical climate policy.

Has not the government been responsible for mass incarceration negatively affecting communities of color? How has the failed War on Poverty addressed inequality? But for leftists, the solution is always more government, no matter how badly it has failed in a certain policy arena.

Hannah-Jones advocated for all federal “civil rights divisions” addressing “the racial inequality” and “gender inequality” that supposedly permeates throughout all of our society:

What many people don’t know is every federal agency -- every federal agency actually has a civil rights division. There is a civil rights division in the Department of the Treasury, there is a civil rights division in the department -- the Environmental Protection Agency, there's a civil rights division in HUD, there’s a civil rights division in the education department. The problem -- the transportation department. The problem is depending upon the administration, that civil rights division is either disempowered or empowered. So of course what social justice advocates are hoping for is that you see those civil rights divisions really being empowered and -- and the reason that they were placed in all of these agencies is there is an understanding in that every aspect of our society we have inequality, racial inequality, gender inequality, and all of those government agencies have to be tasked with addressing them across the spectrum of American life because they impact Americans across all of the spectrums of American life.

Earlier, Hannah-Jones worried out loud that Biden hasn't named enough black appointees yet, even though he's only named a few:

HANNAH-JONES: I think another area is social justice, particularly the racial divide and black Americans treatment in this country and we aren't seeing so much of a focus on that in the conversations thus far and I know this is something that a lot of activists are going to be pushing for is that that aspect is not forgotten, that the base of black women and black voters who got Joe Biden into this position are not forgotten. And we know that Jim Clyburn, Representative Clyburn who’s already come out and said that he's a little disappointed that there aren't enough black people, particularly black women who have been named or whose names have been floated for cabinet positions yet and he’s hoping that there will be some change in that as we see more positions named. 

Hannah-Jones is certainly an expert on “the racial divide.” While at Notre Dame, Hannah-Jones wrote a letter to the editor of the school newspaper titled “Modern Savagery.” In the letter, she labeled white people as “bloodsuckers” and “barbaric devils.” This summer during the most violent riots following the death of George Floyd, Hannah-Jones tweeted that “It would be an honor” if the riots were called the “1619 Riots.”

Velshi began and ended  the segment by touting the “Pulitzer Prize-winning” Hannah-Jones as the creator of her paper's 1619 Project. The problem with uncritically celebrating the 1619 project is that it is only accepted by leftists. The project made the dubious assertion that racism has driven all of America’s major developments. Many of the projects most fundamental claims, such as that America was founded in 1619 when the first slave arrived and that slavery was the main motivation of the Revolutionary War, have been fact checked by historians. One of the leading historians on the Civil War, James McPherson, has even called the project an “unbalanced, one-sided account" that "left most of the history out."

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Read the full November 28th transcript here:

MSNBC VELSHI

11/28/20

9:07:12 AM

ALI VELSHI: Joining me is Nikole Hannah-Jones, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with The New York Times Magazine, creator of the 1619 Project. She’s also the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society, it’s a news trade organization dedicated to increasing and retaining reporters and editors of color in the field of investigative reporting. Its namesake was an African-American journalist who led an anti-lynching crusade in the United States in the 1890’s. Wells was also an early leader in the civil rights movement. Nikole, great to see you, thank you for being here. You know, there are so many people who voted in this election, I wouldn't say a single-issue voters, but who had something that was overwhelmingly pushing them toward their vote for Joe Biden. It may have been social justice, it may have been COVID, it may have been the economy, it may have been health care. At this point with this president coming in and the -- the team he is forming, do you get some sense of its priorities? It might have been climate, by the way. Do you -- do you get a sense of what its priorities are and how it's going to manage those constituencies who wanted Joe Biden for a specific reason? 

NIKOLE HANNAH-JONES (NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE CORRESPONDENT ON RACIAL INJUSTICE): Thanks for having me on and I’m not a political pundit but I can tell you what’s pretty clear is that climate and the pandemic and the economy are going to be kind of the three major areas that the Biden administration feels it needs to address right away. You can see that by the picks that have been announced for the cabinet, you see that by kind of the rhetoric coming out from the -- what will soon be the new administration. So these are really critical areas and while you are correct, they’re -- no one who voted for Biden was voting based on a single thing. These are clearly areas that the people who did vote for him are very concerned about. I think another area is social justice, particularly the racial divide and black Americans treatment in this country and we aren't seeing so much of a focus on that in the conversations thus far and I know this is something that a lot of activists are going to be pushing for is that that aspect is not forgotten, that the base of black women and black voters who got Joe Biden into this position are not forgotten. And we know that Jim Clyburn, Representative Clyburn who’s already come out and said that he's a little disappointed that there aren't enough black people, particularly black women who have been named or whose names have been floated for cabinet positions yet and he’s hoping that there will be some change in that as we see more positions named. 
 
VELSHI: So when we look at the -- the priorities that this government has, whether its COVID or climate, what the administration -- the incoming administration is doing is they’re thinking about as an all of government solution. So they’re putting COVID people in every department. They’re putting climate people, you know, they're going to have a domestic climate czar who’s going to oversee every department's interaction with climate and climate change. It feels like that's what really has to happen with social justice. It’s not sort of one person or one job, it's the idea that everybody all over government has got to look at what the social inequities are and figure out how to address them across the government and the private sector. 

HANNAH-JONES: Absolutely and what many people don’t know is every federal agency -- every federal agency actually has a civil rights division. There is a civil rights division in the Department of the Treasury, there is a civil rights division in the department -- the Environmental Protection Agency, there's a civil rights division in HUD, there’s a civil rights division in the education department. The problem -- the transportation department. The problem is depending upon the administration, that civil right division is either disempowered or impowered. So of course what social justice advocates are hoping for is that you see those civil rights divisions really being impowered and -- and the reason that they were placed in all of these agencies is there is an understanding in that every aspect of our society we have inequality, racial inequality, gender inequality, and all of those government agencies have to be tasked with addressing them across the spectrum of American life because they impact Americans across all of the spectrums of American life. So the -- the mechanism is there. It’s just a matter of whether these agencies become again focused on actually enforcing civil rights positions and civil rights laws and actually taking those positions that social justice is key to the work that they do and -- and it clearly is. 

VELSHI: Nikole, good to see you as always, thank you for joining us. Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with The New York Times Magazine and the creator of the 1619 Project.