Two of the most common talking points from Republican presidential candidates in recent years have been to deny the persistence of racism in the United States and to criticize President Barack Obama. Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and former ambassador to the United Nations, attempted to do both with a tweet sent out last week — and Black Twitter was having none of it.

Haley started a Twitter firestorm on Friday when she tweeted a message critical of Obama, who she claimed “set minorities back by singling them out as victims instead of empowering them.” After arguing that “in America, hard work & personal responsibility matter,” Haley then brought in her own parents to make her point. “My parents didn’t raise me to think that I would forever be a victim,” she claimed, stating that they instead “raised me to know that I was responsible for my success.”

 

If Haley thought her shot at Obama and her latest attempt to downplay American racism would go unchallenged, she was soon proven wrong.

“Then why are you passing as a white woman. You literally survived off the kindness of Black people,” retorted journalist Kathia Woods.

“Nimrata please” read another reply, using Haley’s first name — Haley has been accused of going by her middle name Nikki as a way of downplaying her Indian heritage.

Sherrilyn Ifill, a senior fellow with the Ford Foundation and the former president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, went in as well: ”I usually ignore her,” Ifill said of Haley. “But she’s starting to really get on my nerves.”

Several famous people replied to Ifill’s post. Actor Jeffrey Wright pointed out the irony of Haley’s stance given that “her father came to America on the back of progressive immigration policy reform and then taught, throughout his career, at an HBCU.”

Actor and Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton replied to Wright in uncharacteristically blunt fashion, saying of Haley, “She passin’ and ain’t studyin’ no dark skinned people.”

Actress Holly Robinson Peete, meanwhile, simply responded to Haley with a GIF of Zendaya giving a disgusted eyeroll.

Writer Michael Harriot posted a long thread on “the TRUE story of Nikki Haley.”

In a series of tweets, Harriot detailed the racist history of South Carolina, the changes in racist immigration laws that allowed Haley’s family to immigrate to the U.S., the history of Indian Americans attempting to be classified as “white” in the U.S., and Haley’s own reluctance to remove the Confederate flag during her time as governor until after the Emmanuel AME church shooting. Harriot also noted Haley’s tactic of using her middle name, Nikki, instead of her first name and contrasted it with the way in which Republicans used Obama’s middle name Hussein as a racist dog whistle.

Given that the Republican primary season is shaping up to be a crowded and strange competition, it is likely that Haley and other candidates will continue to hit their anti-Obama and racism-denying talking points. But given the reaction that Nikki Haley has seen over the past several days, perhaps they will think twice before questioning people’s experiences with racism in America or letting Obama’s name come out of their mouths.

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