Sunny Hostin is confused by people who are upset about her feeling “unsafe” around too many American flags.
She doubled down on her comments on the Monday episode of the Behind the Table podcast, not only standing by them but then going a step further by seemingly comparing the Stars and Stripes to the Confederate Flag.
Watch:
(Video Credit: Behind the Table)
“There are times when I walk into a community, and I see American flags all over the community, and I suddenly feel unsafe because there is a second of this country that has co-opted the American flag, and they equate being an American, or an American flag, with white supremacy. And that should never be the symbol of white supremacy,” she said in the clip.
“I stand by that,” she told Podcast host and “The View” Executive Producer Brian Teta.
“It’s something you’ve said and been very consistent about, and I’ve heard it from other people of color, for sure,” he responded.
“I was going to say what’s interesting is that this is not a new conversation amongst the black community, in the black community. It’s something that we talk about, you know,” Hostin said. “There was a point, and I think I talked about it on the show, I was visiting friends in North Carolina, in Outer Banks. They rented a house there, and they had been there many times, a white couple, and on the beach, it’s a beach that you can drive cars on. I was walking with the kids; they were pretty young, and there was a Confederate flag. And I was nervous. I’m in the South, I’ve got these two kids with me, I look the way that I look, and I’m walking past a Confederate flag with a group of dudes in a pickup truck.”
It’s unclear what this anecdote has to do with her fear of the American flag, or how she came to associate the nation’s symbol with white supremacy, and Teta never pressed her on the matter.
“I scurried back to the house, and I said to the host, ‘Do you know that there’s a Confederate Flag out there?’ It didn’t feel great. And they had seen the flag for years, but it didn’t have the same effect on them as it would have on me. And they said they were sorry. It’s not their fault,” she continued. “But they didn’t realize that I would get a reaction from that.”
She goes on to say that she doesn’t feel “uncomfortable” when the flags are used to honor military people, but “when you go into a community that’s not a military community, it’s not a military base, but it is a community with flags everywhere, unfortunately, at this point in our country, the American flag has been co-opted by the the the far right patriot, they call themselves patriots. People that storm the Capitol with Confederate flags and American flags. And now they’ve weaponized the American flag.”
“That is something that is happening in this country. And to deny that is ridiculous.”
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Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to write. Marlee also contributes to BizPac Review.
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