Eddie Glaude Jr: Mike Pence’s RNC Speech Was Appealing to White Fear

Princeton Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. saw Vice President Mike Pence’s speech at the Republican National Convention as an obvious appeal to white resentment. Glaude told MSNBC’s Morning Joe that Pence was using white voters’ fears to help President Donald Trump’s reelection bid.

” I want to ask you about the violence [in Wisconsin], but also when you think of the words of Jacob Blake’s mother, you — I feel like this is what we’re lacking in the leader of the free world, because somebody has to restore calm and there has to be a sense of hierarchy and leadership that we can trust and we’re not getting it. Might it even be being stirred up?” MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski asked.

“Well, definitely,” Glaude said. “When we hear calls for law and order in the way we heard last night, without mentioning Jacob Blake, didn’t even cross Vice President Pence’s lips.”

“We know what he’s doing, he’s appealing to white fear, white resentment, white grievance and the like, trying to mobilize those fears for his own political gain, for Trump’s political gain.”

“Let’s step back. Of course it’s the case that we don’t want people looting and and we don’t want people burning down businesses. We understand that. But what does it mean we turn there first? Let’s turn to what is precipitating this, Mika. Why do we have to continue to ask the question about violence when we’re not asking the question about what precipitates it. Why are we concerned that we’re playing into the hands of Donald Trump in this instance, when we should be asking the more fundamental question, why are police doing this?”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.