In an interview with a South Carolina radio program on Martin Luther King , Jr. Day this year, Mike Huckabee blamed President Obama and then-Attorney General Eric Holder for making things “much worse for race relations” by making “everything about race” rather than declaring racial inequality to be over.
Pastor Kevin Boling, interviewing Huckabee on his “Knowing the Truth” radio program, asked the former Arkansas governor and potential GOP presidential candidate if the country is “more united today after six years of the first African American being in the White House” or if “the president missed a golden opportunity to unite the country.”
“I think, sadly, the president has not only missed the opportunity,” Huckabee responded, “but between the president and Eric Holder, the attorney general, I think it actually made things much worse for race relations.”
“Because when a person is elected to the presidency, it’s kind of hard to say that ‘gee, there’s a glass ceiling for people of color,’” he continued. “I just think it sort of takes that argument away. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t still some racists here and there, or that it’s a view that a lot of people may have. But you can’t say that a person of color can’t make it anymore, because when you’re president, you’ve kind of made it. And when you’re attorney general, you’ve sort of made it.
“But instead of saying, ‘Look, let’s celebrate how far we’ve come, let’s now realize that we can focus on individual achievement and opportunity,’ instead both the president and the attorney general have made everything about race, and as a result, I think it’s taken us many, many steps backward rather than forward.”
