Commentator Wajahat Ali referred to Nikki Haley as “the perfect Manchurian candidate for White nationalists and bigots.”
In a racially contentious discussion on MSNBC on Sunday night, presidential candidate Nikki Haley was accused of using “her Brown skin to launder White supremacist talking lines.”
As one Daily Beast contributor put it to MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan, “I watch [Haley] and I feel sorry because she exploits her Brown complexion as a weapon against poor Black individuals and poor Brown-Black folks.”
By her skin color, “[s]he cleans the language of White supremacists,” Ali said.
Ali didn’t only criticize Haley and other Indian Americans on MSNBC.
In a swipe at conservative director D’Souza and talk show personality Candace Owens, Ali said, “Nikki Haley is the Dinesh D’Souza of Candace Owens.” D’Souza is also an Indian American.
Ali also remarked on Haley’s age, calling her an “alpha Karen with Brown skin.” Haley is the former governor of South Carolina.
The term “Karen” has become a common Internet slur to describe middle-aged White women of privilege.
Manchurian candidate par excellence for White nationalists and bigots, Ali claimed.
The leftist commentator went into detail on how white nationalists are supposedly using Asian Americans for their political gain.
Ali, speaking for the whole Asian American community in the United States, said that they were trained to put the boot down on the necks of impoverished Browns, immigrants, refugees, and Black people rather than being helped up by their bootstraps and helping others up by theirs.
Ali, however, insisted that Haley’s “Brown complexion” meant that the rest of America would never embrace her.
“Nikki! It’s hopeless; they’ll never adore you. Don’t waste your time or energy on it.”
That was a message he also directed at people of color, whom he said would never be welcomed in America.
“They will never love you. They lack subtlety. A bigot doesn’t give a damn about anything. No one will pick you out of a lineup of us and say, “Oh, you’re the legal one, you’re good.”
Ali directed the bulk of his criticism at Haley, who in 2017 became the first Indian American to serve in the Trump administration as the United States ambassador to the United Nations.
Instead of praising her, Ali said, “I am appalled by individuals like Nikki Haley who know better, whose parents were the beneficiaries of the 1965 Immigration Nationality Act.”
Ali insisted again and over again that Haley was not the same as any other Indian American.
According to Ali, “not all kinfolk, are kinfolk,” a phrase from author Zora Neale Hurston.