Former Republican presidential candidate and serial adulterer Herman Cain rebuked Chris Rock for “holding onto the past” because the comedian called the Fourth of July “white people’s Independence Day.”
Rock drew the ire of conservatives on Twitter on Wednesday when he tweeted, “Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren’t free but I’m sure they enjoyed fireworks.”
On Monday, Cain told CNN’s Kyra Phillips that he had faced discrimination while growing up, but suggested that slavery could not have been ended until after the U.S. declared its independence.
“[Your family] never really grasped the discrimination thing, did you?” Phillips noted. “And you never embraced ‘African American,’ that term.”
“No,” Cain replied. “I believe that one of America’s greatest strengths is its ability to change. I’m not holding on to the past. I don’t want to forget the past, whether you go all the way back to slavery — even for a Fourth of July celebration.”
“I think it was Chris Rock who made fun of the fact, ‘Well, it might be Independence Day, but the slaves weren’t free then.’ Look at it this way, if America had not become independent, slaves might still be slaves.”
(Source: CNN and Rawstory.com)
