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The One Story: HBCUs And The Gatekeeping Of Black Culture
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Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is letting all Mississippi voters know she is a proud racist, whether she knows it or not. The 59-year-old said she would go to a public hanging and be in the “front row.” Now, a video recorded before the midterm elections has surfaced showing her saying she wants to suppress “liberal folks in those other schools,” which many on social media took as a reference to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

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In the video, which went viral after being widely circulated beginning Wednesday night, Hyde-Smith said on Nov. 2 in Columbus, Mississippi: “And then they remind me, that there’s a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who that maybe we don’t want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that’s a great idea.”

We are sure she believes that even more now that she was facing Mike Espy, a Black Democrat, in a Nov. 27 runoff. However, her campaign responded and claimed she was “obviously” joking. If Espy wins the election, he will become Mississippi’s first African-American senator since Reconstruction.

Twitter was reading between Hyde-Smith’s coded lines and pointing out what she probably meant when she said “liberal” schools. See the responses below.

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