January 16, 2012: Republican Presidential Candidate Assails African-American Debate Moderator for Suggesting that Racially Divisive Comments May Offend African-Americans

Juan Williams (left) and Newt Gingrich during the Republican presidential debate. [Source: Texas GOP Vote]Fox News commentator Juan Williams, an African-American, takes umbrage with recent comments by presidential candidate Newt Gingrich (R-GA) that he says had unacceptably racial overtones. Williams, moderating a Republican presidential debate in South Carolina with Gingrich and other candidates for Fox News, asks: “Speaker Gingrich, you recently said black Americans should demand jobs, not food stamps (see November 30 - December 2, 2011 and January 5, 2012). You also said poor kids lack a strong work ethic and proposed having them work as janitors in their schools (see November 18, 2011 and After and December 1-2, 2011). Can’t you see that this is viewed, at a minimum, as insulting to all Americans, but particularly to black Americans?” Gingrich responds, “No, I don’t see that.” Gingrich reiterates his call for poor students to earn money by doing janitorial work around their schools, saying that they would earn money, “which is a good thing if you’re poor. Only the elites despise earning money.” Williams presses Gingrich, asking him if his comments, including his reference to Obama as a “food stamp president,” don’t belittle the poor and racial minorities: “My Twitter has been inundated with people of all races asking if your comments are not intended to belittle the poor,” he says. Gingrich retorts: “The fact is more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.… I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their Creator with the right to pursue happiness, and if that makes liberals unhappy, I’m going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job, and learn someday to own the job.” The debate audience, described by Think Progress’s Ian Millhiser as “largely white [and] Republican,” cheers Gingrich’s remarks and boos Williams. [Fox News, 1/16/2012; Mediaite, 1/16/2012; Think Progress, 1/17/2012] Williams later says that he believes Gingrich is “pandering” to conservative and presumably racist voters in the audience (see January 18, 2012). Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh will accuse Williams, not Gingrich, of appealing to racism in his question. “[T]his line of questioning was all racially tinted from Juan Williams,” Limbaugh will say. “Newt Gingrich did not take the bait and answer in a racial context. He answered within the context that we’re all people and that we, as conservatives, want the best for everybody.… [W]e are for everybody doing well, that we conservatives do not see black and white, male, female, gay, straight when we look at people down the line. We see potential. We want the best for everybody. We know what’s holding ‘em back, and that’s government, government central planners, people like Barack Obama, [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi, [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid, who look at people and see them with contempt and condescension, see them being incapable, and they treat them that way and they devise systems to deal with them that way, and they keep them forever dependent, which destroys their humanity, which makes us sick. It breaks our hearts.” [Rush Limbaugh, 1/17/2012] Limbaugh later claims that Williams would not have a job if not for “the white guy, conservative who runs Fox News.” [Media Matters, 1/31/2012] Millhiser reiterates the facts that “[t]he overwhelming majority of African-Americans are not on food stamps” and “the majority of [Americans] who receive food stamps are white.” He writes: “It’s deeply disturbing that a man who claims he should be president of the United States cannot understand why his remarks are offensive.… Gingrich’s suggestion that food stamps are somehow a preeminent black issue flies in the face of reality. Worse, it lumps all African-Americans together as federal aid recipients when the overwhelming majority of working-age black men and women are self-supporting taxpayers. Thousands of them are professionals such as doctors or lawyers. One of them is the president of the United States.” [Think Progress, 1/17/2012] Gingrich has a history of making racially questionable remarks and characterizations (see May 27, 2009, June 7, 2009, August 16, 2010, September 12, 2010 and After and December 13, 2011). His claim that Obama has presided over more Americans receiving food stamps than ever before is wrong (see January 17, 2012). And a recent study by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found SNAP to be an extraordinarily effective program in helping Americans survive the effects of the recession (see January 9, 2012).