Former blackface-wearing comedian Joy Behar said Sen. Tim Scott and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas don’t get what being Black means in America.
The left-wing co-host of “The View” mentioned the two men’s ignorance about being Black in responding to an interview Mr. Scott gave with NBC’s Tom Llamas the day he announced his candidacy for the president, in which Scott said “what people really want is an optimistic positive conservative.”
Ms. Behar, and not for the first time, dismissed Mr. Scott as ignorant, calling him “one of these guys who, you know, he’s like Clarence Thomas.”
He is a “Black Republican who believes in pulling yourself by your bootstraps, rather than, to me, understanding the systemic racism that African Americans face in this country, and other minorities. He doesn’t get it. Neither does Clarence. And that’s why they’re Republicans,” Ms. Behar said, according to an account at the Blaze.
The imputation of ignorance on two Black men won her applause and laughter from the show’s live audience.
Ms. Behar is a White woman whose experience of blackness in America included dressing up in blackface for Halloween.
In a 2016 episode of “The View,” Ms. Behar herself showed the photo onscreen, according to an account on the fact-checking site Snopes that rated the claim “True.”
“It was a Halloween party. I went as a beautiful African woman,” she said.
Co-host Raven-Symone, who is Black, seemed taken aback and asked Ms. Behar, “did you have tanning lotion on, Joy?”
Ms. Behar’s reply was that she “put on a light bit of makeup that was a little darker than my skin. But that’s my actual hair though.”
“The View” co-host has previously called Mr. Scott ignorant on race matters.
Two years ago, when Mr. Scott gave the Republican response to President Biden’s address to Congress, Ms. Behar went ballistic over his claim that America is not a racist country.
“A lot of them,” she said, referring to Black Republicans, “don’t seem to understand the difference between a racist country and systemic racism.”
