'The View' Hosts Butt Heads With Condoleezza Rice Over Race Theory

Keeping in the tradition of shady guests, The View welcomed former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week and of no surprise to anyone, she said some interesting things about race. She made her stance clear on Critical Race Theory being taught in schools, it’s okay… only if it doesn’t make white kids “feel bad”.

Rice, 66 claims that she is in no way going against her own people, but she has to look at both sides of the coin. “I come out of an academic institution, and this is something that academics debate, ‘what is the role of race,’ and let me be very clear…I grew up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama. I couldn’t go to a movie theater or restaurant with my parents.”

The congresswoman also pointed out that she went to segregated schools until she moved to Denver. She maintains that, like her parents told her, race “was somebody else’s problem and you’re going to overcome it and be anything you want to be and that’s the message we ought to be sending to kids,” she quipped.

Rice shared with the women that overall, she believes that race is such a broad topic that white people now feel bad. “One of the worries that I have is the way we’re talking about race is that it either seems so big that somehow white people now have to feel guilty for everything that happened in the past.”

She maintains that it’s not helpful for anyone involved. “I don’t think that’s very productive or Black people feel disempowered by race.” Realizing how that sounds, she reworded her sentence. “I would like Black kids to be completely empowered – to know they are beautiful in their Blackness.”

Rice continued to shock some of the women on the panel for some time before wrapping up her thoughts. In order to each race in an effective way, “I don’t have to make white kids feel bad for being white. So, somehow this is a conversation that has gone in the wrong direction.”

The tension at the table was thick with Sunny Hostin visibly giving the politician the side eye on several occasions. At one point, even Joy Behar jumped in and pointed out that she was a teacher back in the day and essentially, we can’t let parents pick and choose what their kids are taught. There is a curriculum for a reason.

Goldberg jumped in to point out that no one goes into elementary schools to make kids feel bad by teaching facts. However, “you should know what happened and make sure it isn’t repeated,” and in case Rice was confused Goldberg pointed out that this goes for “both black and white kids and all the colors that be in school”

Hostin jumped in to share with Rice that it’s important that history doesn’t get hidden in the effort “to not hurt white kid’s feelings”. Rice pushed back to clarify her statement, “it goes back to how we teach the history we teach the good of history and we teach the bad of history but what we don’t do is make 7 and 10-year-olds feel that they are somehow bad people because of the color of their skin.”

As Goldberg was about to interject, she pointed out, “we’ve been through that and we don’t need to do that again.” Even though Rice was attempting to be neutral, viewers did not miss a beat when they jump on social media to drag her.

“So y’all really thought Condoleezza had changed huh? And the tap dance continues,” shared one disappointed viewer.

What do you think of Condoleezza’s statements?