The View co-host Sunny Hostin defended New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay after Gay received backlash for saying it “disturbed” her to see “dozens of American flags” on Long Island.
“I’m so surprised, actually, that she is receiving this kind of backlash,” Hostin said. “When someone of color, a black woman, is telling you her feelings, people need to listen and not repudiate it, not say, ‘Well, that can’t be true.’”
.@sunny defends @MaraGay after she said it “disturbed” her to see “dozens of American flags” on Long Island.
“When someone of color, a black woman, is telling you her feelings, people need to listen and not repudiate it.”
MORE: https://t.co/GKgHnXPtIz pic.twitter.com/BRlNMWQZTl
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) June 9, 2021
The comments come after Gay said during an MSNBC interview Tuesday that seeing American flags and pro-Trump flags was disturbing for her.
“I was on Long Island this weekend visiting a really dear friend, and I was really disturbed. I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with explicatives against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags, and, in some cases, just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing, … Essentially, the message was clear. … ‘This is my country. This is not your country. I own this,'” Gay said.
Hostin said some of the blame for Gay feeling that way falls on former President Donald Trump, who she claimed is responsible for making the American flag a political symbol.
“You have, in many respects, former disgraced, twice impeached, one-term president to thank for politicizing the American flag,” Hostin said. “Remember that on Jan. 6, just a few months ago, you had the Capitol rioters tearing down the flag and replacing it with the Trump flag. You had them waving the American flag and then beating police officers with that flag. That’s what was going on just on Jan. 6.”
“I remember very well that there was a Confederate flag being tossed around … in the United States Capitol,” Hostin continued. “I also remember very well recently when I was with my children in North Carolina in the Outer Banks with people in pickup trucks with Confederate flags flying alongside the U.S. flag. And that scared me.”
The co-host then admitted she too feels uncomfortable in areas where the American flag is on prominent display, most specifically when she sees the flag flown next to Trump flags or the Betsy Ross flag.
“And the same message was there: ‘You don’t belong here. We belong here.’ And I was afraid of that,” Hostin continued. “So yes, when I drive into a neighborhood and it’s not July 4 and I’m not in a predominantly military household neighborhood and there are flags, American flags everywhere, alongside Trump flags, alongside flags with stars in a circle, I feel threatened. Because the message is very clear. It’s a message of white supremacy. It’s a message of racism. And it’s a message of their country, not my country.”
Hostin then circled back to Gay, reiterating that “people need to listen” when a woman of color is expressing her feelings.
“I don’t understand why that would receive backlash,” Hostin said. “People need to listen when I am saying this is how I feel. This is my experience in this country.”
Gay was also defended by her colleagues on the New York Times editorial board, who accused Gay’s critics of taking her remarks out of context.
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“New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay’s comments on MSNBC have been irresponsibly taken out of context. Her argument was that Trump and many of his supporters have politicized the American flag. The attacks on her today are ill-informed and grounded in bad-faith,” the New York Times’s Twitter account for its communications team said Tuesday.
