Co-host Sunny Hostin accused author and podcast host Coleman Hughes of being "used as a pawn by the right" during "The View" on Wednesday while discussing his new book and argument for "colorblindness" in the U.S.
Hughes, the author of "The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America," joined the co-hosts of "The View" to discuss the book, which he said argues that everyone should try their very best to "treat people without regard to race."
"Your argument for colorblindness, I think it’s something that the right has co-opted, and so many in the Black community, if I’m being honest with you, because I want to be, believed that you are being used as a pawn by the right and that you are charlatan of sorts," Hostin said.
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin interrupted and said Hughes was not a Republican, as Hostin said Hughes claimed to be a conservative on a podcast, which he denied. The liberal co-host asked Hughes to respond to the critics.
Hughs told the hosts he's never voted Republican and said he's an Independent.
"I don’t think I’ve been co-opted by anyone. I’ve only voted twice — both for Democrats. I’m an independent," Coleman said. "I would vote for a Republican — probably a non-Trump Republican if they were compelling. I don’t think there’s any evidence I’ve been co-opted by anyone and I think that’s an ad-hominem tactic people use to not address, really, the important conversations we’re having here."
Hughes writes for The Free Press and is an analyst on CNN. He told Hostin, "No one is paying me to say what I'm saying."
"The reason I wrote this book is because, in the past 10 years, it has become to, in the name of anti-racism, teach a kind of philosophy to our children, in general, that says your race is everything," he said at the beginning of the segment. "And I think that is the wrong way to fight racism and that's why I wrote this book at this time."
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Hostin told him his argument, that class socio-economics was a better proxy in determining who is at a disadvantage, was flawed.
"When you say that socio-economics picks out people in a better way than race, when you do look at the socio-economics, you see the huge disparity between White households and Black households. You see the huge disparity between White households and Hispanic households," Hostin said. "I’ve read your book twice, because I wanted to give it a chance. Your argument that race has no place in that equation is really fundamentally flawed."
Hughes quoted Martin Luther King Jr., and said he also argued for a class-based socio-economic approach to addressing racism.
Hostin pushed back and argued that King pushed for racial equality and reparations for the Black community.
