Jill Stein Won’t Apologize for Running Mate’s ‘Uncle Tom’ Reference to Obama

Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein sat down Thursday with The Washington Post’s editorial board to discuss her platform, which the paper later labeled “poorly formed and wildly impractical.”

This is not the first time the Post’s editorial page editors have met with one of the 2016 presidential nominees—they sat down with Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson in July and Republican nominee Donald Trump in March. The Post has yet to sit down with Hillary Clinton, although the editorial page editors have condemned her use of a private email server.

The editors said that Johnson and running mate William Weld’s “refreshing honesty could not cover up the ticket’s defects and lapses.” Of Trump, the Post noted that his interview “provided no reassurance regarding Mr. Trump’s fitness for the presidency,” adding that “his answers left little doubt how radical a risk the nation would be taking in entrusting the White House to him.”

The paper’s editorial page editors have been highly critical of each candidate they’ve met with thus far, and the interviews with Trump, Johnson and Stein have provided material for multiple pieces. One of these follow-up reports, written by Post writer Jonathan Capehart, focused on a singular element in the discussion with Stein: her “foul language on race.”

In August, Stein’s running mate, Ajamu Baraka, shocked many when he labeled Barack Obama an “Uncle Tom president,” a declaration he later defended during CNN’s Green Party town hall:

Ajamu Bakara called Barack Obama: an “Uncle Tom” poor #JillStein you made a mistake with this guy! #GreenTownHall pic.twitter.com/F3IAQYuw2R

— Sandra (@SandyWarf) August 18, 2016

Stein, some viewers argued, “danc[ed] around” the “Uncle Tom” label. “I understand Ajamu’s passion, his frustration and his struggle,” she says in the video above. “I think we have all been guilty of using some language that doesn’t play well as a sound bite.” This is not the first time Baraka has been the subject of controversy—some critics have noted that he has ties to conspiracy theorists and false-flag ideologists.

During Stein’s meeting with the editorial board, she discussed Baraka’s comment, and Capehart analyzed specific segments of the conversation for his opinion piece. He first references an exchange between Stein and Jo-Ann Armao, the Post’s associate editorial page editor. Armao notes that Stein “seemed to be making a distinction” between herself and Baraka after his controversial comments. Stein responds:

[W]hen I say “that’s him,” I refer to the provocative language that he uses, but his ideas, and his vision are not different from mine. He is unapologetically a member of an oppressed group, and he speaks in the language of his culture. And I think he speaks to a demographic that feels pretty locked out of the American power structure. And I think it’s extremely valuable for us to be able to have a conversation in more than one dialect. … [Baraka] speaks to a very disenfranchised demographic that does not feel like they’re being served by the power structure, and they’re angry about it. I mean, I think he is disappointed in Barack Obama …

Capehart then joins the conversation, asking if Baraka’s comments were “an appropriate way to talk about the [p]resident of the United States.” Stein responds, “I would never do that.”

Eventually Fred Ryan, a Post publisher, asks Stein if Baraka should apologize. “I’m going to leave that up to him,” she says.

Capehart, who is African-American, analyzes aspects of the conversation that “were among the most offensive” to him, writing that “[n]ot one word of what Baraka says speaks to me or for me.” He continues:

Stein’s excuse-making for Baraka’s “very blunt and inflammatory language” makes her no better than Trump. As is her unwillingness to not ask Baraka to apologize to the president. That is no way to talk about any African American, especially the president of the United States.

You know I don’t put up with anyone calling an African American an “Uncle Tom.” I have defended Obama against this charge, and I have defended black conservatives, including Justice Clarence Thomas, as well. Blacks use it against other blacks viewed as insufficiently black. And too many far-left whites excuse it as some “dialect” or “language of his culture.” They are the worst.

Surprisingly, this isn’t the first time a Green Party politician has come under fire for using the phrase “Uncle Tom” to describe Obama. In a 2008 radio interview, former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader questioned whether Obama was “going to be Uncle Sam for the people of this country or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations.”

Stein and Baraka have recently focused on lengthening the distance between themselves and the mainstream Democratic Party. “One can argue Barack Obama is in many ways more aggressive than George W. Bush,” Baraka said in a recent radio interview. The two also continue to push for an open presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump and Johnson.

—Posted by Emma Niles

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