Bill Clinton Seems to Think "We Are All Mixed-Race People"

Bill Clinton thinks "we are all mixed-race people."

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Bill Clinton has been paying his dues and making rounds campaigning for his wife Hillary. Considering how popular of a president he was, this should be all fine and good. Unfortunately, Clinton said some not-so-smart things at an even in Memphis this past Friday. 

Making a joke, Clinton first started out by saying he's a "stand-in for the first black president." He's referencing Toni Morrison, who spoke about the former president back in 1998. "White skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President," she wrote in The New Yorker. "Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime." 

Nevertheless, it's possible that Clinton had misunderstood Morrison's comment. Last year writer Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an essay in The Atlantic breaking down Morrison's words and showing how it was less of a compliment to Clinton, and more of a comparison—seeing that he came from a unprivileged background and "became the focus of persecution" during his presidency. 

In his speech above, however, Clinton's tone makes it seem like he took the words differently. He even went so far as to say, "Unless your ancestors, every one of you, are 100 percent, 100 percent from sub-Saharan Africa, we are all mixed-race people." 

It's a comment that's certainly going to get crap from people. We wonder if Hillary will have anything to say.

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