Politics
WATCH: MSNBC Reporter Melts Down Over Trump’s Latest Move, Cries Racism
MSNBC’s Yamiche Alcindor had an on-air meltdown Monday, accusing the Trump administration of racism after the president granted refugee status to a group of white South Africans fleeing violent persecution. Alcindor, speaking with MSNBC host Katie Phang, appeared flustered as she attempted to spin the decision as racially motivated.
“They’re saying that essentially these white South Africans assimilate better and they’re also not as much of a security risk,” she said. “That’s really causing a lot of people to be appalled, frankly.” She insisted that violence in South Africa affects “every single race,” while ignoring the growing body of evidence showing disproportionate attacks on white farmers in rural areas.
Alcindor added, “I also should tell people that this violence that they’re talking about, that they’re dealing with — these Afrikaners — I’ve been hearing from people that say there is violence in South Africa, but it’s affecting everybody of every single race.”
WATCH:
Earlier on Monday, the president was asked during a press conference why his administration would prioritize white Afrikaner refugees from South Africa over asylum-seekers from war-torn African nations. Trump didn’t flinch.
“Because they’re being killed, and we don’t want to see people be killed,” he replied. “Now, South Africa leadership is coming to see me, I understand, sometime next week. I don’t know how we can go unless that situation’s taken care of.”
He went further, describing the violence against white farmers as “a genocide.” “It’s a genocide that’s taking place that you people don’t want to write about,” Trump told reporters. “And farmers are being killed. They happen to be white.”
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Trump also blasted media double standards: “If it were the other way around, they’d talk about it. That would be the only story they’d talk about.”
The controversy comes as the first group of white South Africans—mostly Afrikaners—arrived at Dulles International Airport on Sunday under a new refugee resettlement initiative Trump signed in February. The executive order fast-tracks asylum for Afrikaners, citing “race-based persecution” from South Africa’s government, and prioritizes their claims above other refugee applicants.
Civil rights group AfriForum has documented hundreds of farm attacks over the past decade, many involving torture, rape, and murder. Most of the victims have been white landowners. Arrests are rare, and critics say the South African government’s failure to act—paired with incendiary rhetoric—has fueled the violence.
“I want you all to know that you are really welcome here and that we respect what you have had to deal with these last few years,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said to the refugees.
Afrikaners are a South African ethnic group descended primarily from Dutch settlers who arrived in the 1600s, along with later immigrants from Germany and France. Their native language is Afrikaans, which evolved from Dutch. Afrikaners are predominantly white and historically associated with farming and conservative values.
