Radio host Charlamagne tha God pressed Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley on her remarks regarding racism in America.
Haley appeared on a Wednesday broadcast of Charlamagne's radio show The Breakfast Club.
“When you look at the inequalities in America, in education, you know, homeownership, employment and wealth, health care,” Charlamagne said the former South Carolina governor during an appearance. “Can you admit that America is, systemically and structurally, a racist country?”
“I think culture has a lot to do with it, right?” Haley responded. “But it’s more of — if you look at that, how do you fix it, right?”
Charlamagne referenced the Three-Fifths compromise, which was ratified during the 1787 Constitutional Convention and declared three-fifths of a state's enslaved population could count toward the state's overall voting population. Haley noted the Three-Fifths compromise had been repealed in 1868 and said there were "more rights that we have to do."
WATCH:
The radio host referenced Haley's previous remarks about racism in America and asked if she believed the country was "systemically and structurally" racist.
“I don’t think America’s racist, I think we have racism in America,” Haley answered.
Haley has previously expressed her opinion on racism in America, though notably claimed America had "never been a racist country" during a January appearance on Fox News.
“We’re not a racist country. We’ve never been a racist country,” she said. “Our goal is to make sure that today is better than yesterday. Are we perfect? No, but our goal is to always make sure we try and be more perfect every day that we can.”
Although she said she didn't believe the country was intrinsically racist, the Republican presidential candidate conceded she had experienced prejudice because of her Indian American heritage.
“I was a brown girl that grew up in a small rural town,” Haley said during a town hall with CNN earlier this month. “We had plenty of racism that we had to deal with.”
“But my parents never said we lived in a racist country, and I’m so thankful they didn’t,” she continued. “Because for every brown and black child out there, if you tell them they live or were born in a racist country, you’re immediately telling them they don’t have a chance.”
Haley clarified, “We have too many people with this national self-loathing.”
“It is killing our country,” she continued. “We have got to go back to loving America.”
