Cicilline Defends Whitehouse - BLM RI PAC Head Fires Back
Wednesday, June 23, 2021
Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI) on Tuesday defended Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) — and a top Rhode Island Black Lives Matter (BLM) leader is firing back.
After Whitehouse came under fire from BLM leaders in the state for his ties to the historically white Bailey’s beach club in Newport, Cicilline Tweeted the following:
“Sheldon Whitehouse has been a fighter for racial and economic justice his whole life. Full stop,” Cicilline Tweeted.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTBLM RI PAC Director Harrison Tuttle — who had already called out Whitehouse earlier in the day — doubled down.
“If this is true, then why isn’t Sen. Whitehouse practicing in private what he preaches in public? Public rhetoric is one thing, but doing the right thing when no one is watching is the real measure of commitment to your values,” said Tuttle.
In a follow-up statement to GoLocal, Tuttle said, "Private clubs and organizations like Bailey’s Beach Club have long been a tool of wealthy white people to maintain their power. The members of these clubs get special access to a U.S. Senator by virtue of their wealth, while the average Rhode Islander has to wait in lines, attend town hall meetings, or send emails, after any of which they may never really be heard."
"Sen. Whitehouse has the power to make change just by using his platform, but has chosen instead to be passive, pretending as though he has no power to change anything. Senator: if you don’t have the courage to either improve or leave a beach club, why should we trust you with the responsibility of bettering the lives of Rhode Islanders?" said Tuttle..
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National and international media have covered the story since GoLocalProv caught up with Whitehouse on Friday,
When asked if the private club had admitted any minorities since GoLocal first raised the issue in 2017, Whitehouse said, ‘I think the people who are running the place are still working on that and I’m sorry it hasn't happened yet.”
On Monday, Newsweek’s Skylar Baker-Jordan wrote, “The Democrats Have an Elitism Problem. Sheldon Whitehouse is the Latest Example,” writing the following:
"We can and must do better to root out systemic racism in its many forms and meet America's full promise of justice for all," the Senator said in a press release last year.
The hypocrisy is enraging. But I for one am not surprised by it. Because this episode exposed something much deeper than Whitehouse's own hypocrisy. It exposed a class bias the Democratic Party has more generally, one that's all too often to be found lurking just behind platitudes about equality and justice.
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