Fox News host says black presidential candidate Cory Booker can't discuss racism because he is 'privileged'

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has launched an attack on Democrat presidential candidate Cory Booker for having a so-called 'privileged upbringing'.

Booker, who announced his intentions to run for president earlier this month, has begun to open the discussion on institutional racism within the United States.

The 49-year-old senator from New Jersey has personally opened up about his experiences with racism and how his parents struggled against housing discrimination in the 1960s.

He's now hoping to have more 'honest conversations' about race in the US and it's a topic that will allow him to connect with people. A former aide to Barack Obama told The Hill.

It is an issue he can own like few others. It is something he has talked about and has focused on since he was mayor and it might be the issue he is most authentic about when listening to him.

However, Carlson doesn't believe this to be true as in his eyes. He says Booker can't have experienced any racism in his life due to the schools he has studied at and the jobs his parents once held.

In a monologue on Tucker Carlson Tonight, the 49-year-old conservative spoke about 'identity politics' and how it is being used to 'prevent conversations that are dangerous to the ruling class'.

It's also a way for some of the most privileged people in America to recast themselves as victims Cory Booker for example. Cory Booker went to Stamford, Oxford and Yale.

His parents were IBM executives. Booker has spent most of his career in the Senate carrying water for his fellow privileged people; his peers on Wall Street.

Privileged? Yeah, Cory Booker defines that word.

Now that he's running for president it will be interesting to hear Cory Booker explain why he has allowed his friends in the finance world to continue to pay half of the tax rate that you are probably paying now.

He likely doesn't want to talk about that. Instead, he will probably spend most of his time talking about racism, the racism he has personally experienced as a powerless person. 

A powerless person who went to Stamford, Oxford and Yale and who's parents were IBM executives. So you can see what's going on here. This is a scam.

Carlson then went on to reference the Empire actor Jussie Smollett who has been accused of staging the homophobic and racist assault that he experienced in Chicago earlier this year.

The Fox News presenters assessment of Booker's own experiences of racism is somewhat flawed, as he is basically saying that because he is an upper-class and educated black man, he wouldn't have any personal accounts of racism.

Twitter has been quick to admonish Carlson for his comments, by pointing out how incredibly misguided they are.

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