Despite her family coming from slaveholders, “The View” host Sunny Hostin declared “I still believe in reparations!”
On Thursday’s episode of the ABC daytime talk show, Hostin addressed her recent appearance on the PBS documentary show “Finding Your Roots.” The show’s host Henry Louis Gates Jr. revealed to Hostin that one of her ancestors on her maternal side was likely involved in the slave trade in colonial Spain and “owned at least one human being.”
Though she acknowledged the news with the panel, she insisted that she still “deserved” reparations.
“I still believe in reparations, by the way. So, y’all can stop texting me and emailing me and saying that I’m a White girl and I don’t deserve reparations!” Hostin said.
“View” host Sunny Hostin shut down people criticizing her for still supporting reparations despite her ancestry. (ABC)
She added, “I still believe in reparations. I still believe this country has a lot to do in terms of racial justice.”
Despite initially feeling “deeply disappointed” at the revelations, Hostin remarked that she now feels “enriched” knowing her family’s history.
“I’m enriched by knowing that my family has come so far from being enslavers to my mother marrying my father in 1968,” Hostin said.
“You’re not responsible for what they did,” Behar responded.
During the show, Hostin also described her mother’s reaction.
Sunny Hostin was disappointed to learn her family descended from slaveholders. (PBS/Screenshot)
“She was deeply disappointed. She actually cried about it. And then she said maybe that’s why I have been so connected to Black culture because it’s an atonement in my spirit. And I received that. I also found out – and there were slaves on both sides of our family, mother’s and father’s. But we are seven percent indigenous Puerto Rican!” Hostin said.
She added that her mother “really identified as Puerto Rican” prior to the news, but now Hostin argues the findings proved she was “White.”
“It’s deeply disappointing because my mother really identified as Puerto Rican. She was part of the civil rights movement, and she was deeply ingrained in Black culture, and identified herself as Black race, but Hispanic for ethnicity… but her race is White. She’s European. I know,” she said.
Fellow “The View” co-host Joy Behar defended Hostin, noting she is “not responsible” for what her ancestors did. (Screenshot/ABC/TheView)
“It’s weird because when you look at her, my mother is blond, and she has light eyes and my whole family looks like that. So, I think inside I sort of knew this was my history and that’s probably why I didn’t want to do it,” Hostin said.
Hostin also discovered that her third great-grandfather registered to vote in Georgia back in 1867 despite being born into slavery in 1835.
