The CNN camerawoman assaulted by peanuts and called an “animal” at the Republican National Convention said yesterday that she’s “not surprised.”
Patricia Carroll gave an interview with the Maynard Institute’s Richard Prince for his “Journal-isms” column.
“I hate that it happened, but I’m not surprised at all,” said Carroll, who was reluctant to give her name because she did not want her situation to be used by either side for political advantage.
“This situation could happen to me at the Democratic convention or standing on the street corner. Racism is a global issue,” she told Prince by telephone from Tampa.
A friend of Carroll’s told Journal-isms that when she was pelted by the peanuts, she asked, “What are you doing? Are you out of your damned mind?”
Jamila Bey, her friend, said one of two “older-than-middle-aged white men” responded by saying, “Here’s some more peanuts. This is what we feed animals.”
Carroll said no one took the names of the attendees who threw the peanuts at her on Tuesday.
As a native of Alabama, Carroll, 34, said she was not surprised. “This is Florida, and I’m from the Deep South,” she said. “You come to places like this, you can count the black people on your hand. They see us doing things they don’t think I should do.”
“There are not that many black women there,” Carroll said of the Republican convention.
She said CNN “has been behind me 100 percent.”
“I can’t change these people’s hearts and minds,” Carroll said. “No, it doesn’t feel good. But I know who I am. I’m a proud black woman. A lot of black people are upset. This should be a wake-up call to black people. . . . People were living in euphoria for a while. People think we’re gone further than we have.”
“I was hoping this story would go away,” she said. “I’m not interested in talking to any other media about this.”
