Former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has earned herself a reputation for saying the wrong thing. After just telling immigrants to learn to “speak American,” Sarah Palin made yet another gaffe this week by calling Black Lives Matter protesters “dogs.”
According to Raw Story , Sarah Palin gave a speech at an anti-Iran protest at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday and used the opportunity to address the Black Lives Matter protests, which started as a result of several police officers killing unarmed black citizens .
“Since our president won’t say it,” said Sarah Palin, “since he still hasn’t called off the dogs, we’ll say it: Police officers and first-responders all across this great land, we got your back! We salute you! Thank you, police officers!”
Sarah Palin was attempting to show support for United States police officers who have been criticized lately for abusing their power; but her word choice has caused a backlash throughout the country.
Many Twitter users lashed out against Sarah Palin, criticizing her for dehumanizing Black Lives Matter protesters. While “calling off the dogs” is a common expression, many are upset that Palin would use it to refer to black Americans who are demanding equal treatment by law enforcement officials.
Sarah Palin literally just called #BlackLivesMatters “dogs” at the #StopIranDeal rally. Let that sink in post-racial America.
— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) September 9, 2015
Palin is here and she said since “Obama won’t call off the dogs”, we support police. These people aren’t even hiding the racism anymore huh
— Travis Hughes (@TravisSBN) September 9, 2015
The dehumanization of our movement is fully underway. Now we are animals. https://t.co/04egC6V9Ie
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) September 9, 2015
Black Lives Matter can’t be “dogs,” Palin. White America loves and protects dogs. — Stereo Williams (@stereowilliams) September 9, 2015
In addition to calling Black Lives Matters activists dogs, Sarah Palin also accused President Barack Obama of being solely responsible for the unruly protests happening across the nation. Though police officers have done their best to keep the protests under control, Sarah Palin put the charge on the president to somehow use his executive authority to stop the Black Lives Matter protests all at once.
You can see Sarah Palin’s full controversial speech in the video below.
According to the Washington Post , something Sarah Palin said in the speech prompted an African-American man in the audience to begin arguing with police officers, resulting in him being forcibly removed from the event.
Do you think Sarah Palin meant to call Black Lives Matter activists “dogs”? Or was it simply an unfortunate figure of speech?
[Image credit: Scott Olson / Chip Somodevilla /Getty Images]
