Black camerawoman victim of racist attack at Republican National Convention

Published on 31/08/2012 14:10

A BLACK camerawoman who works for American channel CNN has revealed she was the victim of a racial attack at the Republican National Convention in Florida.

Two people at the event hurled peanuts at her and said: “This is what we feed animals.”

They were immediately removed from the arena by security officials on Tuesday, and their identities were not revealed.

The camerawoman, Patricia Carroll, was not able to tell definitively where they were from.

“This is Florida and I’m from the deep South,” Alabama native Ms Carroll, 34, told Maynard Institute blogger Richard Prince.

“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.”

She said racism was a global issue and the incident could have happened on a street corner or at the Democratic convention, being held next week in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign said yesterday that it has apologised to CNN for what happened.

“We find it absolutely deplorable. We condemn it in the highest possible way,” said Russ Schriefer, strategist for the Romney campaign. “That behaviour is just reprehensible.”

CNN said Ms Carroll was not interested in addressing the issue any further. She told Mr Prince that she was hoping the story would go away.

“I can’t change these people’s hearts and minds,” she 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’ve gone further than we have.”