A newly re-elected state lawmaker in Tennessee issued a partial apology this week after calling her state racist and the majority of Republican voters there "uneducated."
Democrat London Lamar, who prevailed in last week's midterm elections, made the original comments in a Facebook video that has since been taken down.
"Tennessee's racist. Period. Period. Like, Tennessee is racist," she said, according to WREG. "Most of the Tennesseans who voted Republican are uneducated."
Later in the video, Lamar said, "White men voted Republican over, well over 60 or 70 percent, so obviously that's a particular base of people who believe in superiority."
WREG spoke with Lamar on Monday and tried to extend her a lifeline after her controversial and polarizing comments.
"We want to make sure we don't over-generalize groups of people. For that, we sincerely apologize," Lamar said.
"What we have seen is that many of the folks who voted Republican based their judgement on racially charged rhetoric that was coming down from the White House."
When asked directly if she thought Tennessee was racist, Lamar danced around the question.
"I think Tennessee is very polarized, and I think that we need to continue to have conversations about how Tennessee can work on behalf of everybody," she said, adding Tennessee is "a very racially polarized state."
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