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The View co-host Sunny Hostin is on the receiving end of a barrage of backlash after appearing on Finding Your Roots, a genealogy series from PBS, and finding out that her ancestors were involved in the slave trade. On the Thursday, February 8 episode of The View, Hostin revealed that she found out that her mother's family, while Puerto Rican, were actually Spanish enslavers.
Hostin revealed that the news was "deeply disappointing" to her mother. Netizens claimed that Hostin was being hypocritical when compared to her previous statements and even brought up her position on reparations. One X user commented:
Sunny Hostin's ancestral revelation leads to heated argument on repercussions
On season 10 episode 6 of PBS' Finding Your Roots genealogy series, The View's Sunny Hostin decided to delve deep into her ancestry. However, she was "in shock" once the results actually came in. She revealed on the program:
"I just always thought of myself as Puerto Rican, you know half Puerto Rican. I didn't think my family was originally from Spain and slaveholders."
When asked how she was feeling, she said it was "interesting" that she and her husband had shared roots and that it was great for her children to know this information. She thought that it was a "fact of life" that some people made their livelihoods "on the backs of others."
Hostin further discussed the revelations on Thursday's episode of The View. She revealed that her mother's family was involved in the Spanish slave trade and had moved to Puerto Rico once the slave trade was "sort of canceled" in Spain. She was told that her ancestors were journalists and printers.
Netizens compared Hostin's ancestral revelations to her viewpoints on race and socio-economic issues and criticized her for allegedly being hypocritical. Some wanted to know if her views on reparations were affected by the revelation and used it as an argument against her stance.
Sunny Hostin's mother was deeply disappointed by her ancestry revelation
Sunny Hostin also revealed that her mother was deeply disappointed by the revelation. She said:
"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."
Hostin said that this was "weird" because her mother was blonde and had light eyes; this held true for her whole family. The View host added that she may have thought of this as her family history at some point, which is why she probably did not want to do it. Her mother even cried about the revelation and later told Hostin:
"Maybe that’s why I have been so connected to Black culture, because it's an atonement in my spirit."
Sunny Hostin revealed that there were slaves on both sides of her family and that she was also proud of being 7 percent indigenous Puerto Rican. She also found out that her paternal grandfather was not her grandfather. She suddenly had five uncles and aunts that she and her father did not know about. She also found out that Hamilton actor Anthony Ramos was her cousin.
When Sarah Haines asked Hostin how the revelation changed her, Hostin said that she was initially "deeply disappointed." However, she revealed:
"I still believe this country has a lot to do in terms of racial justice. But what I will say, Sara, to your question is that I feel that I’m enriched by knowing that history."
Sunny Hostin felt enriched knowing that her family had come from being enslavers to her mother marrying her father, whose family is of African descent. She also firmly stated that she still believed in reparations and revealed that many had texted her saying that she did not deserve them because she was a "white girl." Whoopi Goldberg asked the people who thought so to clean off their television screens.
The View airs at 11 a.m. ET on weekdays on ABC.
