Here’s something to consider for Sen. Lindsey Graham, who spent much too much of the last week begging Black people to consider Black Senate nominee Herschel Walker a role model:
In the words of author Zora Neale Hurston, “all my skinfolk ain’t my kinfolk.”
The saying is used to describe instances when a person may share the same skin color but doesn’t have his people’s best interest at heart. Walker might as well be its poster child.
The former NFL running back lied that he graduated from the University of Georgia with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, lied about being a sheriff, and lied about his "pro-life" beliefs. He actually dropped out of college after his junior season, was only deemed an “honorary deputy” in Cobb County, and faces accusations from two women who say Walker encouraged them to have abortions. His own son, Christian Walker, took to Twitter to beg Walker to stop "lying and making a mockery of us."
“You’re not a ‘family man’ when you left us to bang a bunch of women, threatened to kill us, and had us move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence,” Christian Walker tweeted.
When Graham appeared on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program Thursday to describe Herschel as someone who should be an inspiration if victorious, a panel of CNN commentators replaying the clip laughed.
“They’re trying to destroy Herschel to deter young men and women of color from being Republicans,” Graham said. “If they destroy Herschel, it will deter people of color from wanting to be a conservative Republican because you just have your life ruined. We cannot let that happen. We need to have his back.
“If Herschel wins, he’s going to inspire people all over Georgia of color to become Republicans, and I say, all over the United States.”
Graham went on to describe Walker as a “nightmare for liberals.”
“They have belittled him,” the senator said. “They have treated him like crap, his family. Stand by Herschel tonight.”
Graham’s voice quivered as he spoke, asking for campaign dollars and claiming “the conservative movement for people of color is on the ballot in Georgia.”
CNN journalist Don Lemon called Graham’s plea “race-baiting in the worst form” and “off the charts” hypocrisy.
“Oh my gosh, I thought he was going to start crying like a southern preacher,” Lemon said.
Van Jones, a CNN commentator who was also on the panel, said young Black Republicans looking for role models could look to Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican U.S. Senator. “The idea that—again, everything has to be of the extreme—if you don’t want someone with his lack of qualifications and bad personal character to be in the Senate, you now hate all conservatives and don’t want any Black people to be conservative,” Jones said. "That’s not true. What are you talking about?”
Jones said if the Republican Party continues to make its case about fiscal conservativism, it will pick up some GOP votes from Black people, but deeming Walker a role model is not the way to do it.
“The idea that we need someone like Lindsey Graham to explain to us how to relate to different political positions in our own community is just ridiculous, almost embarrassing,” Jones said. “And if you’re going to be that evangelical in your belief about somebody, be evangelical about the values that this man has violated when it comes to abandoning his own children.”
Simply put, Black Georgians don’t have to settle for Walker just because they want to support a Black candidate. Sen. Raphael Warnock happens to be a Black man running to keep his seat in the state runoff on Dec. 6.
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