Earlier this month, the New York Times took a long, hard look at Georgia GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker and his conspicuous lack of black cred in his hometown.
"Herschel forgot where he came from." Polls show Herschel Walker getting less than 10% of Georgia's Black vote in his Senate run. There are many possible explanations. But in his hometown, Wrightsville, they have roots in one seismic spring stretch in 1980.https://t.co/pEUaOcBsj1 pic.twitter.com/hKZwBSMAhU
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 2, 2022
Is there something in the water in New York that makes liberal New York-based publications feel compelled to obsess over Walker’s blackness, or lack thereof? Because New York Magazine’s Intelligencer has a new piece out this morning that’s all about — you guessed it! — Herschel Walker’s blackness or lack thereof, especially compared to his Democratic opponent, Rev. Raphael Warnock.
Georgia’s first all-Black senate race could have been a time for celebration. Instead, because one candidate has cast his lot with white reactionaries, the racial dynamics of the contest have been warped. @zakcheneyrice reports https://t.co/l9ydLi8QHR
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) October 26, 2022
Here’s how Zac Cheney-Rice begins his piece:
On the day Herschel Walker was born, in March 1962, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in The Nation, “The President has proposed a ten-year plan to put a man on the moon. We do not yet have a plan to put a Negro in the State Legislature in Alabama.” Electing Black officials was a key goal of civil-rights activists, who believed it would make lawmakers more accountable to Black interests, and King had become convinced that they were running out of time. Every second of inaction from the federal government, he argued, emboldened the southern ruling class and breathed new energy into its efforts to block desegregation. By the time Raphael Warnock was born in 1969, the Eagle had landed on the moon, but King had been killed, Georgia had two segregationists as U.S. senators, and the path to answering the reverend’s challenge was still dark.
Five decades later, Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator, is defending his seat against Walker, the Republican Party’s first Black U.S. Senate nominee in the state. It is a historic spectacle. Just two years ago, Georgia lagged behind Mississippi and South Carolina in never having elected a Black senator; in January, a Black man is guaranteed to continue to represent the state. But given whom Warnock is running against, the race seems less like a fulfillment of King’s vision than a perversion of it. “There are sharp contrasts between me and my opponent,” Warnock said, peering over his rimless glasses, at every stop on his Georgia bus tour this summer.
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A black Republican would be a “perversion” of Martin Luther King’s vision of seeing more black legislators. That’s just lovely, isn’t it?
We wish we could tell you that the first two paragraphs of the piece were the worst, but then we’d be lying to you.
“If Walker we’re a Democrat, Republicans would have a field day” with racist attacks on “physically opposing black man,” writes @NYMag, in a racist piece about how Herschel Walker is the wrong kind of black person pic.twitter.com/K2ARgKLRSa
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) October 26, 2022
Well, let’s see … Warnock is a Democrat. And an alleged wife abuser. Not to mention head of a summer camp plagued by allegations of abuse and health code violations. Not to mention a whole lot of other baggage. Republicans have tried to draw attention to that stuff, but Democrats and liberal media have joined forces to shield Warnock like their lives depend on it.
But we digress. Back to the racism:
Warnock is a “refined” “golden child.” Herschel is just a “not that smart” “athlete” pic.twitter.com/OWnjAESIjD
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) October 26, 2022
Future of black people at stake if a black Republican wins!!! pic.twitter.com/kRClZiIG2T
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) October 26, 2022
Wow.
It’s real … and genuinely revolting.
This is gross https://t.co/hEf5Rh157c
— Alana Goodman (@alanagoodman) October 26, 2022
Disgusting
— Georgia Sam (@GeorgiaSam61) October 26, 2022
That is disgusting
— EddyCaplan (@EddyCaplan1) October 26, 2022
If Herschel Walker poses such a threat to the safety of Georgians, then why don’t New York Magazine et al. focus on substantive criticisms of Walker? Why does the conversation so often come back to Walker being some kind of race traitor?
Because, all too often, when you scratch a woke liberal, you’ll find a racist.
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