Herschel Walker Is Racist Proof Of The Disdain White Conservatives Have For Blacks
Herschel Walker Is Racist Proof Of The Disdain White Conservatives Have For Blacks
He's also unqualified, unacquainted with English, and as dumb as a post turtle
Black people who are serious about politics do not act like the Walkers of the world. Regardless of their political ideologies, from extremely liberal to extremely conservative, they do not operate in this “aw shucks, thank you so much foh havin’ me sho nuff” sphere. Because they know that our ancestors fought hard — gave their lives — so we wouldn’t have to go back to that. We are nobody’s playthings, we are equal citizens and have attained two of the highest possible political offices in this country, along with senior roles in business, and are productive contributing members of society in every single state within the United States.
I’m not breaking news by discussing the reality that the GOP candidate for the US Senate in Georgia has the IQ of a tree trunk and the public demeanor of a prisoner on a Thorazine drip. I’ve steered clear of being too specific when criticizing Herschel Walker out of concern that being White would set me up for accusations of racism.
I’m not a racist, but I’ve always erred on the side of caution, primarily because I’m not well-versed in issues of concern to the Black community. When it comes to criticizing Walker, though, there’s someone whose opinion I trust and who, because he’s Black, can swing for the fences.
Oliver Willis holds nothing back when it comes to his contempt for Herschel Walker and his candidacy.
Walker’s campaign for the U.S. Senate seat in Georgia makes me physically ill. For months now, every time I have seen his media appearances or stump speeches, I feel a pain in the pit of my stomach. Watching him perform is an insult to Black people in America, both living and dead. It is vile and it is a product of the modern Republican Party.
Certainly I find Walker’s political positions (or the positions he has been told to espouse) abhorrent, but that isn’t the cause of my discomfort. What is so deeply disturbed by the spectacle of Herschel Walker is that it is such an openly racist display of the utter contempt that white conservatives have for Black people.
All through the general election campaign, it’s seemed as if Walker was the answer from White Republicans to charges of racism: “How can we be racist? We’re running a Black Guy for Senator! From Georgia! WE’VE EVOLVED!”
Right; this is the same state where it’s illegal to hand out water bottles to people standing in line at voting precincts? Who’s evolved? And how?
And how does that “evolution” account for a candidate prone to saying incredibly stupid things when cameras and microphones are running? Herschel Walker is a late-night comedian’s wet dream; this can’t be what Republicans envisioned.
Or is it?
Do they see Walker as someone who’s easily “controllable” and thus willing to do as he’s told? Do they see him as a house…nope, not gonna go there….
Translation, please?
A few months ago, I wrote about how Walker’s staff doesn’t know what will come out of his mouth. At that time, and I suspect it’s even more true now, his staff was in 24/7 damage control mode. By now, they’ve got to be shell-shocked. How do you account (or cover) for so much stupid all the time, every day?
Walker is not qualified to be a school crossing guard (a position that requires common sense and a sense of awareness and care), let alone a United States Senator. He displays this lack of qualification every time he opens his mouth and utters another one of his absurdities. But to the Republicans — led by the racist Donald Trump of course — who selected him and continue to prop up his campaign, none of this subpar behavior matters, and in fact they seem quite amused by it.
You can see it in the knowing grins of the Republican senators who appear with him on TV, propping him up like a ventriloquist next to their dummy, in the faces of the hosts on Fox News who clearly understand this is a buffoon, and in the faces of the almost uniformly white conservatives who attend his campaign events.
Republican Senators appearing with Walker know exactly what they’re doing. It’s like they’re tossing a live grenade back and forth, praying they won’t be the one holding it when it detonates. They and almost everyone around Walker “clearly understand this is a buffoon,” yet he managed to prevent his opponent, incumbent Rev. Rafael Warnock, from a 50% + one vote majority. WTF??
How did so many Georgians become convinced it was appropriate to vote for Herschel Walker? Was it the Heisman Trophy and the 1980 University of Georgia national championship? Was it the joke about pregnant cows jumping barbed wire fences? Or are they just as intellectually bereft as he is? Whatever the reason, it’s an indictment of millions of Georgia voters.
Yes, Virginia, they really are dense enough to see Herschel Walker as a reflection of themselves. How sad is that?
The entire thing is as if one of those old, racist lawn jockeys came to life and mounted a campaign. This is what they think of Black people. To them, Black people are clowns who are subpar, who shuffle and shuck and jive for the amusement of the (in their minds) superior white masters. Herschel Walker isn’t running for office, but is in fact on display for white people.
This isn’t why generations of Black people faced down death, beatings, and beyond. This is not why they marched. Not for this kind of display. It spits in the face of legions of Black people who have worked in this country often understanding that they have to be twice as good, sometimes three times as good, as their white counterparts.
Walker’s opponent, Rev. Rafael Warnock, is everything Walker isn’t- erudite, articulate, worldly, well-educated, competent, and capable of representing Georgia in the Senate. Indeed, he has already been doing so very capably for the past two years.
Warnock’s only “problem” is the “D” behind his name, but during his two years in the Senate, he’s acquitted himself well. There seems little doubt but that he's been and will remain a far superior servant to Georgia’s interests than Herschel Walker could ever hope to be.
I think about President Barack Obama, who had to walk a tightrope on his way to the presidency and on every day he was in office, always having to mind his tone, watch his expressions, restrain and constrain himself at every second, lest he feed the stereotype of the savage Black beast. The same is true for Vice President Kamala Harris, who understands that the parameters of her office require her to not be “too” Black, whatever that is at the moment — and she will still be the subject of racism or coded racism from white bigots.
But it isn’t just Democrats, I have to be clear. I personally detest her and what she believes in, but objectively a conservative figure like former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also had to be on her best behavior, and she had to sound as educated as her elite educational background would indicate. The same is true for the late Gen. Colin Powell, who had to have a chest full of medals, while speaking and acting perfectly, to even approach acceptability from the political establishment. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) also clearly understands this, and again, while I don’t agree with any of his political beliefs, does not perform in a cringeworthy manner when he appears in public.
To be clear, Willis doesn’t argue that to be acceptably Black in politics means being a Democrat. Far from it. It DOES mean carrying oneself in a manner that demonstrates one deserves to be part of the game, whatever one’s background or color may be.
Yes, Blacks (as is still true for women) are still held to unreasonably higher standards than your average White male. That’s in no way a reasonable or fair standard and it deserves to go the way of the dinosaurs. For now, though, it is what it is. Hopefully, all of us, regardless of race, creed, or color, will one day be judged by the same standard.
I eagerly await that day but fear I shall not live to see it.
Ah, but just when you think it can’t get worse, it does. Of course, it does, because this is Herschel Walker we’re talking about, who has the ability to arrange words like no other human dragging his knuckles across this Earth today.
We should all probably be at the point where nothing surprises us, yet Walker has that unique ability to drag yet one more “WTF was THAT??” out of listeners and those who’d thought they’d heard it all from him.
Herschel Walker traffics in gibberish unlike any human being (and I use that term loosely) I’ve ever heard attempt to mangulate the King’s Engrish, if you know what I mean. And I sincerely hope you do.
Stop us if you've heard this one before: Herschel Walker is out on the campaign trail saying Raphael Warnock is bad and needs to learn to "keep his kids." That's right, Herschel Walker wants to talk about Raphael Warnock's parenting. You betcha.
We are indeed talking about old BrokenBrain McPaysForAbortions, whose son Christian has publicly turned on him. Another one of his children, whom he's reportedly only met a handful of times, asked him over text on October 13, “What’s my favorite color? What grade am I in? And how old am I."….
It's always entirely possible we are interpreting Herschel Walker's words incorrectly, since they are not arranged in any way intelligible to English-speaking humans:
“WALKER: And then he paid himself a childcare, all that stuff, why don't he keep his own kids? Don't have nobody keep your kids, you keep your kids, he's got somebody else keepin' 'em, I keep my own, even though he's lyin' about me, but it's OK! It's OK because he's trying to get your vote, don't let him trick you tryin' to get your vote.”
To his credit, Rev. Warnock has typically not responded to Walker’s indecipherable BS. It’s a sound decision because while Walker speaks fluent BS, Warnock is somewhat less comfortable in Walker’s native tongue.
In this case, however, Rev. Warnock did feel the need to set the record straight. In English, thankfully.
Because whatever it was that Walker was trying to say, those were words arranged in an order few lucid humanoids could’ve deciphered. Just listening to him gives me a pounding headache.
Warnock says Walker "crossed a line." Of course, he used the opportunity to point out a whole fucking buttload of things about Herschel Walker AKA the thing that's left after the Acme anvil falls on somebody's head on "Looney Tunes."
"I know that politics is ugly. People play all kinds of games, unfortunately. But Herschel Walker and his allies have crossed a line where my family is concerned," Warnock said in an interview.
"I want to set the record straight. My children live with me. I am present with my children in every way that a father should be, from breakfast in the morning to bedtime prayers at night. I can't continue to let him lie about our family." [...]
The Democrat said that Walker's "hypocrisy is almost too much to bear."
"To say that he lacks self-awareness is an understatement. We have only learned about most of his children during this race," Warnock said. "There are two men in this campaign. One has been missing in action for his family — and that person is not me."
To say that Walker’s “hypocrisy is almost too much to bear” seems a gross understatement, but the good Reverend IS a man of God. I suspect he’s resisting the urge to kick Walker down several flights of concrete stairs. He’s a better man than me; I wouldn’t be resisting that urge.
There’s no doubt that not only does Herschel Walker not meet the Minimum Daily Requirement of competence, intelligence, and ability to make oneself understood, he can’t even budge the needle. His jokes are unintelligible, his speeches indecipherable, and his rationale for deserving to be elected insufferable.
I’m in no position to adequately speak to the racial aspects of Herschel Walker’s candidacy. Thankfully, Oliver Willis has done the heavy lifting for me from the perspective of a Black man, and his argument speaks directly to the historical injustices that define why Walker’s campaign is an insult to Black Americans.
It’s not about the traumatic brain injuries, the demonstrated ignorance, or the faux, failed folksiness. It’s about betraying the things for which generations of his ancestors fought and died. Willis says that Walker’s campaign is
distasteful and insulting and it makes clear where Black people stand within the Republican Party and the wider conservative movement.
Being White means I’m in a position to preach to Black Americans on this subject. I’m not going to be able to speak to their history from a place of authority, but neither do I think I’m stretching credulity to say that Herschel Walker isn’t the answer.
Walker represents a continuation of the problem and is an overtly racist display of the hatred White Conservatives still feel for Black Americans.
Americans- Black, White, and indeed Georgians of all colors- deserve far better than Herschel Walker. Thankfully, they already have far better serving in the Senate- Rev. Raphael Warnock.
