OPINION: The Republican Senate candidate for Arizona is yet another in a long list of Republicans who are eager to go after marginalized communities in order to stir up the MAGA crowd.
Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
I am old enough to remember when we required candidates running for a high political office, such as the U.S. Senate, to be reasonably qualified, respectful, and restrained in their attacks on political opponents. Those days are clearly well behind us when you consider the current crop of GOP candidates such as Pennsylvania’s Dr. Oz, Ohio’s J.D. Vance (author of “Hillbilly Elegy”) or Georgia’s Herschel Walker (Heisman Trophy winner who is Black but 100 percent all-in on the GOP race-baiting and division) running in the 2022 midterm cycle. This crop of candidates is so extreme and scary that even Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell exclaimed recently that “candidate quality” might be the reason his party didn’t retake the Senate in November.
One of the most glaring cases in point: Blake Masters. The ultra-conservative Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, who has been a staunch anti-abortion proponent, now has turned his ire toward Black people. Masters, really showed himself and his racism over the weekend, in a tweet mocking the diversity at the Federal Reserve. Yes. You read that right. Here is what he said in part, “Finally a compelling explanation for why our economy is doing so well,” Masters said when he quote tweeted an Associated Press article with the headline: “Fed tackles inflation with its most diverse leadership ever.”
The AP article noted that for the first time, the Federal Reserve under President Biden’s administration has more female, Black and gay officials weighing in on interest-rate decision-making and other Fed policies than ever before in the bank’s more than 100-year history. Master’s clearly took exception to this and took some heat for his remarks. Instead of clarifying and backing away, he doubled down, defending his remarks Monday in a video he shared on Twitter, in which went on a full-throated attack on affirmative action and Vice President Kamala Harris about her qualifications to be vice president.
“If you want to see the affirmative-action regime on display, just look at Biden’s White House,” he said in the video. “Biden promised that he would choose a woman for his VP, then, of course, he chose Kamala Harris—so incompetent she can’t even get a sentence out. But I’ve never spoken to anyone who can say with a straight face that Kamala was somehow the most qualified candidate for that job.”
“I don’t care if every single employee at the Fed is a Black lesbian as long as they’re hired for their competence and not because of what they look like or who they sleep with,” Masters said. “News for Joe Biden: We are done with this affirmative action regime.”
If that wasn’t bad enough. He went further, saying: “I can’t think of a single policy (affirmative action) since the end of Jim Crow that’s been worse or more divisive for race relations in this country.”
OK, so here is where I want to take issue with his privileged, white male view of the world. First, he asserts that he thinks “Jim Crow” was “divisive” (it sure was) but more than that, it robbed generations of Black wealth, freedom and liberty guaranteed by the Constitution as amended by the 14th Amendment. So by logic, he must agree that it was government-sanctioned racism against Black people.
In order to begin the slow walk to right those historic wrongs, President today!
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