Fury after La. lawmaker calls black supporter ‘Buckwheat’
Rep51 A Democrat who serves in the Louisiana legislature called a black supporter “Buckwheat” just days before the runoff election that will determine whether or not she returns to Baton Rouge.
Rep. Carla Blanchard Dartez said “Talk to you later, Buckwheat” at the end of a telephone conversation with a black woman who helped drive voters to the polls on Election Day. (Buckwheat was a character in The Little Rascals who has come to symbolize demeaning racial stereotypes.)
“I’ve never had no one talk to me that way and I considered it a racial slur,” Hazel Boykin tells the Associated Press. “I know the meaning of it, it’s just like the N-word.”
Boykin is a respected member of the community who played an active role in the civil-rights movement of the 1960s. Her son, Jerome Boykin, runs the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
He has withdrawn his endorsement of Dartez and says he wants local residents to vote against her in the Nov. 17 runoff election.
“At this point, the NAACP is not concerned about the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. If a Republican is elected because of her racist remarks, that’s her responsibility,” he tells the wire service.
At one point, The Courier says Dartez threatened to resign if Jerome Boykin publicized the incident on his weekly radio program. He talked about the slur, but the paper says Dartez “backed off talk of resigning.”
“I made an insensitive comment when speaking with Hazel Boykin, and I have apologized to the Boykin family and publicly for my choice of words,” Dartez says in a statement to local media organizations. “I have a strong record of fighting for issues important to the African American community; in fact, I have a 93% voting record with the Black Caucus.”
Dartez has been in office since 1999. The local community is divided over her latest problem, according to WWL-TV. What do you think?