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When KCCI ran its story about Louis Fountain, the candidate for director of equity, inclusion and belonging in the Johnston School District, it left out the tweet from Fountain about black conservative Herschel Walker. Fountain wrote that Walker didn’t forget he is black, he just doesn’t want to be black.
That’s the one.
And it also didn’t mention his thumbs up to either of these comments.
KCCI did interview Kameron Middlebrooks with the NAACP in Des Moines about the situation. And Middlebrooks said something that is worth pointing out while keeping the comments about Herschel Walker in mind.
“What folks saw through his Facebook posts was his perspective as a black man,” Middlebrooks told KCCI.
OK. What about Herschel Walker’s perspective as a black man? Because Walker is conservative, does that lessen his experiences as a black man?
How is it right for any person to suggest that another person doesn’t want to be a certain skin color — short of that person literally saying something like that for his or herself?
Short answer — it’s not.
We’ve seen this time and time again. Here in Iowa, Republican Rep. Eddie Andrews was called a “sell-out” by Democrat Sen. Claire Celsi. Has the NAACP of Iowa addressed this?
Just earlier this week Sen. Tim Scott was tabbed as Uncle Tim for daring to be a black Republican.
And the list continues…Clarence Thomas if we have a grasp of political history, Herman Cain if we recall 2012, Dr. Ben Carson the last handful of years.
Middlebrooks called The Iowa Standard’s article a “hit piece.” A “hit piece,” however, deliberately tries to make someone or something look bad by presenting information that appears to be true and accurate but actually is not.
That’s not what our article was. Not at all.
Fountain made every one of those posts. He liked every comment we said he liked. A day before we published the story, he went through his Facebook page and got rid of the controversial posts.
Louis Fountain can talk about his perspective as a black man as much as he pleases. But his perspective as a black man should not afford him an opportunity to say another black man, in this case, Walker, doesn’t want to be black.
That is inexcusable.
Here are the remarks Walker made at the 2020 RNC.
