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“Look, let’s just be frank. Women have become too mouthy. As the Black man in the room, I’ll say that.”
That’s a quote from Minnesota Senate candidate Royce White, the man recently endorsed by the state Republican Party in its primary contest to face off against Sen. Amy Klobuchar in the fall. White made the comments in July on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast, before rambling on with a sexist attack on MSNBC's Joy Reid and peddling conspiracy theories about women in the workplace. The comments resurfaced in video clips that were circulating on social media over the weekend.
On Sunday, White defended his remarks, suggesting in a social media post that they were meant "humorously."
White has claimed his campaign will appeal particularly to Black men; and Bannon, who has endorsed White, has previously made the outlandish claim that Republicans can win 50 percent of Black men and rule for the next century (that claim crashed and burned in 2022). But White is a prime example of Republicans’ hapless attempt to win that demographic by peddling misogyny.
It’s a point I made in 2022, when I noted how Republicans were using bigoted Black men — like North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson and failed Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker — under the idea of luring other Black men into the MAGA fold. These bigoted appeals targeting Black communities also turned up in a recent radio ad promoted by a pro-Trump super PAC. That’s why I found it so noteworthy that President Joe Biden’s speech at the historically Black, all-men’s Morehouse College this month focused in part on the importance of rejecting MAGA's toxic version of masculinity.
There is a concerted effort underway by conservatives to appeal to the worst character traits in all men — and Royce White is an example of how these efforts are being tailored to reach specific groups.