BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana Democratic Party released the following statement from Chair Karen Carter Peterson on the announcement that Congressman Bill Cassidy will be campaigning with Phil Robertson, who told GQ magazine last year that African Americans were “singing and happy” during the Jim Crow era.
“If the Louisiana Republican Party is serious about reaching out to African Americans, then doing campaign events with Phil Robertson, who espouses the disturbing belief that Jim Crow wasn’t so bad for people of color, is a curious way of doing that. Perhaps Robertson never saw ‘the mistreatment of any black person,’ but the people he’s so proud to have worked alongside were barred from exercising the most basic right accorded to all Americans — the right to vote.
“Mr. Robertson is a colorful character, and he’s entitled to shout his opinions from the rooftops. He is a reality TV star, after all. But this is a political rally, and Congressman Bill Cassidy should be ashamed to be providing Mr. Robertson with a stage and microphone to spread his political beliefs further than rooftop ranting would allow. If Cassidy insists in standing with Robertson, the voters of Louisiana are at least entitled to know if Cassidy shares Robertson’s beliefs.”
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