Oprah claps back after Brian Kemp campaign launches racist robo call “Jesus don’t like ugly”
Oprah Winfrey has put a verbal hex on the haters who are using her name in vain through racist robocalls to discredit Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
—TheGrio’s 2018 Midterm Election Blog: What Black America Needs to Know—
On Monday, ahead of crucial midterms across the country on Tuesday, Winfrey responded to the robocall, funded by white supremacist group TheRoadToPower.com, that impersonates her and went out last week to an unknown number of Georgians.
“Jesus don’t like ugly,” she said of the robocall in an Instagram video.
“I heard people were making racist robocalls in my name against Stacey Abrams, who I am one hundred percent for, in Georgia,” Winfrey says. “I just want to say: Jesus don’t like ugly … And we know what to do about that: vote. Tomorrow show up and show out, and vote.”
Doesn’t Winfrey’s warning just remind you of that iconic scene in The Color Purple with Whoopie Goldberg?
The Color Purple
Racists are doing whatever they can to cheat in Georgia’s closely-watched race that could see the first Black woman governor in U.S. history.
Here is a snapshot of tactics used in the historic race between Democrat Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp, a white Republican who oversees elections as Georgia’s secretary of state: “Eleventh-hour legal decisions, a racist robocall, voter suppression, ballot access, and a protester donning a giant chicken suit and holding a sign that reads ‘too chicken to debate,’” The Associated Press notes.
—Texas community protests after traffic stop leads to death of a young Black man—
The group that sent the robocalls, has been labeled by the Anti-Defamation League as white supremacist and anti-Semitic. They also been behind the attacks against Florida’s gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum.
“This is the magical negro, Oprah Winfrey, asking you to make my fellow negress, Stacey Abrams, the governor of Georgia,” a voice impersonating Winfrey says in the call.
“Years ago, the Jews who own the American media saw something in me – the ability to trick dumb white women into thinking I was like them,” the voice continues. “I see that same potential in Stacey Abrams.”
Both Abrams and Kemp condemned the robocall. Kemp issued a statement calling the tactic “vile” and “contrary to the highest ideals of our state and country.” Kemp said he condemns “any person or organization that peddles this type of unbridled hate and unapologetic bigotry.”
