In my article which appeared in ValueWalk last Friday, I accused most white Georgians of being racists. But after Tuesday’s runoff, I am forced to confess that I had them all wrong.
I need to apologize to all the good white people of Georgia, who were able to overcome their deep-seated prejudices by voting overwhelmingly for a Black man to represent their state in the United States Senate.
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That’s right! Nearly two-thirds of white Georgian voters cast their ballots for a Black man. But that’s not all, folks! This was a Black man whose sins were so great that – not all that long ago – he might well have even been lynched!
Herschel Walker -- the state’s most celebrated prodigal son – came home again after a two-decade sojourn in Texas. After all, no sacrifice was too great for his native state.
The votes have now been counted, and regretfully, Walker lost by a very narrow margin. But that inconvenient fact obscures a much more important one: Nearly two-thirds of all white Georgian voters cast their ballots for their native son, who is likely the greatest college football player in Georgia’s proud history.
Of course, it cannot be denied that Walker has not lived an entirely blameless life. He is the first to admit that, largely due to a mental illness that he eventually overcame, he had done some pretty awful things -- especially to some of the women he had been intimately involved with. Perhaps the worst was threatening to kill his first wife.
But all these good white folks who voted for him surely believe in his redemption. And let me tell you, sisters and brothers: That was surely a very heavy burden to be carrying around all those years!
And while Walker may not have owned up to all of his many sins, he wasn’t lying when he proclaimed himself a truly changed man. Who would have ever thought that a guy who had once held a gun to the head of his wife – and threatened to blow her brains out – would one day come just a whisker away from being elected a United States Senator?
And yet, all those good people who voted for him surely took him at his word. But Walker was not the only sinner who had been redeemed. Just by voting for a Black man clearly indicated that all these good people had also overcome their own sinful pasts.
What The Georgians Saw In Herschel Walker
Now, let’s shift gears and ask ourselves another question: What did all these good white folks see in Herschel Walker that eluded ninety-seven percent of the Black voters, who blindly supported his opponent just because he happened to be a Democrat?
Well, in fairness, the Reverend Rafael Warnock could never be accused of even a fraction of the sins committed by Walker. But the sin that he did commit – one that Walker pointed out repeatedly in their one head-to-head election debate – far outweighs all the bad stuff that Walker did over his entire lifetime.
If you watched that debate, you might recall Walker accusing Warnock of voting with President Biden ninety-six percent of the time! Just think about that for a minute, my brothers and sisters!
Ninety-six percent! If that isn’t sinful, then I don’t know what is! So let me break that down for you.
Would you believe that Warnock actually voted for a bill that would protect our environment? Or one that would help rebuild our crumbling infrastructure? Or even capping drug prices. And if these three weren’t bad enough, Warnock even supported women’s right to choose!
But today, Walker, who tried to force multiple women he had impregnated to have abortions is a proud pro-life advocate. Think about that!
What I find especially refreshing is how the good white folks of Georgia could see all the goodness in a Black man who not only threatened to kill his wife, but abandoned his children and engaged in all kinds of unsavory activities.
In providing overwhelming support for Walker’s candidacy, the white voters of Georgia have clearly demonstrated how they have finally overcome their long legacy of racial prejudice. Of course, it did take the right man to come along at the right time.
Better still, it turns out that all those wistful Confederate memorists had it right all along when they proclaimed that “the South will rise again!” But who woulda thunk its rise would be led by a Black man with such an unusual past?
