House Members Peeved By Rep. John Walker’s Afro Comment

Today State Representative Justin Harris took to Twitter and wrote the following: “AR State Rep.[John] Walker needs to be called out for his racial tones and discrimination in the State House.”

Those are strong words for one State Rep to say publicly about another, so I contacted Representative Harris to get more information about what he wrote on Twitter.

Rep. Harris says his Tweet was in regard to what Representative John Walker said on the House floor today when Rep. Walker spoke for a House Resolution commending Arkansan Leonard Cooper for recently winning the Jeopardy Teen Tournament. The resolution was sponsored by Rep. Warwick Sabin since Cooper attends E-Stem, which is in Sabin”s House district.

Cooper won $75,000 a little over a week ago in the nationally televised tournament beating out teenage contestants from across the country and made our state proud. In addition to his intellectual abilities, Cooper also just happens to be rocking an impressive Afro, which you can see in the picture below.

After Sabin spoke for the Resolution, Rep. Walker took to the House well and said the following in his remarks:

“I take the occasion to join with Representative Sabin, and the others, in acknowledging the tremendous accomplishment of this wonderful young man. One may look at him and understand that he is an ordinary teenager. He has an Afro. And for many of you here, he would be a threat. Remember that. And understand this, if we have good education and afford opportunity to our people, people like Leonard will be readily presented in our public domain. There are many persons like him, but Leonard stands out among most people irrespective of his haircut or his attire.”

It was Walker”s remarks about how Cooper”s Afro could be considered a threat by some that caused Harris to tweet his comments.

Harris said to me today:

“I was appalled by that [Walker”s remarks]. He [Walker] got groans from everybody because what he did is he lumped everyone, not just Republicans, he lumped the Democrats in there too. He lumped Representative Leding, he even lumped the sponsor of the Resolution, who has the most liberal district, besides Leding, which is far from being racist or wouldn”t even have those thoughts. I don”t have those thoughts when I walk around Little Rock or anywhere. I just found that very offensive.

This was a resolution to honor a young man, who is a genius, very smart and it doesn”t matter about the color of his skin or what his hair looked like. And he [Walker] made it very racial, he told us we were racial today and I found that very offensive.”

If you watch , around the 11:40 mark, you”ll see Harris is correct about the groans that arise when Walker makes his remarks in regards to Cooper”s Afro.

Harris said using the word discrimination in his Tweet was probably thrown out too loosely, but made the point that Walker”s lumping many in the category of being threatened by Cooper”s haircut was, in a way, discriminatory.

I”ve got to admit Harris does have some valid points. Today”s House Resolution should have been a simple affair honoring an impressive young man, instead it veered off-course.

This veering off-course is almost as bad as the time a few weeks back when Pastor Allen Jackson on guns and abortion during his ceremonial duties in opening the House proceedings for the day.