While Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker takes full advantage of his “minority business” red seal, he also spends a lot of time on the campaign trail condemning the very federal programs that offer Black business owners a fair chance at success, as first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC).

Walker’s company, Renaissance Man Food Services, has taken full advantage of being “a certified minority-owned food company” and winner of “Marriott’s 2016 Diversity Supplier of the year” and the “Marriott International Diversity & Inclusion Award” in 2014, per their website. But during a Hall County, Georgia, Republican event in July, Walker launched into the usual GOP rhetoric of dragging the designation of “minority-owned” as “affirmative action.”

“They have regulations for everything … I found out that I was Black, so my company was a minority-owned business. Like wow, a minority-owned business, what does that mean? It means you’ve got to fill out all of these forms,” Walker said. “I was like, ‘I got to fill out forms to be Black?’”

The AJC reports that upon winning their awards, the company said:

“Renaissance Man Food Services is one of our longstanding and extremely successful diverse supplier partnerships … Owned and operated by Mr. Herschel Walker, Renaissance Man has served as an integral food partner to our Courtyard Brand, supplying chicken products to the majority of these properties throughout the United States.”

But during a Republican roundtable in an Atlanta neighborhood, Walker took a very different tone about minority-owned businesses.

“I didn’t want to be a Black-owned business … I wanted to be a business,” Walker said.

And when asked about the difficulties of being a minority business owner and how the grants and support they can receive can often help making opportunities equal, the AJC reports the Heisman Trophy winner replied: “There’s always room for affirmative action, but you have to put the right person at the table.”

But Walker’s double standard attitude really is the least of his problems.

As we’ve reported at Daily Kos, Walker’s lies are ubiquitous.

The GOP and Trump-endorsed Walker has lied about everything from graduating from the University of Georgia, the AJC reported, to hiding the fact that he had any children other than his one 22-year-old son Christian, to the mammoth exaggerations about his business acumen, to the tall tale about the time he founded (or co-founded) the veteran's organization Patriot Support—which he did not. He even recently tried to deny that former President Donald Trump ever said that the 2020 election was stolen.

It’s no wonder Walker has continued to waffle on debates against Georgia’s Democratic incumbent, Sen. Raphael Warnock.

As reported by Georgia Public Radio (GPB) in early August, Walker agreed to a debate against Warnock in Savannah on Oct. 14. The debate is sponsored by the mammoth conglomerate Nexstar Media Group, “which owns several television stations in Georgia, including WSAV in Savannah,” according to GPB.

In an email to GPB, Walker’s campaign team said it had accepted the Nexstar debate because the "format and the moderators are fair and would allow each candidate equal opportunity to share their message.”

But it’s also extremely likely that the Walker camp really wanted this particular debate because, according to the terms as published on GPB, the “topic[s] will be provided to the campaigns prior to the broadcast,” although “specific questions will not.”

Source: Rebekah Sager/M.Dailykos.com

Date Posted: Thursday, August 25th, 2022 , Total Page Views: 368