Vanity Fair has published a profile on Rep. Byron Donalds, and one anecdote in particular gives us a revealing look at the role the Floridian — and one of the few Black Republicans in Congress — plays for his conservative colleagues.
For the profile, reporter Pablo Manríquez interviewed Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who in January nominated Donalds as speaker of the House. At the time, the move was widely criticized as blatant tokenization, an attempt by Republicans — for optic reasons — to match Democrats’ historic nomination of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., to be the first Black speaker of the House.
I, for one, called the nomination a shameless ploy. Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., called Donalds a “prop” and added: “Despite being Black, he supports a policy agenda intent on upholding and perpetuating white supremacy.” And on “The ReidOut,” Donalds disputed Joy’s characterization of his nomination as a “diversity statement” by House Republicans.
Donalds and his supporters (including his wife) didn’t take kindly to the accurate descriptions, but Roy’s comments to Vanity Fair suggest they were right on point:
“Democrats play the race card every single frickin’ second, so I didn’t mind shoving it down their throats,” Roy tells me of nominating Donalds, who didn’t clap during Roy’s nominating speech on January 5—not even when his Freedom Caucus colleague turned to House Democrats and solemnly declared, “Here we are, and for the first time in history there have been two Black Americans placed into the nomination for Speaker of the House.”
The spectacle was full of cringeworthy moments. But, perhaps, none as icky as seeing Roy now objectifying his colleague in such a way.
In Roy’s remarks, Byron Donalds isn’t so much a human being as he is an “it” — a thing Republicans can shove down liberals’ throats. It’s a demeaning position for Donalds to play, even if he manages to extract personal benefits from it.
He’s in the Herschel Walker role: His rise as a Black man in the GOP will likely be dictated by his usefulness in helping cover up the party’s bigotry.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.