Illinois Republican says black GOP candidate is being pimped

The chair of the Montgomery County Republican Party, Jim Allen,  has shown his true colors in an internationally problematic rant about Erika Harold, former Miss America, Harvard law school graduate, and black GOP candidate running for Rep. Rodney Davis’ congressional seat.

Apparently Allen sent an email which included the following:

“The little queen touts her abstinence and she won the crown because she got bullied in school,,,boohoo..kids are cruel, life sucks and you move on..Now, miss queen is being used like a street walker and her pimps are the DEMOCRAT PARTY and RINO REPUBLICANS…These pimps want something they can’t get,,, the seat held by a conservative REPUBLICAN Rodney Davis and Nancy Pelosi can’t stand it..”

This is all kinds of fucked up. First he is dismissing the very real effects of bullying on young people while simultaneously denying Harold the right to celebrate her survival despite that experience. Then he takes his email to another level by suggesting that Harold is being pimped by the “Democrat(ic?)” party and moderate Republicans. By calling her a whore, he attempts to strip Harold of her agency, while imposing harmful stereotypes about the deviant, hypersexuality of black women.

Although Davis’s campaign swiftly separated themselves from these comments, if this email is any indication of the views of conservative Republicans, I hope Harold kicks his ass in the elections.

Feministing's resident "sexpert", Sesali is a published writer and professional shit talker. She is a queer Black girl, fat girl, and trainer. She was the former Training Director at the United States Student Association and later a member of the Youth Organizing team at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She received her bachelors in Women's and Gender Studies from Depaul University in 2012 and is currently pursuing a master's in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. A self identified "trap" feminist, and trained with a reproductive justice background, her interests include the intersections of feminism and: pop culture, youth culture, social media, hip hop, girlhood, sexuality, race, gender, and Beyonce. Sesali joined the team in 2010 as one of the winners of our So You Think You Can Blog contest.

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