I’m here to sheepishly admit that I hadn’t fully thought through the racially-charged meaning of the turn of phrase “cotton-picking” until this recent controversy involving Congresswoman Jen Kiggans.
Kiggans landed herself in hot water after enthusiastically agreeing with MAGA talk-radio host Rich Herrera at the end of a Monday interview, in which Herrera said Hakeem Jeffries, the U.S. House Minority Leader and a Black male, needs to keep his “cotton-picking hands off Virginia,” in relation to the national battle over congressional redistricting.
ICYMI
Kiggans, who is facing an uphill battle to retain her seat representing the Second District in Congress, quickly responded:
“That’s right, ditto, yes, yes to that.”
Oooh, yeah.
That’s going to hurt.
The White MAGA Republican said later in the day that she was agreeing with the sentiment of the statement, but not the language – and that she wished she had spoken up about the term used at the time.
Which, at that point, sorry, too late.
“Words matter, and when elected officials use racially-charged language, it undermines the very fabric of our communities,” said Cozy Bailey, president of the NAACP Virginia State Conference. “Rep. Kiggans’ agreement with such comments is deeply troubling. We must hold our leaders accountable and demand a standard of respect and dignity for all Virginians.”
Jennifer McClellan, a Black woman who represents Virginia’s Fourth District in Congress, and Bobby Scott, a Black man who represents the Third District, also issued a pointed joint statement on the Kiggans controversy.
“In a radio interview, Congresswoman Jen Kiggans enthusiastically agreed with the statement that Leader Hakeem Jeffries should keep his ‘cotton-picking hands off Virginia.’ She should apologize to Leader Jeffries, all Virginians, and anyone else offended by these comments.”
Also piling on: Elaine Luria, Kiggans’ Democratic opponent in the Second.
“The racist comments proudly endorsed today by Jen Kiggans warning House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to ‘get your cotton-picking hands off of Virginia’ are disgusting and beneath any elected official. I grew up in the South. I know what these racist dog whistles mean,” said Luria, who is White.
Full disclosure: I’m a White male, like Luria, and like her, I grew up in the South, and as I wrote above, I have to, sheepishly, concede that the racial connotations of the term “cotton-picking” had not occurred to me prior to this controversy.
But now that I see it, I can’t unsee it.
Lacey Wilson, a program manager at the Underground Railroad Education Center, spoke to a local news station about the matter, noting that the term, over time, grew detached from its literal meaning, pointing to its usage in Saturday morning cartoons as a reason that people may recall it without connecting it to its early historical roots.
But it’s clear, Wilson said, that the term “cotton-picking” traces back to the literal act of picking cotton by hand in the American South — and that this labor was done largely by enslaved Black Americans and later by Black laborers through repressive economic systems such as sharecropping.
“I believe that there are people who say that who do not intend for it to be offensive,” Wilson said. “However, I think the impact is perhaps far more important.”
This controversy is playing out against a racially-charged current-events backdrop – Herrera was blasting Jeffries for suggesting approaches to reverse a MAGA state court decision undermining congressional redistricting in Virginia, after the U.S. Supreme Court opened the door for Southern states to begin their own redistricting aimed at disenfranchising Black voters.
ICYMI
“These comments come at a time when the Supreme Court and Republican-controlled state legislatures are disenfranchising Black voters and wiping out Black representation across Southern states, which Jen Kiggans applauds,” Luria said.
Kiggans “should immediately and publicly apologize and denounce these racist remarks that have no place in our Commonwealth or our politics,” Luria said.
The only quibble I’d offer to Luria’s statement there is, more important than Jen Kiggans absentmindedly agreeing with a MAGA radio host using a racially-charged term, is Kiggans enthusiastically agreeing with the strategy of disenfranchising Black voters.
Words matter; actions matter more.
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Chris Graham
