Kansas Democrat’s votes were wrong, but calling him a ‘house Negro’ was, too | Opinion

Much as we disagree with a number of Democratic Kansas state Rep. Marvin Robinson’s votes during his first year in office, we also have to say that he did accomplish what no one else has in finally winning funding to develop the Quindaro Ruins, a stop on the Underground Railroad in what’s now Robinson’s hometown of Kansas City, Kansas.

Did he trade away too much in return? Probably. But to call him “one of those house Negroes” owned by but also in cahoots with Kansas Republicans, as his fellow Democratic state Rep. Ford Carr of Wichita did, was wrong, too.

That Carr is Black, as Robinson is, doesn’t make that slur palatable. Remember when public service was supposed to mean behaving like a role model? Talk like that from elected officials still gives others permission to do the same.

Was Robinson being rewarded for voting with the GOP when it mattered? It sure looked like it.

But to suggest he’s enslaved yet favored by his white masters for the way he went about getting $250,000 in funding to make sure we don’t forget the horrors of slavery, wow.

Robinson’s votes helped Republicans override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of bills that abridge the rights of transgender Kansans. He also helped make it harder for Kansans to get food stamps, though Robinson himself once received food aid.

Carr wasn’t wrong to say that these votes, and the one against Medicaid expansion, will hurt Robinson’s constituents.

But he went too far when he said, “I would never trade my vote so that those people in my neighborhood, my constituents who I support, would never have the opportunity to look at me and think that I might be one of those house Negroes.”

Robinson told The Star that many aspects of the session shocked him: “I would have never even signed on the dotted line to try to go to the House if I had known it was going to be so contentious and full of so many heart-breaking personal, private choices.” Yes, that’s the job.

Kansas state Sen. J.R. Claeys, the Republican vice-chair of the Senate budget committee, said, “I was delighted to come up with something that would allow Marvin to have a win in his first year since he was clearly being treated poorly by some select individuals.” Which is just another way of saying he was being rewarded for voting with the GOP, though Claeys denied that was the case.

Robinson claimed one colleague told him to “go die” after his vote on transgender athletes, while others “acted like I was too ignorant to read the legislation.” If true, and he didn’t name names, then that wasn’t the best way to win him over.

He said he voted to make it harder to get food aid to help people get off assistance. It will force some of his constituents off such benefits, it’s true, though not necessarily because they’re working.

“There was no malice or evil intended, not at all,” he said. But as it happens, no malice or evil is required to do harm.