Move over Mike Yenni. There’s a new Republican politician from Louisiana making headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Meet Robbie Gatti. He’s currently running for a seat in the Louisiana state legislature in a special election later this month. He calls himself an “unwavering conservative” who is “100% anti-abortion,” “100% pro-second amendment,” and 100% committed to continuing the “religious liberty fight.” A lifetime member of the NRA, he has a wife and two kids, works as a physical therapist, and is an ordained Southern Baptist minister.
He’s also appears to be kind of racist.
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This week, the local politics site The Hayride unearthed a picture of Gatti from several years ago gleefully smiling while wearing blackface. The picture was apparently taken during a Halloween party at Gatti’s church back in 2002.
After the photo leaked, Gatti issued the following statement on Facebook:
15 years ago, my church held a fall festival, where all the volunteers were told to dress as a famous person. Tiger Woods was at the height of his popularity, as a world champion, and that was who I was dressed as. Shortly after this event, I was ordained into the church. As a medical professional, ordained minister and military officer, I live my life seeing only character and I stand by that. I’m sad that my opponents have taken a good night at church and turned it into negative, political mud, but I’m confident the voters of Bossier will not fall for their desperate attacks.
In other words: Relax! It was just a joke. And, anyway, I became a minister right after, so that excuses any previous bad behavior. Plus, my opponents are total jerks for bringing this up! Shame on them!
He followed that up by sharing a video of his black friend, Rev. Doyle Adams, talking about how Gatti isn’t racist and the whole blackface thing is just “much ado about nothing.”
Remember when doing blatantly racist stuff used to get a person disqualified from running for office?
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ChrisK
Why is it always the republicans doing stupid shit like this?
1EqualityUSA
They’re a party of selfish louts.
RIGay
…and people will vote for him. [smh]
whatevz
@ChrisK …because republicans are stupid, racist, selfish, greedy, bigots, homophobes, liars, paranoid, hate women, hate brown people, hate education, hate clean water, hate clean air and pretend to be religious so they can get away with anything that makes them look bad
ErikO
Plenty of so called ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ people have done r@acist black face. Look at Sarah Silverman, Julianne Hough, Ted Danson, Dov Hikind, and others.
Stilinski26
You should search John Podesta video and listen to the audio of him abusing a girl
norodeocowboy
“Republicans” like Ted Danson, do you mean to say?
ErikO
Rachel Dolezal and Shaun King are white, yet wear black face daily.
Brian
The police officer has repeatedly said that his department’s form didn’t have a box for “biracial” or “mixed race,” so he was forced to choose one race. That cop said he knows King is biracial. This has been covered time and time again, but Breitbart bloggers won’t let it go. You and your ilk are exhausting. More than a million people stood on the National Mall, climate change was invented by Chinese people, and facts don’t exist.
Heywood Jablowme
ErikO, you pretended to be a Jill Stein voter last fall. And you pretend to be a bisexual. Why don’t you pretend to be black, too, we’ll never know the difference.
Juanjo
Thanks Eric for trotting out the classic response of 7 year old boys everywhere. The old “well, Bobby did it too”. In adult terms this is called a tu quoque logical fallacy. It is somewhat amusing in a 7 year old, it is pathetic in an adult.
virtuoso1980
Juanjo, ErikO here clearly suffers from “whataboutism.”
That would be English for tu quouqe logical fallacy.
JerseyMike
He looks better with the black…
ErikO
Nice try Brian but I am not a climate change denialist, and I don’t read Breitbart . Everyone knows Shaun King is not black or even bi-racial/mixed race and it has nothing to do with police forms or not being able to say he’s mixed race on some application.
Juanjo
Thanks Eric for once again trotting out the classic response of 7 year old boys everywhere. The old “well, Bobby did it too”. In adult terms this is called a tu quoque logical fallacy. It is somewhat amusing in a 7 year old, it is still pathetic in an adult.
davidkohl
Reality check – any decent person knows that is completely unacceptable to ‘black up’ and his has been the case for some time now.
So the excuse that this took place 15 years ago does not make it ok. I am also not surprised by his arrogant and unrepentant response – that is hallmark right wing. He is probably right to say that his electorate will not be bothered about it too much – just look at where he is running for office. However, a united and concerted effort by the Democrats might be able to stop his election.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Not with those exceptionally thin nasty lips, hon
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Suffers from permanent turd-strain face
Neonegro
juanjo, are you not too old for girly responses. If you have nothing to say just shush.
Neonegro
I see nothing wrong with it, it was a Halloween party.
davidkohl
Surprise surprise that Neonegro sees nothing wrong with it! I suppose you think it’s also ok to mock people with disabilities or withhold equal rights from lgbt people?
Juanjo
Thanks neo who is not neo and also not a negro, just a troll.
Neonegro
Hmmmm interesting, so blackness is equal to a disability now.
Naïve and easily hurt davidkhol speaks like a true white left winger.
Neonegro
juanjo, are you not too old for girly responses. If you have nothing to say just shush.
blondeboyz
“a good night at church”. There’s the problem. You need another church.
Kevan1
Another insensitive alt right idiot.