A Republican state lawmaker in Colorado has apologized after calling a colleague “Buckwheat” during a floor debate this week, sparking outrage among Black members in the chamber amid the country’s reckoning with its history of racism.
Rep. Richard Holtorf, who is white, made the remark after another representative interrupted his comments during debate on a civics education bill.
“I’m getting there. Don’t worry, Buckwheat. I’m getting there,” Holtorf told the lawmaker. “That’s an endearing term, by the way,” he added moments later, which provoked further anger among Democrats.
Reports said it wasn’t clear who Holtorf was addressing, but the comment — widely considered to be a racial slur — led to a brief recess following a heated exchange, with at least one Democrat shouting at the GOP legislator from the back of the room.
Democratic Rep. Leslie Herod, a Black lawmaker who is a rising star among Colorado Democrats and has long fought racial injustice, rushed to the podium to confront him, and Rep. Tom Sullivan, a Democrat who has a history of clashing with Holtorf, was reportedly “spitting mad” about the choice of words.
Video of the moment went viral on social media.
“Words matter. (FULL STOP),” Sullivan tweeted. “We MUST NOT accept the use of racist language.”
Herod also tweeted: “This is what I have to deal with Every. Damn. Day.”
Buckwheat was a Black child character in the “Our Gang” or “Little Rascals” serials of the 1930s, and is widely considered a racial stereotype. The minstrel character was also popularized in the 1980s by comedian Eddie Murphy on “Saturday Night Live.”
After the break, Holtorf returned to the podium and apologized.
“I apologize if I’ve offended anybody in any way. It is not my intent, ladies and gentlemen. If anyone would like to talk to me afterward, I’d be more than happy to visit with them,” he said, according to Fox affiliate KDVR.
Holtorf later told The Colorado Sun that he wasn’t aware of the racial connotations of the term.
“I absolutely had in no way, no desire to insult anybody in the Black Caucus. Absolutely not. I wish I would’ve chosen a different word,” he said.
The next day, Democratic House Speaker Alec Garnett told a silent chamber that he’d had a long conversation with Holtorf and with lawmakers who were offended by the remark.
“I’m thankful you agree to do your part to reset the decorum of this session,” Garnett told Holtorf before declaring that “discriminatory remarks, whether intentionally launched or carelessly said, have absolutely no place in this House.”
“Yesterday, the decorum of this institution was grossly breached,” Garnett said. “I’m sorry to say this is not the first time this session, but I’m speaking today to make sure it is the last.”
Garnett said he’d spoken with a lawmaker, whom he didn’t name, “and I heard last night how this one word took a member of this body back to a place that they thought they had outlived,” adding that the “word took them back to a place that they hoped would never reappear, to feelings of a darker time.”
Holtorf also apologized a second time from the podium Thursday.
“I hope you all understand that I see all of you as my brothers and sisters, all created by God and all equal,” Holtorf said. “You all have my sincerest apologies.”
Holtorf was appointed to represent a district in the Eastern Plains when Republican Rep. Kimmi Lewis died of cancer in 2019. He was elected outright last year.
In April, Democrats in the Colorado House criticized another Republican lawmaker for making a joke about lynching before saying an 18th-century clause in the U.S. Constitution designating a slave as three-fifths of a person “was not impugning anybody’s humanity.”
The lawmaker, Rep. Ron Hanks, who is white, said his comments were misconstrued and that his point “was to kind of talk about the Three-Fifths Compromise of 1787, not 2021.”
A similar controversy erupted this week in the Tennessee General Assembly when state Republican Rep. Justin Lafferty defended the Three-Fifths Compromise, arguing that it was “a bitter, bitter pill” that was necessary to curtail the power of slaveholding states and that helped clear the way to ending slavery — remarks that were rebuked by critics, including Black colleagues, as insulting and demeaning.
Information provided by The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
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