Photo: Kentucky General Assembly
A Kentucky lawmaker claimed her white father was a slave while speaking to a local chapter of the NAACP.
According to the Daily Beast, GOP Rep. Jennifer Decker made the comment earlier this month at a meeting held by the Shelbyville chapter of the NAACP. Decker was invited to the meeting to discuss a state education bill she's sponsoring that would ban DEI initiatives.
Decker cited her white father's rise from his humble beginnings as a reason why she believes diversity and equity programs are unnecessary.
“My father was a slave, just to a white man and he was white,” Decker said at the meeting.
In a statement to the Courier-Journal, Decker followed up her comments, saying her father's family had to work as farm hands on someone else's property.
“[My father] was a child and his family all worked there,” Decker told the outlet. The GOP lawmaker addressed her slave comment, saying it was "probably" an overstatement.
Under Kentucky House Bill 9, which is sponsored by Decker, training and scholarships dedicated to diversity would be defended. Decker previously claimed that diversity initiatives made secondary education “divided, more expensive, and less tolerant."
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