A Democratic Wisconsin assemblyman who dressed in Confederate attire and planned to pass out Ku Klux Klan hoods at a Republican convention is now comparing minorities in the GOP to poultry.
“Had an interesting discussion with a minority woman,” Brett Hulsey, the assemblyman, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
He was referring to a conversation he had with a black GOP delegate at a party state convention held last weekend. The exchange was captured on video and reported by the MacIver Institute.
Hulsey told TheDCNF in an email:
A minority in the GOP is like a chicken at Colonel Sanders’ house. They may feed you and let you crow a bit, but it does not end well.
Hulsey, who is also running for governor, was at the convention protesting what he sees as a racist GOP and Gov. Scott Walker. He was wearing a makeshift Confederate uniform and had announced plans to pass KKK hoods out to convention-goers.
Pam Stevens, the delegate, confronted Hulsey, who has a history of engaging in political theater. “My question to you is if you give them hoods, what would you give me?” she asked.
“I just hope you would vote against secession,” Hulsey replied.
The two-term assemblyman was referring to a resolution being debated at the convention that would allow the state to secede from the U.S. “under extreme conditions”. The measure failed.
Said Stevens in reply:
I just wanted to make sure you understand how much I took offense at the whole giving them hoods based on the fact that the history of the Klan comes from the Democrat Party.
Hulsey pointed to a picket sign which listed seven reasons he believes shows that state Republicans are racist.
“You know racial profiling?” Hulsey asked, reaching for an example.
“You don’t have to ask me if I know racial profiling,” answered Stevens, adding, “The Democratic Party is the party that’s constantly trying to put people on labels and in blocs and things like that.” She accused Democrats of trying “to keep racism going”:
Your party is the party that’s trying to tell black families that they don’t know how to make choices to educate their children and that they have to stay in public education.
Hulsey retreated from the exchange but maintained his Confederate shtick.
“That’s just the facts, but I’ve got to talk to one of my colleagues,” said Hulsey, as he left the conversation.
“How are you, sir? Welcome to the Confederacy,” says Hulsey in the video, greeting a person off-screen.
Reached for comment by The Daily Caller News Foundation, Stevens, who is in her fourth year as a state delegate and president of the Wisconsin chapter of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, said Hulsey’s responses to her “were very condescending and smug”:
I have no respect for Hulsey at all. He believes he owns black people and we should all be on his plantation and like being repressed by him.
Hulsey initially posted a casting call at his campaign website seeking an entire infantry of Confederate re-enactors, though none joined him.
But Hulsey was still upbeat about the venture, which comes amid a challenge to Mary Burke, the favorite for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.
“The trip went well,” Hulsey told TheDCNF. He said he achieved his goal of highlighting “Gov. Walker and the GOP’s racist record”:
Many GOPers wanted hoods but I decided not to hand them out. Not sure how to get them their GOP Party Hats.
Hulsey said he’s received at least one threat which authorities are handling.
“The GOP seems like the party of hate now,” he said.
This report, by Chuck Ross, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
