A Kentucky newspaper is reportedly facing backlash after publishing an opinion column accusing Republican Senate candidate Daniel Cameron of racial betrayal and branding him a “race traitor.”
The Louisville-based Courier Journal ran the piece, written by contributor Ricky L. Jones, under the headline “Daniel Cameron is KY’s saddest Republican Senate candidate.” The subheadline described Cameron as “the polished corporate spokesman for anti-Black backlash politics.”
In the column, Jones alleges that Cameron’s campaign message amounts to, “Don’t worry, I’ll protect the White status quo in Kentucky and beyond.” He goes on to call Cameron the “most shameful” and “saddest” of the Republican candidates in the race, referring to them collectively as a “wretched band.”
Jones also characterizes Cameron as a “frequent MAGA darling” and suggests that whites are uncomfortable with what he describes as “the mounting Black menace.”
According to the University of Louisville’s website, Jones serves as a professor and chair of the Department of Pan-African Studies.
The opinion piece takes particular aim at Cameron’s record and political alignment, accusing him — Kentucky’s first Black statewide elected official — of betraying his race. Jones claims Cameron “functions with a level of sneering anti-Black racial venom and self-hate that would make Samuel L. Jackson’s Stephen proud.”
The reference is to Jackson’s character Stephen in the film Django Unchained, a house slave who remained loyal to his white master and served as a secondary antagonist in the movie.
Jones continues the comparison by describing Cameron, a former Kentucky attorney general, as akin to a “Black servant who betrayed his brothers.” He cites Cameron’s opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and his support for President Donald Trump as evidence for his claims.
The rhetoric escalates further in the piece, which states that Cameron is “the type of lost whitewashed soul that Harriet Tubman left behind because he has no desire to be free.” Jones writes that Cameron is “a Black man who hates Black people and takes every opportunity to prove it to his masters,” adding that he “should be ashamed, but doesn’t have sufficient conscience, self-awareness or self-love to feel so.”
The column’s language has drawn attention for its personal attacks and charged racial accusations directed at Cameron, who has built his political career within the Republican Party and has aligned himself with Trump and conservative policy priorities.
As the Senate race unfolds, the publication of such a sharply worded opinion piece underscores the intense political and cultural divisions shaping the campaign. Cameron, who made history as Kentucky’s first Black statewide officeholder, now finds himself at the center of a controversy sparked not by his opponents on the campaign trail, but by an opinion column in his home state’s largest newspaper.
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