A Republican candidate for state Senate in Georgia shared a conspiracy theory clip from a MAGA-aligned rapper claiming that the Atlantic slave trade is "fake history," that most slaves were actually white, and modern Black Americans are indigenous to North America, reported The Daily Beast.
Stephanie Donegan, a candidate for a state senate district in the far north of the Atlanta metropolitan area, and who is herself Black, "shared the conspiratorial clip in June, a screen recording captured by Meidas Touch reveals," reported Josh Fiallo. "The video, which remains online, includes commentary from the MAGA-aligned rapper Waka Flocka Flame and another Black American who rejects the historical record of slavery in America."
In the video, Flocka stated, “I have no African descendants in my blood. I’m a Native American. So literally, I’m a Cherokee. I’m a Blackfoot. I’m a Red Tail Indian,” and the other unidentified Black commenter, who claimed to be from Richmond, Virginia, said, “I have no African heritage whatsoever and no African relatives. I am all Cherokee Indian … The real Black slaves here were Portuguese, and most of the slaves in this country were actually white, not Black.”
None of these claims has any basis in historical or genealogical evidence. Contemporary records, as well as genetic data and cultural connections spanning back hundreds of years, make clear that Black Americans, at least those data to the founding era, were brought as part of the Atlantic slave trade from Africa.
Donegan, an avowed election denier, has also vowed as part of her platform to eliminate Dominion voting machines, which have formed the basis of endless GOP conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, and prompted extensive defamation litigation by the company against Fox News and other right-wing sources.
The controversy follows another blowup this week, after Trump raged in an online post at the Smithsonian for teaching visitors "how bad slavery was."
The state senate district Donegan is running in is holding a special election to replace GOP state Sen. Brandon Beach, who resigned to serve as U.S. Treasurer in the Trump administration. She faces six other Republicans in the race, along with one Democrat.