Liberal PAC defends ‘skinfolk ain’t kinfolk’ ad targeting ‘Uncle Daniel Cameron’

Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron greets supporters following his victory in the Republican primary for governor at an election night watch party at the Galt House Hotel on May 16, 2023, in Louisville, Kentucky. Cameron, who former President Donald Trump endorsed, faces incumbent Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in the general election in November. | Jon Cherry/Getty Images

With the Kentucky gubernatorial election set for next Tuesday, a progressive advocacy group is defending an ad depicting Republican gubernatorial nominee Daniel Cameron as a traitor to the black community.

The ad in question, played on the radio and targeted at a progressive audience, features a black woman declaring, “It’s election time, and all skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.”

According to the narrator, “Over the past few years, we’ve taken to the streets to demand racial justice, to demand healthcare and the right to make decisions about our bodies, and now, Uncle Daniel Cameron is threatening to take us backwards. The same man who refused to seek justice for Breonna Taylor now wants to run our whole state?”

After insisting that “we can’t let that happen” and “we won’t let that happen,” the woman urges listeners to “vote Andy Beshear for governor.” Beshear, the incumbent governor of Kentucky, is Cameron’s Democrat opponent in the race. 

Cameron, an African American currently serving as the attorney general of Kentucky, took to X to respond to the ad Friday. He lamented, “For years, I’ve been called every racist name in the book for supporting President Trump & conservative values.” He maintains that Beshear “always looks the other way and remains silent” when his supporters deploy such tactics, “even today.”

Cliff Albright of the Black Voters Matter Action PAC, the group behind the ad, defended it in an appearance on the YouTube program “Roland Martin Unfiltered” Saturday. Describing it as “the truth,” Albright told Martin that Cameron “hasn’t attacked the accuracy of the ad at all.” 

“You don’t want to talk about the substance of the ad; he [wants] to talk about the ‘Uncle Daniel Cameron,'” he added. Albright stated that “we didn’t call him Uncle Tom” because “to do so actually would probably be more of an insult to the actual Uncle Tom.”

At the same time, Albright suggested that the term uncle “could have been anything,” including a term of endearment. Albright asserted that “as soon as he heard” the name “Uncle Daniel Cameron,” Cameron “heard Uncle Tom.” 

The term “Uncle Tom” refers to a slave seen as overly sympathetic to his slavemasters and originated with the title character from the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In modern times, “Uncle Tom” has been used as a slur for African Americans seen as acting against the perceived interests of their community.

Albright identified the purpose of the ad as “reminding our folks that this is the same man who’s been against our community” because of “his attacks against healthcare in trying to peel back the Medicaid expansion that took place in the state.” He defined Cameron’s opposition to Medicaid expansion as “a direct attack against the health of black communities.”

Additionally, Albright decried Cameron’s “unsolicited attack against affirmative action.” After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in education earlier this year, Cameron signed on to a letter urging companies to reform their affirmative action hiring policies.

The activist asserted that seeking to abolish affirmative action “attacks our jobs, attacks our wages, attacks our families.” 

“It’s issue after issue after issue where he has shown himself to be just as much of a threat to the black community as the staunchest white supremacist. You don’t have to be white to pursue and reinforce white supremacist policies. As we said in the ad, all skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.” 

“He’s picked his side, and his side is very much the side of anti-blackness. His side is very much the side that is against our safety, that’s against our health, that’s against our economic well-being, that’s against our education, that’s against our maternal health.”

Black Voters Matter describes itself as an organization created to “increase power in marginalized, predominantly Black communities.” According to Open Secrets, a website that keeps track of campaign donations in the U.S., Black Voters Matter Action PAC received $1 million in donations from Democracy PAC. The website FactCheck.org identifies Democracy PAC as a “political action committee created by billionaire George Soros to fund political organizations that help elect Democrats.”

The Lexington Herald-Leader reported Monday that Beshear was asked about the ad at a campaign stop over the weekend. He noted that the campaign came from “an African American-led PAC,” adding, “We’ll let them comment for themselves.”

Nearly all of the polls measuring public opinion ahead of the Kentucky gubernatorial election have been conducted on behalf of one political party or the other. One nonpartisan poll of 450 registered voters, conducted by Emerson College from Oct. 1-3, found Beshear leading Cameron 49% to 33%. A poll of 1,845 likely voters conducted by co/efficient from Oct. 18-19 showed a closer race, with Beshear capturing 47% of the vote to Cameron’s 45%. 

The Kentucky gubernatorial election will occur Tuesday, alongside races for various other statewide offices. If elected, Cameron would become the first African American governor in the history of Kentucky, as well as the first African American Republican to become governor of a U.S. state. 

Although Kentucky is an overwhelmingly Republican state at the presidential and federal level, the state has a history of electing Democrat governors. Beshear was elected in 2019, narrowly defeating incumbent Republican Gov. Matt Bevin by 0.4 percentage points. 

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com

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