Ex-Ravens WR Torrey Smith rages against Maryland's Republican nominee - "Racist white men ran the country"
Super Bowl-winning wide receiver Torrey Smith got into a heated argument with Kimerbly Klacik, who is the nominee for the Republican party for Maryland's 2nd Congressional District. It started with the former Ravens player commenting on a social media comment on X, formerly known as Twitter, by @hodgetwins, which read,
"Our founding fathers didn’t fight and die for us to let some commie f*gs rig and steal our elections"
Torrey Smith replied with a GIF with the caption,
"They didn’t fight or die for you to vote either……"
As he made the point about black people not being allowed to vote when the Republic was founded, Kimberly Klacik chimed in with her response reminding him it was the Democratic Party that was responsible for it. She said,
"You do realize democrats opposed the right to vote for black folks, right?"
Torrey Smith replied to it, saying that at the time of the founding, it was not really political parties that were the problem but that most of the ruling class did not believe that black and white men were made equal, with women of any ethnicity barred for voting. The wide receiver replied,
"Let me just put this out there for people like you that use this stupid line. Racist white men ran the country. They did not want equality for black people. It had nothing to do with a political party. Stop using that line like it means something."
Torrey Smith asks Maryland's Republican nominee to "cut it out"
Torrey Smith's reply triggered a response from Kimberly Klacik, who asked him to educate himself, writing,
"You can’t be serious? Democrats literally opposed freeing slaves and giving black people the right to vote. Please go read about it. I’m begging you to educate yourself."
She is clearly correct in that during the Civil War, it was the Democratic Party that opposed black enfranchisement and continued its opposition to universal civil rights in the Jim Crow era.
But what she left out is that after Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and then Richard Nixon became President pursuing the Southern Strategy of wooing previously segregationist Democrats, the platforms of the federal parties effectively flipped. That is what, perhaps, Torrey Smith was referring to, when he said,
"I know the history and it’s irrelevant as hell in 2024. Cut it out."
It seems that the former Baltimore Ravens star won't be endorsing the Republican nominee to represent the city anytime soon.