Colorado Legislator In Hot Water After Calling His Colleague Buckwheat On The House Floor

Colorado state Rep. Richard Holtorf, a Republican from the Eastern Plains, called a colleague “Buckwheat” while delivering remarks on the House floor this week. (Here’s the video.)

Holtorf said he meant it as a term of endearment, but most others didn’t take it that way — Buckwheat is a Black caricature, so many lawmakers interpreted it the same way as if he’d called someone “Speedy Gonzales” or “Aladdin.” Holtorf claims he was addressing Latino Democrat David Ortiz when he used that term, but Black caucus members were — and are — furious.

Holtorf offends his colleagues on a regular basis. He told Rep. Tom Sullivan, the father of an Aurora theater shooting victim, to get over that loss. He defended Rep. Ron Hanks for making a joke about lynching and claiming the three-fifths compromise wasn’t racist. During a debate on abolishing Columbus Day, he argued that the Indigenous people who were slaughtered by colonizers weren’t very nice people.