A legislative candidate wore blackface and Republicans are OK with that?

It’s now been six days since pictures emerged of a Republican legislative candidate in blackface and the response from Kari Lake and her fellow GOP leaders has been … did I miss it?

Last Friday, decade-old pictures emerged of Mary Ann Mendoza, who apparently thought it would be great fun to dress up for Halloween as Aunt Jemima. So much so, that the next year she painted her body brown and posed as a Native American.

Yet we’ve heard no explanation from Mendoza and mostly crickets from Republican leaders who are supporting her legislative bid.

Lake criticizes Hobbs. But no outrage here?

Lake, for example, never misses an opportunity to brand her opponent Katie Hobbs as a racist for her role in the wrongful dismissal of a Black legislative staffer while she was Senate minority leader. She’s even dug into Hobbs’ old high school yearbooks to blame her opponent for her school's “slave day” in 1984, when she was a freshman – though the yearbooks don’t back up that claim.

So where’s the outrage about an adult who in the 21st century thinks it’s OK to dress up for Halloween as an exaggerated stereotype that denigrates an entire race of people? To paint your body black, stuff padding into your petticoat and become a walking, talking symbol of racism?

Another view:Why is racism still tolerated in sports?

This isn’t about political correctness run amok. Anybody who has studied history knows the baggage that is packed into that shoe polish.

It is, at best, about a serious lapse in judgment from a woman who wants to make laws for the rest of the us to follow.

ABC 15 News on Tuesday confirmed the pictures were of Mendoza, reporting that some of them appeared on her deceased son’s old Facebook page. 

Yet there is only silence from Lake, who has endorsed Mendoza, and from most of the rest of the Republican Party’s leading lights.

This isn't the first judgment lapse from Mendoza

Silence, too, from Mendoza, who became one of President Donald Trump's “Angel Moms,” having lost her son, Mesa Police Sgt. Brandon Mendoza, to a drunken driver who was in the country illegally in 2014. 

She apparently is hoping that laying low is the best strategy to win a House seat in one of the state’s most hotly contested races – Legislative District 9, representing west Mesa and parts of Tempe.

This is not Mendoza’s first flirtation with questionable judgment.  

In 2020, just hours before she was set to speak at the Republican National Convention, she promoted a string of tweets about a Jewish plot to control the world, sprinkled in with a few QAnon conspiracy theories.

Mendoza apologized and deleted the tweet. She later told an Arizona Republic reporter that she hadn’t read the entire post before retweeting it and that it didn’t reflect her views. Then she went on to tell the reporter about a Jewish banking family that once “owned the United States.”

In 2020, the RNC wisely pulled Mendoza from its lineup.

In 2022, don’t look for the Arizona Republican Party for pull her from its list of approved legislative candidates. 

Some Republicans have rushed to her defense

The Democratic Party is calling on her to withdraw from the race, saying she “engaged in an especially vile and racist use of blackface and refuses to respond.” Her Democratic opponents, Seth Blattman and Lorena Austin, called the photos “disqualifying”.

Thus far, the only response from Republicans has been to rush to Mendoza’s defense.

Kathleen Winn, a former Repubican congressional candidate, told ABC 15’s Melissa Blasius that Mendoza has a “heart of gold” and that her blackface makeup “is no worse than a drag queen’s.”

Rep. Debbie Lesko, likewise, didn’t see a problem.

“Instead of focusing on decade-old Halloween photos posted by liberal opponents right before an election, voters care about a secure border and commonsense policies that will keep Arizona strong,” she said, in a written statement to Blasius. “That is what voters will get with Mary Ann Mendoza.”

That and a woman who appears clueless about how her judgment impacts some of the people she seeks to represent.

Come to think of it, she might fit in well in the Arizona Legislature.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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