Conservative websites on Monday unearthed allegations from a man named Danney Williams who says he is the son of Bill Clinton and a Little Rock prostitute named Bobbie Ann Williams. Clinton critics, you’ll not be surprised to learn, are helping Williams publicize his allegations.
That’s right, America: We’ve entered the Black Love Child phase of Campaign 2016.
Whether you believe Williams or not — and there’s no proof — there is a long history of allegations of presidents having secret African-American children. Why is this allegation thrown around so often? Probably because America has a long history of racism.
It all started with Thomas Jefferson, who actually did have children with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves.
In the book “Walter White: Mr. NAACP,” author Kenneth Robert Janken accuses William Henry Harrison of breaking bad by fathering six children with a slave named Dilsia, then giving four of them to his brother because it would not be “politic” to keep them. Harrison is famous for dying soon after he became president.
Karma? It depends on whether Janken is right, or Harrison was just the victim of a racist political attack.
Harrison’s veep, John Tyler, was also rumored to have fathered an African-American child, the Daily Beast notes.
The “black love child” trope is a potent weapon in American politics because it serves several narratives. First, it plays on racist fears of miscegenation.
Of course, the trope also has a built-in allegation of infidelity.
It can also play on well-meaning fears that a man in power preyed on someone vulnerable.
Does the black-love-child trope still work as a political attack in this century? Sadly, yes. In 2000, future president George W. Bush won the South Carolina primary after a whispering campaign spread the lie that John McCain had an African-American love child.
In fact, McCain and his wife, Cindy, had adopted a Bangladeshi girl, Bridget.
McCain’s opponents spun that loving act into what one site describes as “a wedge-driving/hate rumor that was designed to erode political support for John McCain.”
The good news: There’s only one month of the 2016 election left.