Missouri state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D)
This is definitely
one of the most unusual arguments for sending a candidate to Congress pretty much ever:
There is not one woman in Congress with an Afro! If you think there should be a woman with an Afro in Congress, perhaps you should do something about it!
That remarkable plea for support (posted on Facebook, along with a donation link) comes from Missouri state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who is challenging Rep. Lacy Clay in next year's Democratic primary and
now sports a traditional African-American hairstyle—
though she didn't always. (Also, Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
might take exception to Chappelle-Nadal's claim.)
A coiffure-based appeal might seem frivolous and even a little bizarre (after all, people can always change hairstyles, like the senator herself has), but there's something more at work here. While both Chappelle-Nadal and Clay are black—and so is a majority of the St. Louis-based 1st Congressional District—the centerpiece of Chapelle-Nadal's campaign is her charge that Clay was invisible during last year's unrest in Ferguson following the death of Mike Brown at the hands of police.
But while Chapelle-Nadal is now positioning herself as the spokesperson for African Americans in the 1st District, the racial politics of her latest race are by no means straightforward. In her 2010 bid for state Senate, a columnist for the St. Louis American, an African-American newspaper, noted that all four candidates in the primary had been "challenged for their degree of 'blackness'" and averred that Chappelle-Nadal "is often said to see herself as more Hispanic or multicultural than black." Local observers attributed her narrow plurality victory to her strong support from white voters and a late $30,000 donation from an Asian-American businesswoman.
It may not make a whole lot of sense to outsider, or even seem fair—as the American put it, Chappelle-Nadal is certainly black "in the sense that matters to a Ladue cop watching the traffic pass by"—but Chappelle-Nadal faces a real struggle to claim the mantle of black authenticity. That's why she's hammered Clay over Ferguson, and that's why she's touting her Afro. Will this approach work, though, or will voters view it as transparent ploy? We don't know yet, but it's worth noting that Chappelle-Nadal's official Senate page still shows her with straight hair.