That's not Tim Walz in blackface. That's a scene from 'Mad Men' | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY
·3 min read
53

The claim: Image shows Tim Walz in blackface

An Aug. 27 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows an image of a man with dark-colored paint covering his face.

“Here's Tim Walz dressing in blackface years ago to amuse his student body alumni,” the post’s caption reads. “What a great guy.”

The post was shared more than 300 times in two days.

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Our rating: False

That’s not Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. That’s actor John Slattery in a 2009 episode of “Mad Men.” The claim originated from a Facebook account that posts satirical content and labels it that way, but there is no such designation on the post in question.

Image shows actor John Slattery, not Walz

Before he entered politics in 2006, Walz – the Democratic nominee for vice president – was an 11th-grade social studies and geography teacher in Minnesota and an assistant coach on a high school football team that won a state title in 1999.

But the man picutred in the Facebook post wearing blackface is not Walz. Rather, it comes from an episode of the AMC show “Mad Men.” The scene occurred in the 2009 episode titled “My Old Kentucky Home,” in which Roger Sterling – the character played by Slattery – is wearing blackface while performing a serenade at a Kentucky Derby party.

Fact check: No, Tim Walz isn’t the cowboy dancer in this video

The claim originated in an Aug. 23 Facebook post from a Facebook account called American Liberty, which is part of the America’s Last Line of Defense network of satirical accounts. The account’s intro section states that “Nothing on this page is real,” its profile image includes a notation that it is satire and its publisher, Christopher Blair, previously told USA TODAY that none of the stories he posts are authentic.

While the Aug. 23 post indicates the content is satire, the Aug. 27 post includes no such disclaimer.

The Aug. 27 Facebook post is an example of what could be called "stolen satire," where content originally presented as satire is captured and reposted in a way that makes it appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, which is what happened here.

In his brief time as a major figure on the national political landscape, Walz has been the subject of misinformation. USA TODAY has previously debunked false claims that Walz has a net worth of $138 million, signed into law a bill that includes pedophilia as a sexual orientation and posted to social media an attack on commentator Ann Coulter after she called his son “weird.”

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the claim but did not immediately receive a response.

Snopes debunked a version of the claim.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Mad Men' actor, not Tim Walz, wearing blackface in image | Fact check

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