“Make America White Again.” Thus said the Trump-inspired billboard in the link my friend posted. I follow my friend LBJ on Facebook since he constantly shares stimulating posts about race in the United States, and this week he posted a news link that I thought must be a satire.
However, snopes.com confirmed the existence of the since-removed billboard and shared a wealth of information about the man who put it up. Rick Tyler is from Tennessee and is running for Congress on a blatantly white supremacist platform. I will address a few of his points below. For more information on Tyler’s consistently racist beliefs, see his campaign website, which is more of a hub for mini audio clips on white supremacy than an explanation of his political plan. I suggest you skim these sources now so you can read this response in context.
According to the Associated Press’s article on ABC7 Chicago, “(Tyler) told WRCB-TV that he doesn’t hate ‘people of color,’ but wants to return to an earlier time ‘when there were no break-ins; no violent crime; no mass immigration.’”
Americans, we can do better than to vote in a man who believes black people are animals and that intermarriage between races is wrong. We can do better than to buy into these things ourselves.
Tyler romanticizes the past and portrays the past sixty years as the decline of this nation due to immigration laws that allow more people of color to enter. That vision of the United States is simply not true. The way the United States addresses crime and incarcerates people of color has shifted over the years as policies are created or adjusted, but crime has been here all along, and not as a function of skin color.
As for the immigration comment, going back to a time before mass immigration would mean a non-white nation since Europeans were the first mass immigrants to a land of Native Americans. Somehow the majority of people forget that.
Tyler uses Christian lingo to bulk up his points, but taking Scripture out of context or using it to divide people on the basis of skin color is never what God wants. Snopes quotes Tyler saying, “The Caucasian race has been inordinately blessed and favored by the God of scripture. It was among this people that the new covenant gospel of Jesus Christ took root, blossomed, and flourished. Western Christian civilization evolved in the ensuing centuries leading to the eventual rise of our beloved America of yesteryear.”
Actually, Jesus Christ established his new covenant in the Middle East, in Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, and then his followers spread his good news west into Asia, north into Europe and south into Africa. Missionaries continued to spread his Gospel of redemption and reconciliation, mercy and grace, love and truth and justice throughout the world. Clearly, Christianity is not a white religion; it is for everyone who would believe in Jesus.
Continuing with Tyler’s religious comment, the white race has not been favored more highly by God than any other race or ethnicity. Since the concept of race was developed by errant humans, those considered to be white have been privileged by other humans, by fellow white people, but this is not a sign of God’s blessing. Human power has nothing on God’s, and one would be wise not to confuse the two. Another word of caution for people who want to be like Jesus: avoid conflating Christianity with patriotism, white supremacy or nationalism.
Tyler exemplifies white supremacy at its prime. Initially I was surprised by his radicalism since it is 2016, but when I look at the history of this nation, I see that nothing has really improved; racism has only changed forms over time. To say Tyler could be from the Jim Crow era glorifies the present, which evidently is not accurate. While Tyler is only one man who, according to Snopes, accrued only a small following when he ran for Congress in 2014, the fact that he is making such racist, Islamophobic and homophobic public statements is frightening and, honestly, maddening.
For the sake of length, I cannot address everything Tyler has said, but many of his statements are so outrageous that they seem not to need a response. How could anyone believe that there is a white genocide in this nation, for example, and that black Africans are destroying the “once pristine and orderly white-ruled” South Africa? Read and research history to discover the truth.
katelyn skye bennett 