 |
| Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) |
Louisiana’s Long History of Racism
On Monday the House of Representatives’ majority whip, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, confirmed that he gave at least one speech to a recognized white nationalist hate group, the European-American Unity and Rights Organization. EURO was founded by David Duke,
a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard. The May 2002 conference Scalise
participated in was billed as a workshop on protecting white “civil
rights” and “heritage.”
According to a conference attendee who posted on Stormfront, a white
supremacist forum, Rep. Scalise spoke about how the Department of
Housing and Urban Development was a “slush fund” that gave money away to
“a selective group based on race.”
Scalise’s spokeswoman, Moira Bagley, said that when the congressman spoke to EURO as a state representative, he had been unaware of the group’s views.
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told me, “EURO already was well-known as a racist hate group at the time that Steve Scalise apparently spoke to its workshop, and it is hard to believe that any aspiring politician would not have known that. In any case, it’s worth noting that Scalise apparently did not leave even after hearing other racist speakers spouting their hatred.”
Why would a congressman speak to this group? Scalise’s choice to speak shows the incredible power prejudice still wields in modern Louisiana.
My friend Lamar White, a Louisiana journalist, broke the story about Scalise by publishing the Stormfront posts about the speech on Sunday. READ MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment