Rejecting White Nationalism and White Supremacy

Floor Speech

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Mr. CLYBURN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

Madam Speaker, I want to say to my colleague, Mr. Collins, that I wish to associate myself with the sentiments that he expressed here today. However, I also rise today to speak of how the tale of two Kings has brought us to this moment in history.

If he had been allowed to live, today would have been the 90th birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Today, this august body stands ready to vote to disapprove of Representative Steve King's recent comments and condemn the evil concepts of white nationalism and white supremacy.

White supremacy and white nationalism are evils, they are insidious, and are clear and present dangers to our great Republic. Reported hate crimes rose 17 percent last year, which was the third consecutive year that we have seen an increase in this insidiousness. This is appalling and unacceptable.

When elected representatives give cover and comfort to those who spread racial divisiveness, we embolden those on the fringes of our society, and we have seen some of the results: the massacre of nine parishioners in historic Charleston's Emanuel AME Church at the hands of a young man who believed he would be, in his words, ``rescued by white nationalists after they took over the government;'' the murder of 11 Jewish worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh by a gunman who believed the Jews were, in his words, ``waging a propaganda war against Western civilization.''

The other term used by Mr. King in his comments to the New York Times; and we saw in Charlottesville, Virginia, at the white nationalists' Unite the Right rally, where they chanted the Nazi phrase, ``blood and soil.''

Some have questioned the timing of this resolution. Why now? they ask.

My guidance, Madam Speaker, comes from Dr. King, who wrote in his letter from the Birmingham jail: ``Time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel,'' continued Dr. King, ``that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will.''

Then he closed his thought with these words: ``We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.''

Now is the time to do right. We have reached a tipping point. Racial divisiveness is a fault line that is ripping our Nation apart. This body must speak out against this evil. The time has come to condemn those of ill will and say that no part in our great Nation can be had by them.

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Mr. CLYBURN. Madam Speaker, when the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville came to this country, he observed its greatness and set out to find the genius that made it so. He wrote in his book ``Democracy in America'' that: ``The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other Nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.''

White supremacy and white nationalism are faults that cannot be repaired but must be removed.

White supremacy and white nationalism should be condemned by this body, and I call upon my colleagues to join me in doing so.

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