[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 46 (Thursday, March 16, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H2085-H2086]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            WAITING FOR CENSURE, DENUNCIATIONS, AND REBUKES

  The SPEAKER. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I use Twitter and have about 65,000 
followers, which is pretty modest by Trump standards; but my staff is 
smart enough to keep the launch code secret from me so that when I say 
something, we find the right words to express what I want to say, and 
occasionally, very occasionally, I have a chance to cool down before I 
fire off a tweet. But this week we learned that one of our colleagues 
doesn't have a reasonable staff person who helps him think through his 
tweets.
  On Sunday, Steve King of Iowa tweeted out his love and praise for the 
anti-Muslim nationalist candidate in Holland who is running on an 
explicitly White supremacist platform; anti-immigration, anti-Islam, 
anti-refugee, anti-people of color. This candidate is the full White 
nationalist package. And apparently, King and Geert Wilders are very 
good friends.
  In his tweet, Representative King says: ``Wilders understands that 
culture and demographics are our destiny. We cannot restore our 
civilization with somebody else's babies.''
  Let that sink in for a moment.
  In context, what it means is: A, Steve King believes Western 
civilization is under attack by outsiders; and, B, those outsiders can 
never be assimilated or be considered part of our civilization.
  God knows what Representative King would think of my grandson who 
likes to tell me that in this arm he is Puerto Rican and in this one he 
is Mexican. But he says: ``Grandpa, right here, I am 100 percent 
American.''
  You think: My grandson, yeah, he is right, and the Congressman from 
Iowa is wrong. I think my grandson is every bit as American as Steve 
King or I am.
  I was born during Jim Crow, when separate but equal was the law of 
the land. But during my lifetime, we fought segregation and racism, and 
my daughters have been fighting it even more in their generation, so 
that exclusion, segregation, and racial hatred are no longer the law of 
the land.
  Now, at least as far as I am concerned, my grandson, who was born in 
America, is an American, whether Steve King likes it or not. Born in 
Illinois, he is not someone else's baby. He is 100 percent American. He 
is part of our civilization, and he is the future of America, along 
with Steve King's grandchildren.
  Just to be clear, Representative King's message was warmly received 
and retweeted by none other than David Duke, the grand wizard of the Ku 
Klux Klan, who has been a very proud Republican candidate on numerous 
occasions.
  Duke said: ``Just in case you were thinking of moving, sanity reigns 
supreme in Iowa's Fourth Congressional District,'' and, ``God bless 
Steve King.''
  Oh, but Representative King was not done. He is never done. He did an 
interview with an Iowa talk radio show where he discussed ``the plan'' 
of television anchorman Jorge Ramos to make White people the minority 
in America, causing King to respond that: ``I will predict that 
Hispanics and the Blacks will be fighting each other before that 
happens.''
  So what happens when a Member of Congress makes racist remarks? Is he 
censured? Are his words taken down? Is he rebuked by the leaders of his 
party?
  If he traveled somewhere without getting permission or he accepted a 
gift without prior approval of Congress, he would be punished. He might 
even get censured or called out in some way.
  But for making racist comments, for supporting a racist candidate in 
someone else's election, or for saying things that receive high praise 
from David Duke and the KKK, nothing is going to happen. I have not 
heard leaders in the Republican Party scrambling to say that Steve King 
does not represent their views on race, religion, diversity, and the 
threat that ``somebody else's babies'' pose to American civilization.
  A friend of mine in Chicago asked me what I thought was going on when 
a Member of Congress says such hurtful, xenophobic things, calling, 
essentially, on Black and Brown people to join in a race war.
  The answer is that people like Representative King feel empowered: 
empowered by the presence of Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Jeff 
Sessions; empowered by a President who wants us all to fear Muslims, 
fear Mexicans, and, frankly, fear all Latinos, even my American-born 
grandson.
  This is what happens when American men and women remain silent. When 
we do not stand up to the bully, the racist, the nationalist, they get 
more and more empowered. They get more and more empowered, and their 
actions become more and more normal.
  Well, saying that Black and Brown people will be fighting each other 
and

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saying that non-White people are somehow somebody else's children and 
not our children--the children of a nation that believes all men are 
created equal--well, that is not normal, and the American people will 
not accept the silence of the majority party when one of their own 
speaks out in this way.
  I am waiting for the censure, the denunciations, and the rebukes. But 
I suspect I will be waiting a long time.

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