Dave Agema’s White Supremacist New Year

In a New Years’ Eve posting on his infamous Facebook page, disgraced Michigan GOP national committeeman Dave Agema reprinted an essay about African-Americans. Either Agema or somebody he is quoting endorses it as “very interesting” and “very enlightening” for “anyone concerned about crime in America.” The essay–since taken down by Agema–is copied from the May 9 edition of American Renaissance, a white supremacist magazine.

While more grammatically precise than most racist screeds, it is racist all the same. Wrapping up his thoughts, the author–allegedly an experienced defense attorney–says the following:

However, my experience has also taught me that blacks are different by almost any measure to all other people. They cannot reason as well. They cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well. They are a threat to all who cross their paths, black and non-black alike.

This is preceded by three pages of gross stereotyping. White felony defendants and their families are portrayed as better behaved, dressing more appropriately, and deferential to their lawyers; while black defendants are ill behaved, ill dressed and less intelligent. Black “bad guys” are supposedly far worse than “white” bad guys.

Agema’s holidays are apparently the season for hateful reading. Just days before Easter 2013, he repeated the malicious anti-gay ravings of a Ku Klux Klan leader. In the week following New Years Day 2014, he stumbled upon an essay declaring no Muslim had ever contributed anything positive to America, passing it along as “eye opening.”

It was at that point that many responsible Republicans and conservatives who had not already done so put distance between themselves and Agema. Michigan GOP chairman Bobby Schostak, GOP national chairman Reince Priebus, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, major party donor Betsy Devos, six Republican members of Congress from Michigan, and numerous others called for his resignation.

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This weekend, GOP State Reps. Gary Glenn of Midland, Todd Courser of Lapeer and Cindy Gamrat of Plainwell are listed to appear at a tea party “Pow Wow” at the Soaring Eagle Casino. Each lawmaker was eagerly endorsed by Agema, and Agema is expected to be a keynote speaker at the event.

{snip} The time to just take a stand for decency is today. If Mr. Agema appears at this event, the room should be devoid of anyone else with a responsible public or private title.

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