Republican Bo French is running for Texas Railroad Commissioner, which is a necessary position in the state. Sunday morning, he posted a photo of students enjoying themselves at a football game at the University of Texas at Austin. He wrote, “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
This is an objectively racist statement. It lacks even the subtle racism of 1950s Tom & Jerry cartoon. The students who so offend French are of South Asian heritage. They’re also wearing cowboy hats and backward ball caps, while rooting for the home team. This is no terrorist conspiracy. They are engaging in the world like any other youthful American college student.
However, it appalls French that the UT’s graduating class is so clearly diverse. Currently, white students account for “just” 30 percent of the student body, followed by Latinos at 28 percent and Asians at a close third with 26 percent. Black students are at a distant fourth with about 5 percent. Now, this is different from Texas’s overall demographic breakdown: Black people make up 12 percent of the population. White people are 39 percent, and Latinos are just slightly ahead at 40 percent. Asians are only 5.5 percent of the total population. Suddenly, French is concerned about equality of outcome.
The Texas Railroad Commissioner is part of three-person group that regulates the state’s oil and gas industry. It has nothing to do with college admissions. He insists that UT-Austin and other institutions have prioritized international students and workers, possibly through fraudulent means. He has no evidence for this claims, but who needs proof when you have racist instinct?
During an appearance Monday on the right-wing Mark Davis Show, French stood by his ethnic slur.
“I don’t have anything against the people specifically in that picture,” French told Davis. “I think that the bigger conversation is, are we going to have policies to prioritize Americans … or are we going to have policies that prioritize foreigners? And I think most people in the America First movement think we ought to be prioritizing Americans.”
French’s racist implication is clear: Diversity is itself evidence of corruption. It’s why bigots will reflexively dismiss any form of diversity in the workplace, academia, even superhero movies, as “DEI.”
The irony, of course, is that right-wingers have used people of Asian descent as a cudgel against affirmative action, particularly in college admissions. Critics argued that colleges held applicants of Asian descent to higher performance standards and actively limited their enrollment numbers compared to other racial groups, specifically Black Americans. This was the foundation for the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard Supreme Court case. The conservative majority ruled that race-based affirmative action programs in almost all college admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which they acknowledged exists for the purpose of this decision.
French’s post was so over-the-top dueling banjos racist that Republicans denounced his remarks.
“This is racism, plain and simple,” state Rep. Drew Darby from San Angelo said. “I have served on the Energy Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Railroad Commission, for most of my tenure in the Texas House, and I have never seen conduct so unbecoming of a Railroad Commissioner or candidate in that time.”
Sen. John Cornyn, who’s already lost his seat, mustered the courage to condemn French’s post and what it says about today’s GOP.
"This is the Republican nominee for statewide office," Cornyn lamented on social media. “Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalized. This is how great political parties self-destruct. Sad.”
Democrat James Talarico thanked Cornyn for his statement and pressed his Republican Senate opponent, Ken Paxton, to condemn French’s racism. Paxton’s response and was peak MAGA:
“I condemn racism in all its forms, including James Talarico saying white men are America’s top terror threat and that he prays to overcome his own ‘whiteness,’ whatever that means. Only one person in this race has a history of dividing Texans by race, and it’s James Talarico. I will continue to focus on uniting our State and bringing together the broadest possible coalition to fight for Texas, our values, and our families.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott notably released a statement that danced around French’s racism while arguably agreeing with his absurd premise: “A selective picture of Longhorn fans celebrating our biggest home victory-ever-actually shows a way that Texans unite. We all support our college football teams. The way we win the state is the same way we win football games. We unite under the brand of Texas. That doesn’t mean that Texas cannot also lead in having the toughest immigration laws of any state in America and freezing H1B visas at our universities.”
Republican State Rep. Lacey Hull responded to French’s post, “Please delete this. This post breaks my heart. I see college kids cheering on their football team.” The Fort Worth Young Republicans angrily snapped back, “The weepy moralizing is disgusting. Why doesn’t your heart break for the Heritage Texans who were locked out of opportunity at our state flagship? Every spot that goes to an immigrant is a spot taken away from Texans whose families made UT a world class university.”
French’s post crudely but clearly communicates that MAGA’s predominant issue with immigration is not an unreasoning fear of terrorists and rapists. No, these “Heritage” Americans can’t stand anyone thriving in the United States who’s slightly darker than skim milk.
Last week, at the GOP’s desperate midterm hate rally, Vice President JD Vance told a crowd of Trump sycophants, “We were tired of being called racist for noticing that our country was becoming dirtier and poorer and less safe and less prosperous.” (Don’t watch below.)
MAGA’s dystopian campfire tales around a burning cross always ignore that Donald Trump was president from 2017 to 2021. As with every malignant narcissist’s fantasy, the world went to absolute hell in the tragically brief period Trump was out of office. When Vance said “we,” he’s referring exclusively to the white people who noticed with mounting frustration that their broke-ass towns had become poorer, less safe, and less prosperous, and rather than look inward, they instead blamed the imagined “dirty” immigrants. They also somehow blame the same immigrants for “taking” spots at universities and jobs that they believe rightly belong to their stupid kids.
Rep. Drew Darby added in his social media post chastising French: “The right thing to do is immediately delete this and issue an apology.”
Of course, the post remains up, and French won’t apologize. Today’s Republican has no interest in ever doing the “right thing.” Although, Karl Rove did announce that he’ll vote for French’s Democratic opponent, Jon Rosenthal, but for MAGA, that just means that Rove is part of the accursed “establishment.”
“The establishment raised and spent $7 million against me in the primary,” French said on Monday. “Many of the people who criticized me yesterday were some of the same people involved in that effort. It’s no surprise that the less-conservative people in Texas are the ones attacking me.”
French is hardly nouveau racist. Sunday’s social media post was consistent with his past words and deeds, but maybe it was enough to finally trigger a “have you no sense of decency?” moment. Predictably, Trump dismissed Rove as a “loser” for rejecting French. There’s never a decency moment for him.
Interesting that everyone assumes those are foreign students.
I wonder if anyone in that racist circlejerk even realizes that actual "Heritage Texans" ARE most accurately of Indigenous and Latino descent...