If black St. Petersburg, Florida, constituents don’t see that President Barack Obama was a form of reparation, nor do they want to accept the conditions in this country, they can just “go back to Africa.”
That’s what Republican candidate Paul Congemi candidate for mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida tells the activists in debate. He said to mayoral opponent Jesse Nevel and all the members of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, typically a socialist organization of the white people who believe that only reparations can help to end the increasing racial inequality in the USA, at a forum Tuesday. Nevel is a white, believes in the slogan, “Unity through reparations.”
“Mr. Nevel you and your people talk about reparations. The reparations that you talk about, Mr. Nevel, your people already got your reparations. Your reparations came in the form of a man named Barack Obama. My advice to you, if you don’t like it here in America, planes leave every hour from Tampa airport. Go back to Africa. Go back to Africa. Go back,” Congemi said, while pointing a finger at the crowd.
“Get out of here,” a woman in the audience is heard saying several times in a clip of the debate. Sitting St. Petersburg mayor Rick Kriseman strongly condemned Congemi’s hateful tirade the next day, saying “it’s hateful, bigoted, and unacceptable toward black and gay Floridians”.
Congemi considers homosexuality being “immoral.”
Nevel said, “Congemi’s comment reflects a segment of my community. I’ve met plenty of other people who feel that way. That’s why I feel that it’s important for those of us in the white community to take a public stand with reparations.”
Congemi later in a brief interviw told the Washington Post that he wasn’t encouraging all black people of the United States of America to return to Africa—he has “nothing against African Americans who are doing their best here in America.” He said they “heckled” him at the debate, and called Nevel a “self-hating white man.”
Congemi still considers himself to be a lifelong Democrat who became a Republican after President Obama supported gay marriages. Now he’s a President Trump supporter. It is also a recorded fact that Trump had previously pledged his support to the LGBTQ community.
His verbal whiplash created a wave of hatred to be seen on twitter toward his comments. He says the people who think he is a racist have misunderstood him.
Later he said, “I’ll run again in 2019 and, God willing, if I’m alive in 2021, I’ll run then, too,” Congemi said. “I intend to keep running and running and running.”
h/t the Root