BY MARC MUNROE DION
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Gunabama, announced recently that he has no objection to white supremacists serving in the military forces of the United States of America.
"I call them Americans," Tuberville said of our brave Nazis in uniform.
I call them Americans, too, although I usually add another word to the description. "Nutjob Americans." "American Nazis." Stuff like that.
They must have known when he was born that he would someday be the senator from Alabama because they named him "Thomas Hawley Tuberville," a name that rings with the odor of the outhouse and the gentle smell of boiling hog jowls.
A race hustler, just like Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan, Tuberville was quick to figure out that the folks in his state want fascism more than they want a decent education or affordable dental care, and he's been carrying the tattered remains of the rebel flag ever since.
During his pre-senatorial days, Tuberville not only played high school and college football; he coached football at Ole Miss, Texas A&M, Arkansas State and a few colleges in the South.
He is, in short, a decorative item who would be a laughingstock if he ran in any state that has sane gun laws and sometimes elects people named "Epstein" to public office.
I find it interesting that Tuberville spent most of his life coaching college football, one of the few remaining jobs in which a white man can yell at Black men while they exhaust themselves working in the hot sun. It's the closest a man can get to owning a plantation prior to the War of Northern Aggression.
He respects the American military. He doesn't respect the Black men and women who serve in the American military, but he respects the by God living hell out of Nazi wannabes who serve in the American military for which I pay.
But what the hell. Maybe he does believe that all Americans should be welcome in the military.
So, Sen. Gritsngravy, I need to know a few things.
Do you believe drag queens should serve in the U.S. military? Uniforms on duty, ballgowns off duty? Do you believe Communists should serve in the military, as long as they don't pass out copies of "The Communist Manifesto" while on duty? How about Black Lives Matter supporters? How about transsexuals? Should you be able to serve honorably after you get your plumbing re-routed?
I call them all "Americans," Sen. Pigskin, how about you?
In America, only race matters. Everything else can be denied or ignored, but race always matters. Sometimes it gets better, and sometimes it gets worse, but it doesn't go away. Because of this, in big parts of the country, cynically dimwitted candidates can get elected to office by kicking the hell out of whatever race your constituency fears the most. I've seen Black politicians get elected that way, and I've seen white politicians get elected that way.
In closing, Sen. Trailerpark, I remind you that the Confederacy fielded an army composed almost entirely of white supremacists. Final score? America 1, Confederacy 0. Immigrant soldiers and Black soldiers formed a good part of the American army that knocked hell out of the "we is whiter than you all" bunch.
Damn it. Damn it to hell. The white supremacists never win.
Dion's latest book, a collection of his best columns, is called "Devil's Elbow: Dancing in the Ashes of America." It is available in paperback from Amazon.com, and for Nook, Kindle, and iBooks.