Steve King wonders how terms ‘white nationalist’ and ‘white supremacist’ became offensive

By Itoro N. Umontuen

Steve King serves in the United States House of Representatives, representing Iowa’s 4th Congressional District. He asked how did the terms such as “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” morphed into incendiary and offensive terms in the USA.

“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” King asked in an interview with The New York Times published on Thursday. “Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?”

After the article was published and the flames from his comments spread all over think tanks and social media, King felt like “clarifying” his comments later today.

“I want to make one thing abundantly clear; I reject those labels and the evil ideology that they define,” King explained. “Further, I condemn anyone that supports this evil and bigoted ideology which saw in its ultimate expression the systematic murder of 6 million innocent Jewish lives,” he said in a statement.

“It’s true that like the Founding Fathers I am an advocate for Western Civilization’s values, and that I profoundly believe that America is the greatest tangible expression of these ideals the World has ever seen. Under any fair political definition, I am simply a Nationalist.”

My statement on the New York Times article. pic.twitter.com/IjBHgZYgRD

— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) January 10, 2019

King is an unabashed supporter of President Donald Trump and his hard-line immigration policies. While he is proud to be an American and embraces diversity, the Representative from Iowa has used inflammatory language in the past. Throughout his eight terms in Congress, he once compared immigrants to dogs on May 22, 2012. King also said immigrants had “calves the size of cantaloupes” from hauling marijuana “across the desert.”

King is indeed a white supremacist. The Republican Party has not issued any response to Representative King’s comments.

This article originally appeared in the Atlanta Voice.