Hispanics and African-Americans “Remember the Alamo” Differently—at Least Some of Them Do

The Texas Nationalist Movement (T.N.M.), an organization which would like the United States’ second-largest state to secede, held its first annual Texas Independence Conference in the former Republic of Texas capital of Washington-on-the-Brazos over the November 3-4 weekend, just before the national (i.e., United States) election.  Recently, I reported in this blog that the T.N.M. was prepared to send out vigilantes to interfere with monitoring of Texas polling places by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (O.S.C.E.).  At this first conclave, however, things were more introspective.  Attendees heard, among other messages, that Texan separatists need to start appealing to non-whites.

An image from the T.N.M. website

Apostle Claver Kamau-Imani, a prominent African-American conservative from Houston, told the assembled that right-wing groups such as the T.N.M. need to start recruiting voters of color, explaining, “You wonder why the socialists keep pouring millions and millions of dollars into Texas even though they don’t win a lot of elections?  That’s because the demographics are changing.  Eventually they are going to turn Texas blue.  We’re going to have to recognize that we have ourselves a demographic crisis.  Here’s the good news: voters of color share our values.  ...  When it comes to taxation, border security, protecting the lives of the unborn, they agree with us on all those points” (they? us? Kamau-Imani’s pronouns are tipping his hand a bit here).  “They have nothing in common,” he went on, “with a liberal, a socialist, a communist, a fascist.”

Apostle Claver Kamau-Imani addresses Texas separatists

What Kamau-Imani fails to note is that there are some “values” that Americans of color tend not to share with his nearly all-white audience, such as the nostalgia for slavery and segregation that created and continues to energize Southern and Texan secessionism—and the thinly-veiled racism that drives right-wing extremists like the T.N.M. to brand Barack Obama, absurdly, a “communist” and a “fascist.”

Kamau-Imani, an evangelical Christian and founder of the political action committee (PAC) RagingElephants.org, gained notoriety last year when, at a campaign rally for the dim-witted pizza mogul Herman Cain, he called the Democratic Party the party of the Ku Klux Klan.

Meanwhile, after Obama’s reelection on November 6th, the T.N.M.’s president, Daniel Miller, announced on his website, “This presidential election serves as a clear signal from the rest of the Union to Texas—we do not care for your right of local self-government and we do not share your values.”  The organization—based in Nederland, in southeastern Texas, between Port Arthur and Beaumont, and boasting a support base of a quarter-million (surely exaggerated)—continues to petition Texas’s legislature to consider secession. There is also a movement online to draft the action-film star Chuck Norris to be Texas’s first president (he was born in Oklahoma, but never mind).

After Sonny Bono and Arnold Schwarzenegger, nothing seems ridiculous anymore.

He has every right to argue and struggle for the America that he wants, but Kamau-Imani should not be surprised if Texas’s Latinos and African-Americans remember the Alamo a little differently from the intolerant, gun-happy vigilantes that make up the Texas Nationalist Movement.

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  (That is shorter than the previous working title.)  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this special announcement for more information on the book.]

Yee-Haw (Again)! Texas Patriots Ready to Defend Their State against O.S.C.E. Election Observers

Recently in this blog, I reported on the judge and sheriff in Lubbock County, Texas, who committed themselves to defending their square-shaped scrap of desert from the jackbooted United Nations in case Barack Obama is reelected.  On that occasion, I opined that the jury was still out on whether there’s something in Texas’s air or soil that makes people stupid, or whether stupid people just tend to move to Texas.  Well, we’re no closer to answering that question, but here is further evidence to consider.

An image from a right-wing website commenting on the O.S.C.E. “issue”

Texas’s Republican attorney general, Greg Abbott, raised the alarm this week about election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (O.S.C.E.) monitoring polling places in Texas during the November 6th national elections.  Abbott wrote on October 23rd to the O.S.C.E.’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (hmm, sounds kinda socialist, don’t it?) to voice his objections.  In fact, such election observing is actually part of a long-standing and completely routine exchange of observers among nations in the 56-member O.S.C.E. (which includes the United States).  The O.S.C.E. observed U.S. elections at the invitation of Pres. George W. Bush during his administration, for example; meanwhile, the alliance serves to try to hold recalcitrant young democracies like Uzbekistan and Belarus to a higher standard—and educate all member nations about how democracy is going in other member nations.  No one is actually policing or enforcing anything.

Texas attorney general Greg Abbott struggles with some big words on a cue card,
with the Ten Commandments as a backdrop.

Laudable, no?  Not to Abbott, whose letter stated, “Our concern is that this isn’t some benign observation but something intended to be far more prying and maybe even an attempt to suppress voter integrity,” and he made vague threats that observers could be prosecuted.  Please note—and I cannot sufficiently emphasize this—this is not a sheriff or judge in some shit-ass Texas county in the middle of nowhere.  This is the attorney general of the entire state of Texas.  He has a law degree from Vanderbilt University, no less.  Presumably, he can even read and tie his shoes and stuff.  To add to the fun, Texas’s tiny-brained Republican governor, Rick Perry, has commented on the subject too, tweeting, “No U.N. monitors/inspectors will be part of any TX election process”—confusing, in typical fashion, the O.S.C.E. with the dreaded diabolical satanic United Nations.  As you can imagine, Hillary Rodham Clinton gets singled out for demonization quite a bit as well in comments on this controversy in the online redneckosphere.

Meanwhile, Daniel Miller, president of the Texas Nationalist Movement (T.N.M.), which supports secession from the United States, said that his organization “condemns the outright contempt of the sovereignty of Texas by the Obama regime, its partisan support groups, and international N.G.O.s.  These three have conspired to attack the foundation of our republican form of government which is rightly guaranteed to Texans in the Texas Constitution under Article 1, Section 2.”  The T.N.M. will be sending its own observers to polling stations, Miller stated, promising citizens’ arrests if O.S.C.E. observers try anything funny.

“Citizen’s arrest!  Citizen’s arrest!”

Silly?  Well, yes and no.  This non-issue is a useful one for Texan politicians eager for votes this election year, since it erects a phony composite enemy made up of all the different things that most Texan Republicans hate: democratic checks and balances, confident professional women, pointy-headed intellekchels, ferners, and black people.

And don’t even get me started on those jack-booted thugs from Unesco.  You jes’ try ’n’ declare the Alamo any kinda commie/socialist/hippie “world heritage site” ’n’ we’ll rip you two new assholes.  Darn tootin’.

[You can read more about Texan sovereigntists and other separatist and new-nation movements, both famous and obscure, in my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this special announcement for more information on the book.]