Auburn's Stanley McClover picks up coach Tommy Tuberville in Auburn, Ala., Sept. 18, 2004. (AP Photo/Todd J. Van Emst)
Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is under fire for racist remarks he made on Oct. 8.
The former college coach and first-time sensation claimed that Democrats are “pro-crime” and favor reparations for the descendants of slaves because they believe “the people that do the crime are owed that.”
“They’re not soft on crime. They’re pro-crime. They want crime,” Tuberville, 68, said of Democrats. “They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bulls**t. They are not owed that.”
Tuberville is a retired college football coach and politician serving as the junior U.S. senator from Alabama since 2021. Before entering politics, Tuberville was the head football coach at Auburn University from 1999 to 2008. He was also the head football coach at the University of Mississippi from 1995 to 1998, Texas Tech University from 2010 to 2012, and the University of Cincinnati from 2013 to 2016.
An ally of former President Donald Trump, Tuberville was among a group of Republican senators who attempted to overturn Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential election, The New York Times reported.
Tuberville made the controversial remarks during a rally held by Trump in Minden, Nevada, in support of the state’s Republican candidates in the upcoming November elections.
Civil Rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton told MSNBC that Tuberville’s comments are “factually off” and people in Alabama “ought to be offended.”
Some violent crime has actually decreased according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI said that violent crime decreased by 1 percent in the U.S. in 2021, and the robbery rate fell 8.9 percent from 2020 to 2021. While murder rate in the U.S. did increase by a whopping 4.3 percent, according to the FBI data, it is significantly lower than the 29.4 percent increase in the murder rate from 2019 to 2020. But this data is incomplete as the bureau revealed nearly half of law enforcement agencies did not submit data in 2021, resulting in an incomplete picture and gaps in coverage, CBS News reported.
FBI data released in December, reported that more than half of known offenders, 50.8 percent were white, and 29.6 percent were Black or African-American.
Auburn’s Stanley McClover picks up coach Tommy Tuberville after their 10-9 win against LSU in Auburn, Ala., Sept. 18, 2004. (AP Photo/Todd J. Van Emst)
