A Republican politician’s post describing South Asian students celebrating a football game has drawn attention, with people on both sides of the political aisle calling it racist.
Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commissioner Bo French, who had called for the deportation of 100 million immigrants, shared a photo of students of South Asian descent cheering the Longhorns’ win and said the scene showed “how many Americans have been displaced by foreigners.” He also shared the same photo separately and wrote, “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
French was criticized by fellow Republican John Cornyn, who called on other Republican officials to speak out.
“This is the Republican nominee for statewide office,” Cornyn wrote on X.
“Are other Republican elected officials going to condemn the intolerance and racism, or look the other way while it becomes normalised? This is how great political parties self-destruct. Sad,” said Cornyn, who is co-chair of the U.S. Senate India Caucus.
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Some Republicans, including former Texas GOP Chair Matt Rinaldi, condemned Cornyn and supported French. Rinaldi accused Cornyn and other Republicans of mortgaging “our children’s future for government handouts and cheap labour.”
However, French drew condemnation from some other Republicans, as well as Democrats.
“@KenPaxtonTX: Will you condemn this blatant racism, or will you cower to extremists?” asked James Talarico, the Democratic candidate in the Senate elections against Paxton.
“Please delete this. This post breaks my heart. I see college kids cheering on their football team. I see Texans,” Lacey Hull, a Texas state representative, said on X.
State Representative Jared Patterson said French’s post was racist and that it demeaned students because of their race or ethnicity.
Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi described French’s post as “xenophobic”.
The controversy comes amid rising conflict over immigration and racism. Texas is home to an estimated 1.9 million Asian Americans, including more than 450,000 Indian Americans.
“Bo French’s xenophobic hate toward South Asian students is disgraceful and part of a broader rise in attacks targeting South Asian Americans across the country,” Krishnamoorthi said.
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Several Indian American advocacy groups also criticized French’s posts and asked elected leaders to condemn the remarks.
“With anti-Indian & anti-Hindu hatred at an all-time high, our elected leaders must condemn this rhetoric and eradicate this cancer from our political discourse,” Hindu American Foundation said in a post on X.
“The Indian American Advocacy Council unequivocally condemns Bo French’s disgusting racist attack on brown students at the University of Texas,” the IAAC said in a post on X.
“He looked at a photograph of brown students cheering for their university and immediately decided they were “foreigners”. That is racism,” the IAAC said.