A GOP activist supported Florida’s Republican candidate for governor, Ron DeSantis for years. Now, he has made the argument that the politician’s “monkey up” comment was not racist. Of course, Steven Alembik may be slightly biased.
Alembik owns a data and email services company in Boca Raton, Florida, and he has contributed $22,920 to DeSantis over the politician’s career. According to the Floridian, calling DeSantis a racist was unfair, but keep in mind that the activist called President Barack Obama a “F—— MUSLIM N—-,” according to POLITICO. He continued his rant, claiming that the language that is racially offensive was not so when he was growing up:
‘So somebody like Chris Rock can get up onstage and use the word and there’s no problem? But some white guy says it and he’s a racist? Really? I grew up in New York in the ‘50s. We were the k—-. They were the n——. They were the goyim. And those were the s—-.’
He admitted to using the N-word as an epithet, because he was angry at a tweet from the RNC (Republican National Committee):
‘Over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican Party.’
The RNC wrote:
‘Without a hint of irony, Obama smears President Trump’s 63 million Republican voters as divisive & resentful.’
Initially, Alembik said he didn’t believe those were his words. Yet, after reviewing the tweet, he said:
‘When I write anything inflammatory, it’s because I’m seriously pissed off. I’m an emotional human being. Do I have a filter on what I say? In public, yes. Would I use that word in public? No. This is Twitter.’
Alembik has also compared the percentage of Jewish Nobel Prize winners to Muslims. When POLITICO asked whether his comments might seem anti-Muslim, he responded:
‘Of course they would. But it’s not meant to be. These are just the statistics and the facts … I’m not anti-Muslim. I’m anti-people-trying-to-kill me.’
Yet, after talking to POLITICO, Alembik deleted the tweet.
The activist moved a fundraising gala to Mar-a-Lago right after Trump said white supremacists were “very fine people” in a speech about the Charlottesville protests. This was soon after one of them ran into a peacefully protesting woman with his car, and she died. Alembik said:
‘I’d like to come here and show our support for the president of the United States.’
The reason DeSantis was involved with the gala was that he had known Alembik for years. A said:
‘I told him the next time I see him I’m going to charge him because I’ve got more pictures with him than I have of my kids.’
DeSantis campaign spokesperson, Stephen Lawson, released a written statement distancing from the activist. It read:
‘We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: we adamantly denounce this sort of disgusting rhetoric.’
Governor Rick Scott’s campaign for the U.S. Senate took in $,1000 from Alembik, but kept its distance due to the statements:
‘We will be donating his contribution to Shriners Hospital. These comments are disgusting. As the governor has said, there is no room for any racial politics here in Florida. No attempts to divide people by race or ethnicity will be tolerated.’
DeSantis has been trying to get the press to focus on his education and environment platform instead of his earlier comments. He said:
‘We got to focus on the issues here, so please judge our campaign on our ideas, on our agenda, on what we are saying and I’m happy to defend that, and I thank you guys for coming out. Thank you.’
The gubernatorial candidate had told reporters in Orlando earlier:
‘We’re not playing this game of any single person who says something on social media or does this or that, I can’t do that. I’m responsible for what I post and I’m happy to be that. I’m responsible for what I run on, my commercials, and I’m happy for, I’m responsible for anyone who is officially employed on the campaign. But I’m not going to go down these rabbit holes and say this person did this, that person did that, at some time on social media or everything. You know, that’s a rabbit hole.’
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
