As a college football coach, Tommy Tuberville had a successful career.
As a US Senator, Tommy Tuberville has successfully maintained his allegiance to Republican talking points, patterns of behavior and ideology.
Since he’s been in office, we’ve witnessed how the freshman Alabama senator managed to hide his racist nature for over three decades as a collegiate coach and won his current position by never revealing it until election time.
Now he’s unleashed it for all to see.
Politics As Usual
Three weeks ago, during an interview with NPR affiliate WBHM, Tuberville showed his true self when he vilified Democrats by accusing the party of weakening the military by wanting to purge hate from its ranks.
“We are losing in the military so fast. Our readiness in terms of recruitment,” Tuberville said, according to the station’s transcript of the May 4 interview. “And why? I’ll tell you why. Because the Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white extremists, the white nationalists, people that don’t believe in our agenda.”
Tuberville’s “people that don’t believe in our agenda” is an interesting choice of words.
Pressed on whether white nationalists should be allowed to serve in the U.S. military, Tuberville doubled down.
“Well, they call them that. I call them Americans.”
Afterward, Tuberville was scorched. While attempting to clarify his comments, Tuberville further exposed himself.
“Democrats portray all Trump people as white nationalists. That’s what I was saying,” said Tuberville. “There’s a lot of good people that are Trump supporters that for some reason my Democratic colleagues want to portray as white nationalists. That’s not true.”
His wordplay can’t deflect the fact that he wouldn’t denounce white nationalists serving in the military. Instead, he characterized them as Americans and jumped to the defense of the former president.
Here’s why that’s absolutely preposterous.
As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Tuberville proudly extolls the following on his Senate committee assignment page:
The work of this committee is critical to ensuring our military has the resources it needs to protect our country against current and future threats, and it’s our responsibility to give our servicemen and women the support they deserve to ensure our military remains the greatest fighting force in the world.
Ok, but this is the same man who is currently denying the military the resources it needs by holding up Senate approval of almost 650 senior officers due to the Pentagon’s abortion policy, which provides travel funds and support for troops and dependents seeking abortions but who are based in states that prohibit the healthcare procedure.
This holdup, said Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is “unsettling for the institution” and will cause the military to be weakened over time.
Tuberville’s experience in playing games on Saturday afternoons in the fall is obviously coming in handy on the Senate floor.
And this isn’t Tuberville’s first coordinated political game plan.
Instilling Fear Through Racial Politics
At a rally for the former president in Nevada in October 2022, he played the role of inflammatory racist minus explicitly derogatory language.
“They’re not soft on crime,” said Tuberville of Democrats. “They’re pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparation because they think the people that do the crime are owed that.”
While he never specifically mentioned Black people, there’s only one group associated with reparation discussions, so let’s not feign ignorance.
Yet in 2022, most crime stats were down across the nation including violent crimes, drug crimes and domestic violence. And while robberies increased, the number was still lower than 2019 pre-pandemic levels.
Also of interest is the fact that hate crimes rose in 2022 and the largest target was African Americans. But racial politics conveniently shift Black people from victims to perpetrators.
And Republicans of Tuberville’s ilk unapologetically participate in these games.
Oppression Through Educational Suppression
Tuberville has now joined his party’s attack on education, another ploy to suffocate the development of all who could expose and combat the party’s ignorance and faux crusades against everything they oppose.
In an interview with the former president’s son, Tuberville aimed his venom at inner-city teachers.
“The Covid really brought it out about how bad our schools are and how bad our teachers are, in the inner city,” said Tuberville, quickly adding “inner city” at the end of the sentence to make sure he included a key talking point of racial politics, for we all know what inner city denotes.
“Most of them in the inner city….I don’t know how they got degrees…I don’t know whether they can read or write.”
Now that he’s attacked urban education, let’s look at Tuberville’s educational background.
He grew up in Camden, Arkansas and attended Harmony Grove High School before going to Southern Arkansas University where he majored in physical education.
He wasn’t raised or educated in an inner city. The closest he’s come to one was when he was coaching at the University of Miami and at Cincinnati.
Perhaps he should spend some real time in inner city schools to understand the challenges teachers face and the lack of resources most encounter.
Or better yet, he should pay more attention to his high school as it ranks #115 in Arkansas.
But this is the current strategy fascist conservatives like Florida governor Ron DeSantis employ.
He and others like Texas Governor Greg Abbott attack education at all levels with false claims and narratives. Then they take over and purge school boards and districts, eliminate diversity programs and attempt to erase Black history and learning opportunities that will truly educate.
Now Tuberville has joined them.
“I’ve spent 40 years in the education space,” states Tuberville, who also sits on the HELP (Health, Education, Labor and Pensions) committee, on his senate page. “I’ve seen up close the unique challenges and opportunities facing our students and educators.”
The college gridiron is not the classroom, so trashing teachers without classroom experience is absolutely ridiculous.
His comments immediately drew impassioned reactions from the Alabama Education Association and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, the latter stating Tuberville’s “smearing of teachers, teaching and knowledge is not new, but this cacophony of stereotypical, dehumanizing tropes is a new low.”
“He could only wish to possess the skills and knowledge that educators have, whether they work in urban Birmingham or urban Brooklyn,” said Weingarten.
Tuberville, once again (as is seemingly the norm for him), tried to clarify his comments. His team said Tuberville was referencing a recent story about 23 Baltimore schools failing in math proficiency. But instead of specifically mentioning the city, he transformed it into a referendum on all inner city schools and teachers.
As Weingarten stated, we all know what this is.
Warning For Black Athletes
Tommy Tuberville is a warning sign for all Black athletes. And this is why they must be more conscious during their recruiting trips and signing decisions.
As a coach, Tuberville understood what he needed to win.
In 1995, he arrived at Ole Miss, a program hit by sanctions and the loss of scholarships. After realizing how hard it was to recruit talent, he reportedly told supporters that fans waving the Confederate flag hurt recruiting.
He understood that absent Black players, Ole Miss couldn’t win. So without overtly demanding the flag’s removal or simply denouncing it and what it stands for, he suggested the team could recruit better (Black) talent to join the program and win if fans refrained from waving the flag.
Decades later, now that he’s comfortable in his Senate seat, he has no problem playing racial politics against the very group he once depended on to win games.
Coach Tuberville knew that if a play was working, keep running it until the opposition stops it.
Senator Tuberville has adopted the same belief.
Tuberville has a habit of saying things that he knows will incite anger and then quickly responds that his comments were “taken out of context.”
That’s not an innocent mistake; that’s purposeful and he knows it.
Supporting the former president helped him win his Senate seat. Playing racial politics, refusing to denounce white nationalism, obstructing long-standing procedures for political points, not supporting the certification of votes, wanting to overlook the January 6th insurrection, attacking education and educators, being anti-abortion and anti-LQGTQ+, and employing fear tactics helps Tuberville retain his supporters.
“I have no regrets,” said Tuberville of voting against certifying the election.
Now that the real Tommy Tuberville has been exposed, Black athletes must come to a realization.
They must recognize their power and the options they have in selecting a program and, most importantly, a coach to play for.
They must take the time and learn the true politics of a coach before committing, for their choice could elevate a future Tommy Tuberville, which could ultimately influence an election that impacts the future of Black America.
Don’t think so? Watch what could happen in 2024.
