Recently, a former Missouri candidate for Secretary of State announced her decision to run for Congress in Texas’s 31st District. According to press releases and news reports, her central platform appears to focus on removing “immigrants” from the state of Texas.
Now, I know I am not the only one wondering how anyone could present the removal of immigrants as a fresh, unique or even interesting political idea in 2025. It’s the same old hate for the holiday season. Different colors, same ole reason.
And even though one just moved in, let me be clear: I am not suggesting that Texas is full of rednecks, bigots or people harboring prejudice against those born abroad or rooted in another land. I am saying something else — something far more familiar. Missouri has once again managed to export hate. And not the generic, old-fashioned kind of hate. No, we have managed to export a version so oddly shaped it seems almost confused about its own identity.
The candidate in question — who finished sixth in Missouri’s Republican Secretary of State primary with nearly 50,000 votes — could, based on her appearance alone, be mistaken for someone targeted in an immigration raid. The irony is astonishing: a person who could easily be profiled under the very policies she promotes is now championing those policies as a path to federal office.
But even if we look past skin color, even if we set aside what she has been called and what she has chosen to call others, the deeper question remains: How do any of us, guests in this land first stewarded by Native peoples, see ourselves with such denial, such self-justification, such grandiosity? How do we cite Scripture in one hand while using the other to call for the removal of our neighbors — our brothers and sisters — based solely on birthplace — or is that confused with skin color?
On behalf of the Missouri NAACP, I offer this: We are sorry. We apologize to the people of Texas and to the nation that we were not able to address this strain of hate and fear before it crossed state lines. After Dredd Scott, the Missouri Compromise and the Rams, you would think we could do better. Of course, in all candor, had we known that bigotry migrates when it fails politically at home, we would have tried even harder to stop it here sooner.
If you have a dollar to spare, we are fighting Jim Crow gerrymandering of the Black Congressmen (2) in Missouri. Help us continue our campaign to confront Missouri hate wherever it shows up — at our ballot boxes, in our public square, and, yes, even when it tries to take the next flight to Texas. The work is real, and we cannot do it without you. Please visit us at http://www.monaacp.org to join the cause for freedom.
Nimrod Chapel Jr. of Jefferson City is president of the Missouri State Conference NAACP and writes a monthly column for the News Tribune.
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