‘I Am An Immigrant’: Tennessee Republican Blasts Expelled Democrat for Intimidation, ‘Racial Slur’

Sabi Kumar, an Indian-American Republican legislator in the Tennessee House of Representatives, slammed his newly-famous ex-colleague, Justin Jones for calling him a “brown face of white supremacy” shortly before the body voted to expel Jones for his role in leading a protest calling for gun control measures on the House floor.

Jones, a Democrat, has emphasized his race throughout the proceedings, at one point accusing another Republican member of implying that he was an “uppity Negro.

In an emotional speech, the 75-year-old Kumar said that it was the first instance, in the 53 years since he immigrated to the United States, that he had a “slur” directed toward him:

I am an immigrant, everybody knows. I have been in this country for 53 years, and when it was 50 years, you recognized me for that. It was a celebration in my mind and for my family.

In those 53 years in America, I have never encountered a racial slur. I’m really not aware that any of that applies to me. I live a good life. Yet you on tape call me a brown face. Yessir, it’s on tape.

According to Kumar, Jones had also committed an act of physical intimidation flagrant enough to compel the chamber’s sergeant-at-arms to intervene.

You walked up to me, you had no business coming up to me, you were sitting a row or two ahead of me. You shoved your finger in my face and said, you shoved your finder in my face and said ‘Kumar, they will never accept you.’ You said it twice. And you were so intimidating that the sergeant-at-arms without my invitation came and intervened between us. Sir, that is very disappointing.

After Kumar finished his statement by calling Jones “a talented young man” who has “a lot to offer” and imploring him to change his behavior, Jones responded to the allegations:

There’s a lot to unpack there, Representative Kumar. I don’t even know where to start, to be honest. I mean, it’s sad what you just stated to me, and that’s what this is really about. He said ‘You see everything under the lens of race, when you join this body, you should just become one of us. Just assimilate.’

That’s very disappointing to hear, my friend. And what I told you was, what you just exhibited, as the only member of their caucus that’s not of the Caucasian persuasion, I said that you put a brown face on white supremacy. That’s what I said.