Texas Tea Party candidate Chris Mapp won’t apologize for anti-immigrant racial slur

Republican Senate hopeful Chris Mapp says that in Texas, using this slur is as "normal as breathing air"

Published February 25, 2014 5:02PM (EST)

The Arizona-Mexico border fence near Naco, Arizona.      (Reuters/Samantha Sais)
The Arizona-Mexico border fence near Naco, Arizona. (Reuters/Samantha Sais)

With every passing day, it looks less and less like incumbent Texas Sen. John Cornyn need worry about losing the GOP primary this coming March. And the fact that his opponents are people like businessman Chris Mapp (or Rep. Steve Stockman, or turtle-hater Dwayne Stovall) is a big reason why.

One of the many far-right Texans hoping to overthrow Cornyn, the Senate GOP's second-in-command, Mapp is on defense for racist comments he recently made in an interview with the editorial board of the Dallas Morning News.

In an editorial explaining why it's endorsing Cornyn in the upcoming primary, the editorial board of the Dallas Morning News revealed that during a meeting with Mapp, the Tea Party Texan said ranchers should be allowed to shoot people they suspect of sneaking across the border separating Mexico from the United States on-sight.

"[Mapp] told this editorial board that ranchers should be allowed to shoot on sight anyone illegally crossing the border on to their land," reads the editorial before noting that Mapp "referred to such people as 'wetbacks.'"

In addition to advocating murder, Mapp also apparently told the board that he considered President Barack Obama to be a "socialist son of a bitch."

Asked later about the remarks by the San Antonio Express-News, Mapp refused to apologize, saying that using the racist slur was “normal as breathing air in South Texas" and that the Dallas Morning News hadn't provided readers with his full thoughts on border security.

“We can't have illegal immigrants, drug cartels, human traffickers or terrorists coming across our border,” he told the San Antonio Express-News. “Our borders can either be sealed by choice or force, and so far choice hasn't worked.”


By Elias Isquith

Elias Isquith is a former Salon staff writer.

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