Travis Clardy comes from a family of slave owners, Confederates, and white supremacists. It should be no surprise that he voted to make sure the Jim Crow statues in Texas stay where they are.
Today Travis Clardy was one of the five Republicans in the Cultural, Recreation, and Tourism Committee who voted in favor of a law that would make it illegal for municipalities to remove Jim Crow statues. It’s unsurprising since, during the Committee hearing, Clardy was the most vocal about these odes to white supremacy that litter the great state of Texas.
That particular committee hearing was over seven hours long, and it was interesting to watch Clardy’s body language and interactions with the witnesses who testified on the bill.
When the racist, hate group members, and domestic terrorists would approach the podium, Clardy would ignore them, often looking down at his phone.
He didn’t make eye contact with the witnesses who took the podium and spouted racial rhetoric towards Hispanics. And he didn’t look up at the crazy man who said equality was demonic and Black and white people were biologically different.
He didn’t make eye contact with the dozen or so militia members who admitted to engaging in domestic terrorist activity last year.
He didn’t make eye contact with the older men who were likely alive during the Civil War when they proudly repeated Lost Cause rhetoric.
The reason he didn’t look up at them is because he agreed with their stances.
Then, when those in opposition to memorializing racist traitors went to the podium to speak, Travis Clardy took the floor to ask them questions. Except, mostly, he didn’t really ask questions. It was more like he was trying to get them to see “the other side of things.”
Like many of the racists who went to testify that day, Clardy kept using the argument of time relevance. They asserted that we couldn’t call the Confederacy immoral or not virtuous because we looked at things through a modern scope. If we were in 1865, we would look at slavery and the Confederacy different.
Which is absolutely wrong, and history tells us so.
Clardy and the others forget that the Civil War happened because the Northern Union States saw slavery as immoral.
In 1861, Congressman Benjamin Stanton from Ohio said, “African slavery was unwise, unchristian, and immoral.”
In 1863, the Catholic Church said slavery was immoral.
Across the sea at the same time, prominent English man, George F. Train, gave speeches regarding the immorality of slavery.
Even the French Government spoke out about the immorality of slavery in the Confederate South.
Slavery was immoral, and the Confederacy, which fought to uphold slavery, had no virtue. IT isn’t about time relevance. In the 1860s, when the Confederacy was formed, the North and countries worldwide agreed it was immoral. There has never been a time in history outside of the Confederate South where the Confederacy was thought to be virtuous. Those who believe that today, like Representative Travis Clardy, are no more than victims of the Lost Cause.
Travis Clardy spoke about heritage and culture being passed down from generation to generation.
What heritage has been passed down to Travis Clardy?
He was born in Lubbock in 1962. In 1970 the United States sued Lubbock Independent School District because they still had segregated schools.
Using Clardy’s argument about heritage and culture, are we to assume that he has passed segregationist ideology on to his own children?
As it turns out, Travis Clardy’s very own grandmother (Mrs. Ernest Clardy) was a member of the white supremacist group, the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
It makes you wonder, what kind of “heritage” was Travis Clardy taught at home?
As we all already know, the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan had always had strong ties (especially when Clardy’s grandparents were in their prime in the 1920s and 1930s).
Not only did Travis Clardy vote to make it illegal to remove Jim Crow statues from public land, but he also voted in favor of the Jim Crow voter suppression bill, HB6.
Y’all know I did the research. Representative Clardy had five family members who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, only 100 years before he was born. Of those five, three of his ancestors owned slaves.
I always get a lot of flack for calling these things out, as many of us who live in the South have ancestors who fought for the Confederacy and/or owned slaves. So, the response is often, “who cares?” Most of us have evolved from the beliefs our ancestors once held.
However, listening to what Travis Clardy has to say about heritage, culture, and the virtue and morality of the Confederacy and then learning that his own grandmother was a UDC member speaks volumes.
Undoubtedly, Travis Clardy is a victim of Lost Cause Mythology. It’s hard to blame him for the evil deeds done by all of our Southern Ancestors, particularly the Lost Cause. Clardy grew up in a time in Texas where the history books still lied about the Civil War, and at home, he undoubtedly heard gallant stories of how his ancestors fought to preserve slavery.
The Tik Toks you see are all from the hearing over the Confederate rocks.
You can find the rest of them here.
The people who went to that hearing, who spoke in favor of making it illegal for municipalities to remove Jim Crow statues, were racist. It’s a long video, but if you want to watch it in its entirety, go HERE and look at the Culture, Recreation, and Tourism videos from 4/19.
The response on Tik Tok and Facebook that we kept getting on these videos was, “How is this real life? Don’t these people know it’s 2021?”
They know. They’ve been holding on to white supremacy for generations. Take Travis Clardy, for example. He had multiple family members who fought for the Confederacy and owned slaves. Their children fought to uphold their legacy by joining white supremacist groups like the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Then, their children’s children moved to areas where schools violated federal desegregation laws. And last, their children’s grandchildren held political office and wrote and voted on laws to maintain white supremacy in Texas in 2021.
The fate of the Jim Crow statues.
They are not Confederate statues. They are Jim Crow statues. The vast majority of these statues in Texas were erected at the height of Jim Crow to tell Black Texans that they do not belong. The vast majority of Black Texans still see these statues as white supremacist intimidation tactics implemented in the generations before us and maintained today by people who believe Black people should not have equality. Please don’t take my word for it. Ask any of the dozens of Black-led groups all over Texas who have been working to move these rocks off the public tax-payer property.
Over the last five years, America has seen a dramatic rise in white supremacist groups, ideology, and attacks. Make no mistake, this bill to keep these awful statues in place is just an extension of the racism we have witnessed in America these last few years.
Next step: Now it goes to Calendars, which might or might not schedule it for the floor. Everyone needs to call the clerk of the Calendars committee, Paige Higerd, (512) 463-0758, and say that you think that the House should not prioritize this bill. It’s our last chance to stop it. Please call today.
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