If Mike Rogers wanted to distance his Senate campaign from the racism and Islamophobia surrounding the race, holding a fundraiser at the home of a former state lawmaker who once said “we can’t make an African American white” was a strange way to go about it.
Rogers attended an Aug. 20 fundraiser at the Bloomfield Hills home of former Republican state Sen. Marty Knollenberg, according to a campaign invitation and photos posted to Facebook.
The invitation, paid for by a joint fundraising committee authorized by Rogers’ campaign, listed Knollenberg and his wife, Lori, among the reception’s hosts. Admission started at $250 per person and climbed to $1,500 for VIP status, $5,000 for hosts, and $7,500 for chairs.
Knollenberg’s political résumé includes one of the more notorious racial comments made by a Michigan lawmaker in recent memory.
During a 2015 Senate Education Committee hearing, state school reform officer Natasha Baker discussed Michigan’s lowest-performing schools, noting that many served students who were economically disadvantaged, Black, Hispanic, or otherwise nonwhite.
Knollenberg responded by describing economically disadvantaged and nonwhite students as “contributors” to school failure.
“We can’t fix that,” Knollenberg said. “We can’t make an African American white. It is what it is.”
The remarks drew immediate condemnation. American Federation of Teachers Michigan President David Hecker called them “racist” and “a major step backwards in improving education,” while Democratic lawmakers said Knollenberg fundamentally misunderstood the challenges facing struggling schools.
Knollenberg later apologized for the remarks and insisted he was not racist, saying race wasn’t the problem in low-performing schools.
The fundraiser was held barely two weeks after Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, setting off a wave of lies, Islamophobia, and hate aimed at portraying the Michigan-born Muslim candidate as foreign, dangerous, and disloyal.
El-Sayed, 41, is a physician, epidemiologist, and former Detroit health director who could become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. Rather than limit his attacks to El-Sayed’s record or policy proposals, Rogers has repeatedly embraced false claims tied to terrorism and El-Sayed’s religion.
The day after the primary, Rogers claimed El-Sayed “believes America deserved 9/11.”
He doesn’t.
The remark came from Hasan Piker, a left-wing streamer who campaigned with El-Sayed and made the statement during a 2019 livestream before walking it back and apologizing. El-Sayed has repeatedly rejected it, saying in April, “Of course I don’t think 9/11 was justified,” and later declaring, “America didn’t deserve 9/11.”
FactCheck.org examined Rogers’ allegation and found that his campaign had provided no evidence to support it. The nonpartisan organization called the claim false.
Rogers even falsely told Fox News that El-Sayed wanted to do away with “our fireworks, football, the Fourth of July.” In reality, El-Sayed had raised concerns about the injuries, pollution, frightened animals, and problems for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder caused by fireworks.
Other Republicans have gone further.
President Trump has called El-Sayed a communist who hates Jews. Republican Sen. Katie Britt labeled him a “jihadist sympathizer” and warned that people like him were “infiltrating from within.” Sen. Tommy Tuberville questioned whether El-Sayed’s allegiance was to the U.S. or “Radical Islam” before simply calling him a “terrorist.”
None of those attacks is supported by evidence.
The online campaign has been staggering in scale. An analysis by the Center for the Study of Organized Hate found that anti-Muslim posts targeting El-Sayed surged twentyfold after his primary victory. The most common attacks attempted to associate him with terrorism, the Muslim Brotherhood, or a supposed plot to impose Sharia law.
Another analysis by Misbar identified more than 116,000 accounts participating in the campaign, including posts calling El-Sayed a jihadist and demanding that he be deported from the country where he was born.
The ugliness has even reached Rogers’ immediate orbit.
As Metro Times previously reported, an Instagram account that appears to belong to Rogers’ wife, Kristi Rogers, recently reposted a video portraying Muslims as resistant to assimilation and suggesting that many view terrorism as a legitimate form of resistance.
The video targeted Dearborn, showed Arabic-language signs at a Home Depot, and warned that immigration was eroding American culture.
Rogers’ campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.
https://www.metrotimes.com/news/mike-rogers-raises-cash-with-ex-lawmaker-who-said-we-cant-make-an-african-american-white/