Jeff Criswell, the GOP candidate for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District this year, ran unopposed in his primary on Tuesday and will take on Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.) in November.
And while the district he’s in now was won by a Republican in 2022, it’s since been redrawn as a majority Black district, taking a large chunk of the state’s 13th District, which had been represented by a Democrat for over 20 years.
While Criswell most likely will not win, his chances won’t be improved by his past posts on X.
Criswell, who according to his website made his money importing baseballs to sell to youth leagues, has a long string of social media comments ripping into Black crime and Black children, claiming that “far more racism” is coming from Black people than white people, and that it’s gotten so bad that it’s “open season on whites” in the state.
“Of course you know that BLACK on WHITE crime vastly exceeds the opposite,” Criswell responded to a post on X from the Atlanta Black Star about a Black Food truck owner who was beat up by a white man in Portland. “Perhaps Black kids are force-fed so much anti-White rhetoric that White people become ‘the enemy’? Gotta’ be a better way. Trump 2024? You betcha. CAN-DO CRISWELL GA-6? You’re darn tootin’!”
Criswell, who also talks about his year as a first-year teacher at 63 in a Gwinnett County school on his website, says the experience was “equal parts adventure, ordeal, and wake-up call.”
“Although CRT was not taught here, some students arbitrarily brought up one-sided race discussions, creating an awkward air of hostility and tension. Note to self: racism works both ways,” he wrote.
“One **** kid, who I had just disciplined in class, even challenged me to a fight in the hallway,” he added, without clarifying the asterisks. “Remarkably, this ***** was not expelled from school.”
Criswell’s social media comments include a bevy of complaints about Black students.
“Black maniacs destroying schools – beating teachers in the classroom! We must never accept this dysfunction as normal. SCHOOL CHOICE NOW,” he posted in response to a report of a “brutal” attack on a teacher in a Clayton County school. Clayton County is over 70% Black, but the report made no reference to the student’s race.
In another post about somebody leaving D.C. over concerns about crime, Criswell responded “Out of control Black kids – no dads, no discipline, no respect for anything.”
Criswell’s posts also take the view that racism in America primarily comes from one direction: directed at white people from Black people.
“Only rarely have I heard a White person use the N word. Just not part of our vocabulary, for the most part. Now, I have been called CRACKER on several occasions by Black folks,” he wrote in one post.
“Far more racism coming from Black folks than otherwise,” he added in another post. “In some of these folks’ minds, it is open season on whites.”
Criswell has also frequently compared illegal immigration from the Southern border to an “invasion,” going as far as comparing it to rape.
“They’re everywhere – destroying our schools, robbing Americans of good-paying jobs, and bankrupting our health facilities – all the while not even bothering to learn English,” Criswell wrote on his website. “And the Democrats did this on purpose; they intentionally let this happen in the hopes of creating voting power in future elections. And not only did they let it happen, they LIED to our faces while it happened, as if we were stupid enough to believe them.”
“The UNPRECEDENTED, mind-boggling situation leaves us law-abiding, American citizens with a sense of being raped,” Criswell added.
In posts on X, he echoed the idea, calling illegal immigration part of a “Biden – McBath invasion army,” referencing his Democratic opponent. “For these creepy politicians, the rape, murder victims are but collateral damage.”
But Criswell pushed back on the idea that the tweets came from anywhere but a place of trying to help in a phone call with the Daily Dot, detailing his time as both a teacher and an Uber driver.
“When I say stuff like that,” he explained, referencing underperformance by Black kids in schools and disciplinary problems, “I’m not saying it to throw darts at someone. I legitimately want to help.”
He said the idea that Black kids are filled with “anti-white” sentiment came from a conversation with a Black person he drove to the airport, who told him that “this is what people talk about—that white folks are the enemy.”
He said his comments, though they might be inflammatory and he may have put his foot in his mouth a few times, were all a part of the reality of discussing where he lives and a genuine desire to help.
“To say oh, we’re not going to talk about race, it’s insane … it’s especially vivid in Atlanta because this is sort of the capital of Black America … there’s a lot of tension, there’s a lot of antipathy, there’s a lot of downright hate,” he said, saying Black men came into his car who he said he could tell hated him based on them sitting in the car and not saying a word. “It does work both ways. Absolutely it works both ways.”
He also pointed to Black on white crime as a manifestation of this tension.
“My contention is that all of this pent-up hostility, they act on it,” Criswell said.
Criswell also pushed back on the idea that his comments would be viewed negatively by the majority Black district he’s running in.
“There’s plenty of conservative Black people who know damn well what’s going on,” Criswell said, pointing to support by Black parents for school choice in the state.
He also predicted that he’d win the district, despite Democrats thinking that the demographics will make it an easy victory.
“The thing is … the Democrats are saddled with Joe Biden,” Criswell said. “People are sick of Joe Biden … They feel very offended by all the immigration … the courting [of] all these people, the Democrats giving free stuff … A lot of the Black folks just feel left out.”
This post has been updated with comments from Criswell.
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