Mayoral candidate tells opponent's supporters to 'Go back to Africa'

Paul Congemi: 'My advice to you, if you don’t like it here in America, planes leave every hour from Tampa airport'

Paul Congemi speaks at a forum

A candidate for the mayoral race in St Petersburg, Florida has told his opponent’s black supporters to “go back to Africa” if they are not happy living in the US.

Paul Congemi, 60, a Republican long-shot in the race, seized headlines when he launched a tirade that mentioned former President Barack Obama and brought up Florida-to-Africa flight plans to the advocates of his rival Jesse Nevel, who is white.

Mr Nevel’s campaign is backed by the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, which believes reparations can begin to mend racial inequality. The candidate has also highlighted other racially tinged issues, such as gentrification, and his campaign slogan is “Unity Through Reparations.”

“Mr Nevel, you and your people, you talk about reparations,” Mr Congemi said to Mr Nevel. “The reparations that you talk about, Mr Nevel, your people already got your reparations. Your reparations came in the form of a man named Barack Obama.”

“My advice to you, if you don’t like it here in America, planes leave every hour from Tampa airport,” the candidate continued, then directing his comments to Mr Nevel’s supporters. “Go back to Africa! Go back to Africa! Go back!”

“Get out of here!” someone can be heard yelling at Mr Congemi.

Mr Congemi, who is also white, told The Washington Post that Mr Nevel and the group that backs him lack real solutions and are “unhappy about the whole system in America.”

“I had never met Jesse Nevel until last night,” Mr Congemi said. “It’s obvious he is a self-hating white man.”

Mr Congemi said he was a lifelong Democrat who switched parties after then-President Obama announced he was in favour of same-sex marriage. Now, he’s a Republican and supports Donald Trump.

“I’m not politically correct,” Mr Congemi said.

Meanwhile, Mr Nevil told The Post that he sees paying reparations and rectifying other race-based disparities as the first steps to healing many class and social issues.

A United Nations panel last year declared that the US owed African Americans reparations for the country’s history of “enslavement, racial subordination and segregation, racial terrorism and racial inequality.” The declaration added fuel to the debate about what the US can or should do to make up for its racist past.