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Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico claimed white Americans are immune from the “virus of racism” because of the color of their skin, resurfaced tweets show.

Talarico posted a series of tweets in 2020 following the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year old black male killed in Georgia while jogging by a father and a son who believed Arbery was an armed burglar. Talarico posted, more than 2 weeks before the death of George Floyd, that “white skin” gives him and all other white Americans viral immunity from racism but “the virus kills our black neighbors if they’re jogging, playing music, sitting in church, selling CDs, or carrying a bag of Skittles.”

“We don’t have to be showing symptoms—like a white hood or a Confederate flag—to be contagious,” said Talarico in a follow-up tweet. “The only cure is diagnosing the virus within ourselves and taking dramatic actions to contain the spread. The first small step is proclaiming loudly and unequivocally that #BlackLivesMatter.”

Resurfaced tweets from 2021 show Talarico stating, “Radicalized white men are the greatest domestic terrorist threat in our country.” The Senate hopeful recognized in the same Twitter thread that he is “susceptible to the same radicalization” because he is a white man and expressed thankfulness he was “exposed to diversity at a young age and explicitly taught the values of equality, inclusion, and justice.”

Talarico then went on to blame 4Chan, YouTube, and Parlor for “radicalizing an entire generation of white boys” and said public schools must help to act on this. He promised to co-author legislation requiring schools to explicitly teach “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and filed House Bill 4111 to the Texas House that would mandate school districts over a certain size to hire a “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer.”

“We must confront racism and misogyny everywhere—from the school house to the White House,” Talarico wrote in a reply to his prior tweet. “I’m proud to sign Rep. ’s resolution condemning anti-Asian hate speech like ‘Kung Flu’ and ‘China Virus.’ Words have consequences. Dehumanization leads to violence.”

Talarico, before becoming a Texas House Representative and US Senate candidate, worked as a middle school teacher in Texas. The US Senate candidate sequenced his classroom walls with posters of Sonia Sotomayor, Maya Angelou, Lebron James, and Jay-Z, whom he believed were iconic figures students could recognize and draw inspiration from, according to a Texas Tribune report.

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Talarico identifies himself as a “devout Christian” and is currently enrolled in a Presbyterian seminary school. He made many controversial theological statments, claiming God is non-binary, that the Bible justifies abortion through the Virgin Mary’s annunciation, and that Jesus is antithetical to Trump in a 2019 sermon.

Talarico won the Texas Democratic Senate primary Tuesday against Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, receiving 52.8% of the vote over Crockett’s 45.9%. Talarico will face either Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn or Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton who will face each other in a May run-off election for the Republican nomination.

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