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Explain Like I’m a Racist 5-Year-Old Like the popular subreddit “Explain Like I’m 5," which simplifies complex issues into easily understandable, digestible bites, “Explain Like I’m a Racist 5-Year-Old” breaks down complicated subjects on the intersection of race, economics and politics, making them so simple, even a bigoted toddler could understand them. Prev Next View All

Hey Mr. Michael!

Racist baby, it’s been a while! Why do you look so sad?

Well, one of my dad’s favorite musicians might have to quit his job because people say he’s racist.

Why would a musician have to stop making music?

I don’t know. All I know is Steve Miller started an award-winning band in the ’60s, worked in politics and now they’re calling him a white supremacist. I really like that song “Fly Like an Eagle.” It was patriotic.

Oh no, my little racist toddler friend. I think you’re conflating the Steve Miller Band with White House adviser and founding member of the Hair Club for White Supremacists, Stephen Miller. The Steve Miller band made “Fly Like an Eagle” and “Take the Money and Run.”


No, I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy. He was rounding up kids for a choir funded by the television award show, right? I heard he was really interested in Emmy grant kids.

OK, that’s notorious racist Stephen Miller. He’s responsible for rounding up child immigrants as part of his white nationalist immigration policy. He’s been racist for a long time and the Southern Poverty Law Center recently received 900 leaked emails Miller sent to writers at the far-right news site Breitbart.


My dad reads that site during Fox News commercials. What’s wrong with sending racist emails? My dad does it all the time.

Of course he does.

But your dad works on the lumber aisle at Home Depot and Stephen Miller creates immigration policy for the Trump administration. These particular emails gave us a look inside the mind of a white nationalist and reveal Miller’s motivations, inspiration and desire to merge ethno-nationalism and American policy.

Maybe they were just song lyrics. Have you thought about that?

Again, you little neophyte Nazi, Steve Miller is not Stephen Miller! The former is a great singer/songwriter and the latter is a not-so-undercover white supremacist!


OK. But I get “former” and “latter” mixed up. Which one is the white supremacist again and how do you know?

The one whose hairline doesn’t want to be associated with him is the racist. For instance, here’s an email Stephen Miller wrote about the Confederate flag:

From: Stephen Miller

June 23, 2015, 10:34 p.m. what do the [Confederate monument] vandals say to the people fighting and dying overseas in uniform right now who are carrying on a seventh or eighth generation of military service in their families, stretching back to our founding?


Also, I get former and latter mixed up, too.

Why is this racist? My dad has a Confederate flag. He says it’s about “heritage, not hate.”

But your dad’s heritage is hate.

If your dad’s lineage dates back to the Revolutionary War, then the British considered your American ancestors to be traitors. If his lineage dates back to the Civil War, then your forefathers literally committed treason and started a race war so they could own slaves.


The Confederate States of America was an attempt to create a white supremacist society by any means necessary, even if it included killing their own countrymen.

Wow, you got all that from one email?

Well, here’s another defending the Confederate flag:

From: Stephen Miller,

June 24, 2015, 2:07 p.m. ET:



1. Should people of Spanish descent, especially those living in immigrant communities, be banned from displaying the Spanish flag given Spanish conduct in Latin America?



2. Should [Univision anchor] Jorge Ramos apologize for Spanish conduct in Latin America, and redress it by ensuring more people of indigenous backgrounds have hosting duties on his network?



3. Should the cross be removed from immigrant communities, in light of the history of Spanish conquest?


And another defending the Civil War.

From: Stephen Miller

June 23, 2015, 3:10 p.m. ET: ‘22.6 percent of Southern men who were between the ages of 20 and 24 in 1860 lost their lives because of the war.’


Maybe he just likes the South.

Does Stephen Miller seem like the kind of guy who watches Hee Haw?

His ancestors immigrated to New York from Russia in 19o6 to escape Jewish persecution. He has absolutely no connection to Confederates, the South or even pre-slavery America. Miller’s only connection to these people is their desire to create a white country, which Miller values above all else. He is defending treason and racism, not heritage, which makes him a traitor to his people and his country.


That’s why he’s not a “nationalist,” he’s a “white nationalist.” He wants a white nation.

But why does that bother you? Are you worried that Stephen Miller will convince Trump to start a civil war? My daddy would love that!

Well, no. These emails just offer a look inside his racist mind. The real troubling ones are the ones that show how his white supremacist leanings shape policy. For instance, here are some emails he sent to Breitbart writer and Jeff Sessions staffer Garrett Murch on immigration:

From: Stephen Miller

June 2, 2015, 7:05 p.m. ET: This would seem a good opportunity to remind people about the heritage established by Calvin Coolidge, which covers four decades of the 20th century.

From: Garrett Murch:

Aug. 4, 2015, 6:22 p.m. ET: Mark Levin just said there should be no immigration for several years. Not just cut the number down from the current 1 million green cards per year. For assimilation purposes.



From: Stephen Miller

Aug. 4, 2015, 6:23 p.m. ET: Like Coolidge did. Kellyanne Conway poll says that is exactly what most Americans want after 40 years of non-stop record arrivals.


What’s so racist about that? Calvin Coolidge is one of my top 10 favorite presidents!

Sure he is.

Probably because he once wrote: “There are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend.”


Miller repeatedly refers to the 1924 Immigration Act because it is the model for racist immigration laws. The Coolidge-backed legislation cut immigration, created an “Asiatic Exclusion Zone” that barred Asian immigrants that is much like Trump’s travel ban. The law was based on eugenics—the idea that some races are smarter and more valuable than others.

Coolidge also believed this, writing that “observance of ethnic law is as great a necessity to a nation as immigration law.” This is why he is a post-Civil War favorite of racists, including Miller. Miller repeatedly refers to Coolidge and the 1924 law in emails.


Here’s one about the Statue of Liberty:

From: Stephen Miller

Sept. 13, 2015, 7:53 p.m. ET: this is a good chance to expose that ridiculous statue of liberty myth. Poem has nothing to do with it: [Link] Indeed, two decades after poem was added, Coolidge shut down immigration. No one said he was violating the Statue of Liberty’s purpose. BTW: have you noticed how [Ben] Carson and [Carly] Fiorina are preening [Marco] Rubio-like daily in front of the media to show them how they are good and decent Republicans unlike Mr. Trump? Finally, speaking of refugees, did you see the expanded list I emailed of foreign-born terrorists on Friday afternoon?”


So he likes historical racists. Is that so bad?

Well...yes. But it’s not just racists from the past. He also has an affinity for white supremacist organizations from the present, like the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a propaganda-producing “think tank” designated as a hate group bu the SPLC. It was founded to keep out non- white immigrants and push the “white genocide” theory —that white people are going to go extinct unless they stop immigration, put an end to race-mixing and increase white-on-white fucking.


You don’t have to tell me. My dad tells me all the time.

He pushed this study to a Breitbart writer to show the dangerous rise in non-white immigration:

From: Miller,

Aug. 12, 2015, 3:13 p.m. ET: This is a Center for Immigration Studies report, embargoed until 1am Thursday night (i.e. tonight at 1am).


He also pushed propaganda from white supremacist website VDARE, which is like CIS on steroids. Miller was worried that Mexicans would get Temporary Protected Status (TPS) that would allow Mexicans to live and work in America if they crossed the border because of Hurricane Patricia, so when a Breitbart writer contacted him, Miller sent this VDARE link, adding: “And they will all get TPS. And all the ones here will get TPS too. That needs to be the weekend’s BIG story. TPS is everything.” Miller also:

Constantly pushes a white supremacist novel, Camp of the Saints

Suggested that writers publish more stories on Somali immigrant crime.

Pushed for stories on nonwhite SAT scores being lower than white people’s test scores.

Hung out in college with “dapper” white nationalist Richard Spencer, who created the term “alt-right.”

Told Briebart writers to be sure to mention that a white supremacist responsible for a mass shooting in Oregon


OK, I get it. He’s racist.

It’s not just that he’s racist. It’s that he’s making his dreams become reality. He is the person in the Trump administration most responsible for the travel ban, the child detention camps, hiring 10,000 I.C.E. officers and so much more. His entire premise rests on being cruel to non-white people, hoping it will deter them from even attempting to come to America.


He is the wizard behind the mask who’s pushing the buttons.

Wait, I thought he played guitar.

Again, racist baby, it’s not the same guy.

Are you sure? I’m pretty sure I read that he’s the second-greatest American, behind Donald Trump.

Where’d you read that?

On Breitbart.

Makes sense.