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GOP Candidate Invokes Steve Biko In Defense Of Breitbart

IL-09 House candidate Joel Pollak (R)

Joel Pollak, a Republican House candidate running in the ultra-safe Democratic seat currently held by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, is coming to the defense of Andrew Breitbart against Democratic attacks. In fact, Pollak is even invoking the late Steve Biko, the black South African activist who was killed by police 33 years ago and became a symbol of the Apartheid regime’s tyrannical rule.

Pollak, whose white family left South Africa during the Apartheid era in 1977, wrote in a post on Breitbart’s Big Government site:

My family immigrated to America in the same year that South African police murdered Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko. The racist regime that destroyed him viewed him as a threat because of his simple credo: “I write what I like.” Biko understood that freedom of thought and expression were the greatest weapons against tyranny.

Last week, my opponent, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), called on me to denounce Andrew Breitbart and to end any further association with his website, BigGovernment.com.

Her attack was typical of a corrupt Washington elite that believes it is entitled to tell people what to say and where to say it. It was that kind of behavior that convinced me to run against Schakowsky to begin with, after she collaborated with paid organizers in shutting down questions from constituents at her town hall meeting last August.

(Via Media Matters)

2010 elections, Andrew Breitbart, House '10, IL-09, Jan Schakowsky, Joel Pollak
Eric Kleefeld

Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.

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