Allen West posted the racist American Renaissance article to his website before Dave Agema shared it on Facebook.

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Former Republican Rep. Allen West posted a white supremacist article last December, and it’s helped create a huge headache for the RNC.

On Dec. 29, West pasted the text of a story called “Confessions of a Public Defender” on his website. That story was originally published at American Renaissance, a white supremacist magazine helmed by Jared Taylor, who seems to feel that “[w]hen blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears.”

West gave the American Renaissance story a ringing endorsement.

“It will take you only 5 minutes to read this article—and I would bet you’ll read it again,” he wrote on his site. “Then ask yourself, is this something you hear Al Sharpton addressing? Or President Obama, Eric Holder, Jeh Johnson or Jesse Jackson?”

“The facts and observations in this are not shocking to me,” West continued. “They are quite well known, but the manner in which the writer so eloquently presents them is quite commendable.”

Here are some of the “facts and observations” in the story West shared, which was written by a guy, using a pseudonym, who claims to be a public defender:

“[E]verything I say to blacks must be at about the third-grade level. If I slip and use adult language, they get angry because they think I am flaunting my superiority.”

“Blacks…live in the here and the now and are unable to wait for anything.”

“Most blacks are unable to speak English well. They cannot conjugate verbs. They have a poor grasp of verb tenses. They have a limited vocabulary. They cannot speak without swearing.”

“Blacks often make bad witnesses.”

“It is my firm belief many black [sic] are unable to discuss the evidence against them rationally because they cannot view things from the perspective of others.”

And on and on and on. West pasted the full text of the story on his site without any caveat suggesting he disagreed with any of its contents. He did, however, say this: “I’m quite sure the progressive social left will criticize me for sharing this article—that’s just who they are—they hate the truth.”

As it turns out, many on the conservative right also hate the truth. After Dave Agema, the RNC committeeman for Michigan, shared the story on his Facebook page, many prominent Michigan and national Republicans called for him to step down or renewed their calls for his resignation. (He’s put lots of other bigoted stuff on his Facebook page, and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus called for him to resign last January.)

Agema is now using West’s distribution of the article to defend himself, per MLive. He noted that West “is himself black.”

Agema’s battle with the RNC has drawn substantial media coverage. The committee’s top officers voted Wednesday to censure him, as reported in the Detroit Free Press, and are pushing the Michigan Republican Party to find a way to give him the boot.

Allen West isn’t the only prominent conservative figure wrapped up in the Agema issue. Mitt Romney’s niece, Ronna Romney McDaniel, is the committeewoman from Michigan, and she hasn’t denounced Agema yet. Agema endorsed Mitt Romney in the 2011 Michigan Republican presidential primary and was on his Michigan leadership team. Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has criticized Agema’s statements but also hasn’t said he should resign. And last weekend the national political director for Sen. Rand Paul’s RANDPAC spoke at a Tea Party event that Agema keynoted. Heritage Action and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy both withdrew their sponsorship of that event because of Agema’s involvement.