A Virginia mayor is facing backlash and being urged to resign over a Facebook post he made over the weekend saying that presidential candidate Joe Biden “just announced Aunt Jemima” as his running mate.
Mayor Barry Presgraves of Luray, Virginia, put a bad taste in people’s mouths after the racially charged post, with residents and the city council expressing their disapproval, telling him to take it down.
After the backlash, and a day after Biden announced Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, Presgraves issued an apology at a town council meeting.
“I want to make this very clear to everyone with absolutely no qualifications,” Presgraves said. “I understand what I posted on social media was wrong, offensive and unbecoming.”
“I also want to make a direct apology to all people of color and women. Passing off demeaning and worn-out racial stereotypes as humor isn’t funny,” the mayor continued reading from a prepared statement. “I now fully understand how hurtful it is and I can and will do better and we can all do better. We must.”
According to the latest Census, the small town 90 miles west of Washington, D.C. has a 4% population of Black people out of the 5,000 residents.
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