Mississippi official defends racist comments on ‘dependent’ Blacks after outcry
A Mississippi official is standing by comments that have drawn outrage and calls for his resignation.
Harry Sanders, president of the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors, said Black Americans are “dependent” because of slavery during an interview with a local paper. The comment came after a 3-2 vote Monday against the relocation of a Confederate monument that stands outside the county courthouse.
Confederate monuments have been the subject of debate in the country for years. The death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a now-arrested Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee onto his neck for more than 8 minutes in late May, has reignited calls to remove the statues, some of which have come down.
But Sanders, after voting against the relocation along with the board’s other two white members, said in an interview with The Commercial Dispatch that Black people have not “assimilated” as he believes other communities have — referencing the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
“Are the Japanese all upset about that, burning stuff down and all that? No,” Sanders told The Dispatch. “They’ve (been) assimilated into the country and they are doing fine. The only ones that are having the problems: Guess who? The African Americans. You know why?”
He went on to say slavery made Black people “dependent.”
“In my opinion, they were slaves,” he continued, according to the paper. “And because of that, they didn’t have to go out and earn any money, they didn’t have to do anything,” he added. “Whoever owned them took care of them, fed them, clothed them, worked them. They became dependent, and that dependency is still there. The Democrats right here who depend on the Black vote to get elected, they make them dependent on them.”
The comments sparked outcry and calls for his resignation from other officials and the public.
Leroy Brooks, the county’s District 5 supervisor, posted a response to the comments on Facebook, writing “Harry Sanders I know you will read this.”
Brooks also called for Sanders to resign in an interview with WCBI, saying he sits “at the head of the table” and represents the county.
“I’m going to have a hard time walking into that board room and wanting to interact with Harry Sanders when he’s diminished Black people to a state of nothingness,” Brooks told the TV station.
Scott Colom, district attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Circuit Court, which includes Lowndes County, tweeted that Sanders’ comments were “vile” and ignorant.”
“Supervisor Sander’s ignorant and vile comments have it backwards,” he wrote. “Slave owners depended on beatings, rape, separation of families and fear to maintain free labor. These are the types of lies the KKK depend on to promote white supremacy.”
Members of the NAACP held a press conference Wednesday about the comments, calling on Sanders to resign.
Sanders told the Mississippi Clarion Ledger on Tuesday that he stands by his comments but said they were made off the record.
“I’m not going to stand and run from it, hell, it’s what I think,” he told the paper.
In a recording of the interview published by The Dispatch, the reporter tells Sanders he was still speaking on the record before he gave the quote. Board of supervisors attorney Tim Hudson also told Sanders he was on the record, The Dispatch reports.
“Off the record” means a journalist can’t report or publish the information the interviewee gives them, according to Poynter. But both the reporter and source have to agree to go off the record for it to be valid. Otherwise, anything said is on the record and can be published, according to ReThink Media.
Sanders told the Clarion Ledger he understands how his comments were “perceived as racist” but said “you can’t change history.”
“Am I not supposed to talk about what happened 150 years ago? Am I not supposed to talk about what happened in World War II with the Japanese? Am I not supposed to talk about any of that? It comes off (as racist) because of the way they put it in the newspaper,” he said. “That’s not the way I said, it but that’s OK.”
Sanders told The Dispatch on Wednesday that he has no intention of resigning.
“Y’all are blowing this way out of proportion,” he told the paper. “All this is (doing) is getting people all riled up, and I don’t have any desire to do that.”
Sanders has not responded to a request for comment from McClatchy News.
