Mayor Dean Grose of Los Alamitos, California has announced he will resign at Monday’s City Council meeting. He drew fire for an email he sent to a constituent showing a picture of the White House lawn superimposed with a watermelon patch. The email had the subject “No Easter Egg hunt this year.”
Uh, in case you’re wondering: Republican.
Well, quite naturally there would be “No Easter Egg hunt this year.” The Obamas planted a watermelon patch, right? Blatant racism. Yet Grose used the all too familiar refrain that he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelons.
Right. He’s probably unaware that there’s this major fault line that runs through the state of California that leads to earthquakes, too. This is the excuse many people use when they do something obviously racist and get caught at it.
The “No Easter Egg hunt this year” image has spread like wildfire, and those who are not trying to make an excuse for Grose will generally say, yes, this is racist.
One of the so-called “small group of friends” that Grose send his “No Easter Egg hunt this year” email to is Keyanus Price, who is African-American. She is most likely no longer a friend of Grose, don’t you think? She said:
“I was horrified when I read that e-mail. What I’m concerned about is how can this person send an e-mail out like this and think it is OK? He’s putting the city into a bad place, and he is a liability.”
Price also told the AP:
“I have had plenty of my share of chicken and watermelon and all those kinds of jokes. I honestly don’t even understand where he was coming from, sending this to me. As a black person receiving something like this from the city-freakin’-mayor – come on.”
It’s good to see he’s resigning. It’s bad to see that despite the election of an African-American President, racism still abounds in this country.
Source: tallahassee.com
