ATLANTA — As the Buckhead City Committee vowed to continue to push for cityhood Wednesday, a member of Neighbors for a United Atlanta claimed the separation motivation is about race.
“It’s not just covert racism, it’s overt racism,” Tricia Harris said.
Last year, Harris joined a private Buckhead City Facebook page.
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She told Channel 2′s Audrey Washington she was shocked when she noticed some posts she deemed racially insensitive.
Some of the posts, which were sent to Channel 2, referred to water boys in Atlanta, who are mostly Black, as “thugs”, “maggots” and “scumbags.”
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“I’m a mother of a 9-year-old Black boy, and when you go through these posts, you find a pattern of a dehumanizing description of our children,” Harris said.
On Wednesday, Channel 2′s Audrey Washington tried to ask Buckhead City Committee CEO Bill White about the posts, but he did not respond.
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He sent this statement:
“Since fall 2020, the Facebook group’s volunteer administrators have banned nearly two dozen users for violating its clearly posted rules on hate speech and bullying. None of the banned users were affiliated with the Buckhead City Committee, its donors or volunteers.”
In January, White apologized for retweeting white nationalist group.
White said he did not know what the group stood for and failed to examine the original tweet.
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