Right-wingers smear Brandon Scott, who was elected with over 70%, as a diversity hire after Key Bridge collapse.

Right-wingers smear Brandon Scott, who was elected with over 70%, as a diversity hire after Key Bridge collapse

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott hit back at critics who called him a “DEI mayor” after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse this week.

Right-wing social media users bizarrely labeled Scott, who was elected with over 70% of the vote, “Baltimore’s DEI mayor” following a press conference on the collapse.

MSNBC host Joy Reid noted that Scott was overwhelmingly elected in a predominantly Black city.

“So by right-wing logic, a ‘diversity hire’ would have been a white man,” Reid said Wednesday.

“I know, and we know, and you know very well that Black men, and young Black men in particular, have been the bogeyman for those who are racist and think that only straight, wealthy White men should have a say in anything,” Scott told Reid.

“We’ve been the bogeyman for them since the first day they brought us to this country, and what they mean by DEI in my opinion is duly elected incumbent,” he continued. “We know what they want to say, but they don’t have the courage to say the N-word, and the fact that I don’t believe in their untruthful and wrong ideology. And I am very proud of my heritage and who I am and where I come from, scares them, because me being at my position means that their way of thinking, their way of life of being comfortable while everyone else suffers is going to be at risk, and they should be afraid because that’s my purpose in life.”

  • hesusingthespiritbomb@lemmy.world
    11·
    8 months ago

    I’m convinced this was a foreign attempt to stir up and/or signal boost controversy.

    Dude is the mayor of Baltimore. A DEI hire in that city would be a wealthy white man. It’s also had serious issues for decades regardless of who was in charge.

    There isn’t an American alive who doesn’t know this. Trump commented that Baltimore was a rat infested shit hole. Obama commented that Baltimore had serious issues. There was a fucking Broadway musical where the opening song is how much the protagonist loves Baltimore where she giddily describes being surrounded by filth, sex offenders, and addicts.

    There are different types of ignorance. Calling the mayor of Baltimore incompetent due to DEI falls under the “living under a rock for several decades” type of ignorance that I have a hard time believing is common among Twitter users.