The chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party was forced to apologize Tuesday after a local GOP branch posted about state Democrats’ “#Negroproblem” on social media.
The 7th Congressional District GOP borrowed the term from a blog post they shared on Facebook and Twitter on Sunday, according to the alternative weekly Minneapolis City Pages. The blog post, written on the website Our Black News, was about the state’s Democrat-Farmer-Labor party, which the author wrote had called for a “special session” to address the “Negro problem in Minnesota.”
“MN DFL now propose a ‘special session’ to deal with their self-created ‘#Negroproblem,” the posts read, according to City Pages.
The DFL party quickly put the The 7th Congressional District GOP on blast.
“You don’t have to look far to find ignorant hate speech masquerading as acceptable party messaging,” DFL state Chairman Ken Martin said in a statement, according to the report. “However, this is not the first time the Minnesota Republican Party and their affiliates have posted racially insensitive material.”
The local party had tweeted earlier this month about Muslims on welfare:
Only 10% of imported Muslims can stay off of Welfare. Obamalims are Deadbeats until they get AK47 in their hands https://t.co/yTJWzwhBqS
— MNCD7GOP (@MNCD7GOP) November 14, 2015
In response to the criticism, state Republican Party Chairman Ken Downey tweeted that the person in charge of the local party’s social media accounts was “relieved of duties”:
CD7 GOP Twitter moratorium in place and manager being relieved of duties. My apologies to all for their posts.
— Keith Downey (@KeithSDowney) November 24, 2015
The local party’s posts, which have since been removed, were posted a day before white supremacists allegedly shot and injured five Black Lives Matter protestors in Minneapolis.
