We suppose this counts as good news, at least in the end. Chris Harris, a member of the Hooks Independent School Board in Texas, has resigned after posting multiple racist images and messages to Facebook last week. He later explained that he wasn't racist at all; he just got a little worked up in a Facebook discussion of the grand jury's decision not to indict Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown, which is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Harris posted this image in the discussion thread:
You know how it goes. You have a strong opinion, and before you know it, you're posting amusing jokes about the Klan. Happens all the time.
Initially, when that picture was the only screenshot that had made it into circulation, Harris stuck to his claim that it was merely a joke, because of the funny pun -- you know, white Christmas, only it's a Klansman instead of snow? (Never mind that the National Lampoon pretty much exhausted that pun in 1980 anyway with its White Album, where at least the Klansmen were cute li'l cartoons.) Harris very carefully apologized the next day for the misunderstanding, explaining that it was all a big mistake:
He loves his town and is definitely not a racist, and he loves all the good children regardless of whether they're black, brown or normal, so please could we all just drop this? A Dec. 1 report on local TV mentioned only the KKK image and the apology, and noted that the school board would meet later in December to decide whether to dump Harris.
Ah, but then the other white robe dropped, and an additional trove of screenshots of Harris's thoughtful contributions to the National Conversation on Ferguson hit the interwebs; we've collaged a few together below:
You really have to feel for the poor guy in that last one, since he's clearly just the victim of auto-correct making him look dumb, turning a typo of "idiots" into "I do it's."
Also, it turns out that when another participant in the discussion took exception to what he was saying, Harris also said he'd be happy to meet the man in person, and would kick his ass because he was "around member of the NRA" -- there goes that darned auto-correct again.
Finally, on Wednesday, after the second round of screenshots came out, Harris submitted his resignation from the school board. We have been unable to confirm whether he has been offered a job with Fox News yet.
A responsible facebook owner. No background check required.
ABG, Canada is too diverse for most of the US brands of racisms, especially Toronto and/or Montreal and we'd love to have you...