Several top officials in a rural county have been called to resign by the governor of Oklahoma after they were recorded discussing "beating, killing and burying" a father and son reporter team - and lamenting that they can no longer hang Black people with a “damned rope.”
A McCurtain County Gazette-News article about what was caught on the recording prompted Governor Kevin Stitt to call for resignations of McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, county commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff's investigator Alicia Manning, and jail administrator Larry Hendrix.
“I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” Stitt said on Sunday. “There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office.”
In a statement, Republican Stitt said he had directed the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to “initiate an investigation to determine whether any illegal conduct has occurred.”
The racism that permeates society in America is thinly veiled, and cannot be tolerated or swept under the rug.
Source: NBC News