Local legislators on both sides of the aisle are criticizing a colleague’s recent Facebook post about the removal of Confederate statues in New Orleans.
District 46 Rep. Karl Oliver (R-Winona), posted on Saturday night that Louisiana leadership should be “lynched” for the decision to remove the statues. WJTV in Jackson first reported the story.
Oliver’s full post reads: “The destruction of these monuments, erected in the loving memory of our family and fellow Southern Americans, is both heinous and horrific. If the, and I use this term extremely loosely, “leadership” of Louisiana wishes to, in a Nazi-ish fashion, burn books or destroy historical monuments of OUR HISTORY, they should be LYNCHED! Let it be known, I will do all in my power to prevent this from happening in our State.”
Oliver’s post drew more than 1,000 responses by press time Monday. He serves on the House Public Property Committee.
The city of New Orleans removed its final Confederate statue — a 16-foot-tall bronze statue of Robert E. Lee — from a 60-foot pedestal in Lee Circle near downtown on Friday, according to an NPR report. The Lee statue was the last of four, including the Liberty Place Monument near the French Quarter; a bronze Jefferson Davis in the Mid-City Portion of town; and a statue of P.G.T Beauregard, in a roundabout at the entrance to City Park.
The action sparked intense blowback from supporters who say the removals are destroying history.
Local legislators respond
Mississippi District 37 Rep. Gary Chism (R-Columbus) called Oliver’s post “atrocious,” and said Oliver expressed himself in a way that was “very racist.”
“I disagree with removing the monuments in New Orleans just as much as anybody else,” Chism said. “But it is up to that city to decide what they’re going to do for themselves. I do think that the city of New Orleans is trying to erase history, (but) his comments were horrible.”
Chism suggested Oliver’s words may not have been as widely criticized had he not said “lynched” — a loaded term given the state’s history of impromptu hangings of African Americans without a trial during the Jim Crow era.
“You could use any other word, other than lynched,” he said. “You could say ‘I think they ought to have been shot,’ or something, but not lynched. I think his choice of words really, really reflected bad on him and reflected bad on the House of Representatives.”
District 38 Rep. Tyrone Ellis (D-Starkville) said he was stunned by the comment and said Oliver should resign immediately.
“I thought I had heard and seen it all, but this just floors me,” Ellis said. “Really, the best way to fix this is for him to resign from public office. No one with that kind of mentality should be a policy-maker in our state.
“When you see the photos of those black boys who were lynched (from the pre-Civil Rights era) and crowds gathered around, people sharing the photos with other people, saying, ‘See what we did to these black boys?’ It’s just sickening, inhuman,” he added. “We’ve come a long way, but I also know there are people like Mr. Oliver out there still today and I wonder, ‘How much progress have we really made?'”
Short of resigning, Ellis said the legislature has the means of censuring Oliver, but he doesn’t expect that to happen.
“The collective will isn’t there,” he said. “If so, the legislature would have gotten rid of that flag.”
District 41 Rep. Kabir Karriem (D-Columbus) also sharply criticized Oliver’s statements.
“I think the remarks were insensitive, they were inflammatory, and it’s an affront on the 1.1 million African Americans here in Mississippi and across this great county to use the word ‘lynched.’ To use the term ‘lynched’ is egregious, and I am totally insulted by it,” Karriem said. “When comments like this are made, it turns the clock back of the advances we’ve made here in Mississippi. I condemn those remarks, and I hope my fellow representatives will follow suit. I think Representative Oliver owes us an apology.”
District 17 Sen. Chuck Younger (R-Columbus) said he disagreed with Oliver’s tone.
“I think the word lynched that he used was very wrong,” Younger said. “I think his motive was good, but his words were bad.”
The Mississippi Republican Party entered the fray this morning in the form of a statement from Chairman Joe Nosef condemning the post.
“Representative Oliver’s comments are offensive, do not represent the Mississippi Republican Party and have no place in our public discourse,” Nosef said in a press release. “I hope he will quickly clear up his remarks to make his point without these inappropriate comments.”
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From left, Gary Chism, Tyrone Ellis, Kabir Karriem and Chuck Younger
