FL School Board Candidate Deletes Twitter After Calling Journo ‘Racist C**t’

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

A candidate for the Collier County school board, Lee Dixon, shut his Twitter account after a tweet that used obscene language to reference an ABC News journalist resurfaced this week.

According to the Naples Daily News, Dixon tweeted on July 10, 2013: “@SunnyHostin might be the most biased, racist cunt I’ve ever seen.”

Another message “called her out” for “being a racist being her rants on [the George] Zimmerman trial.”

The messages were sent by the account @umleed, which is no longer active. Dixon said he deactivated the account because he’d “seen stories in the past about people getting inundated with nasty tweets and comments” and “didn’t want to deal with that.”

Dixon told the paper he did not send the tweet but would take responsibility for the post.

“I’m going to take responsibility for the tweet. I personally didn’t send it. It was sent from my account by a person sitting next to me, but I take full responsibility. It’s inappropriate,” he said. “I wasn’t raised that way. I’m a standup individual. It has nothing to do with today.”

Dixon is running for the fourth district Collier School Board seat. His website boasts an endorsement from the county’s Republican Party.

The candidate said he apologized to Hostin on Twitter, but the ABC News commentator tweeted that was untrue.

He said the messages were sent years ago before he was involved in education policy.

“Listen, we’re all sinners,” Dixon said.

h/t Mediaite

Latest Livewire

Notable Replies

  1. “I’m going to take responsibility for the tweet. I personally didn’t send it. It was sent from my account by a person sitting next to me, but I take full responsibility. It’s inappropriate,” he said. “I wasn’t raised that way. I’m a standup individual. It has nothing to do with today.”

    I see some form of this lame excuse all the time from people making idiotic posts on various social media platforms. On what planet do adults pass around, share or allow others the use of their personal cell phone? Tweens and teens and drunk college kids I get, a little I guess. But grown adults with jobs and families and responsibilities and reputations to cultivate and preserve? WTF?
  2. “Listen, we’re all sinners…But since I’m a misogynist white male Republican, I get endless do-overs so long as I invoke Jeebus.”

    FIFY.

    Lucky for him he’s not a 12-year-old black male with a toy pistol, or a pocketful of Skittles.

  3. Sounds like a page from a Trump “Recognizing Real Racists” seminar. So I’ll go out on a limb and guess he thinks Zimmerman is getting a raw deal.

  4. I’ve seen a lot of stuff posted on social media that clearly were posted by someone not the owner. Usually these thing say something like X (name of stealth posting person) is the coolest dude in the universe. Of course most of these people have been under 16 years of age. You know, students in the school, not people trying to run the place.

  5. Let’s ask Anthony Weiner how well the “someone else sent it from my account” story works out…

    But he’s white, male, and endorsed by his county’s GOP so, now that he’s playing the Jesus card, it’s all good.

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

62 more replies

Participants

Avatar for vinny Avatar for doremus_jessup Avatar for paulw Avatar for anniew Avatar for grokenstein Avatar for firstprime Avatar for thunderhawk Avatar for trumpdog Avatar for frankly_my_dear Avatar for daveyjones64 Avatar for johnbarleycorn Avatar for sherlock1 Avatar for ralph_vonholst Avatar for barblzz Avatar for libertyapples Avatar for stiggy Avatar for brendanyc Avatar for dommyluc Avatar for spencersmom Avatar for thecaptain Avatar for pmaroneyb Avatar for delmar Avatar for castor_troy Avatar for centralasiaexpat

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: