An incoming Tennessee state House rep recently apologized after a Facebook video of her making offensive comments about residents and her state surfaced online last week.
Newly elected Democratic state lawmaker in Memphis, London Lamar, is scheduled to take office in January after running uncontested in House District 91 during November 6. However, the official raised a few eyebrows after she made remarks in a video posted to her Facebook account the morning after midterm elections.
(photo credit: Lamar’s Instagram/ Lamar’s apologizes for calling TN racist)
In the video, Lamar called the state of Tennessee “racist” and made other comments towards her state’s constituents.
“Most of the Tennesseans who voted Republican are uneducated,” Lamar said in the now deleted recording. “So, they don’t even know that they showed up to the polls to vote against their own interest. … They literally voted on color lines.”
The former president of the Tennessee Young Democrats sparked controversy with her opines and several critics blasted her on social media.
“A person with that attitude should not be in the House of Representatives in the state that she trashed on Facebook,” one user said.
Lamar addressed the viral footage on her Facebook page on Monday and apologized for her statements.
“In my video I made one mistake and that was an overgeneralization of white people and for that I sincerely apologize,” the state official said. “However, we must not discount the election day data. We live in a state that is very racially polarized. When you look at the needs of rural west, middle and east, the democratic values speaks to their needs. I sincerely desire for the great state of Tennessee to give the democratic values a chance to work for all people.”
Lamar also sat down with WREG on Tuesday to express regret to those offended by her statements.
“We want to make sure we don’t overgeneralize groups of people. For that, we sincerely apologize,” she added. “What we have seen is that many of the folks who voted Republican based their judgment on racially charged rhetoric that was coming down from the White House.”
Although there were folks who expressed great disappointment by Lamar’s remarks, other Twitter users jumped to her defense.
“Forget political correctness, I don’t see why London Lamar should have to apologize. Tennessee has a lot of racism, and even more ignorance, as does America–especially its President,” said one Twitter user.
“A teachable moment: London Lamar apologized. Cindy Hyde-Smith did not. This. Is. America,” another added.
