School Employee Targets 'Towel Heads' In Christmas Facebook Rant

Local residents expressed outrage after a Parsippany-Troy Hills School District employee took to Facebook Monday afternoon to air his grievances about the lack of Christmas décor at the Rockaway Townsquare Mall.

A resident shared the comment, which was posted to the Rockaway Townsquare Mall Facebook page, with Patch. In the comment, Frank Atkins, a bus driver for the district, slammed the business for its lack of Christmas-related decorations this season.

What Atkins also did in the post, where he claims to be offended as a Christian, was use the words “towel head,” a derogatory term often used to offend someone of Middle Eastern descent or someone who wears a turban.

Atkins’ statement, in full:

“This mall used to be so great. Disney. Warner bros. Sharper image. McDonald’s. Sam goody. Fye. Kb. I know a lot of those stores went out. But Rockaway for some reason thinks it’s short hills. Yet resides next to Wharton and Dover. It’s turned into a snooty women’s purse mall. It sucks. And now they go politically correct and refuse to have Christmas decorations up so as to not offend the towel heads. WHAT ABOUT OFFENDING US THE CHRISTIANS! My kid will never visit Santa there and I work for the Parsippany school district. I am sending the word out to all our schools and all the others to boycott your mall!”

The comment was posted at 2:40 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, but removed within 30 minutes. It is not known if the business or Atkins himself removed the post.

Rockaway Townsquare Mall, a member of the Simon Property Group, took a lot of heat over the weekend when its Christmas display was set up and included Santa Claus in a glacier-type surrounding with no signs of Christmas trees or holiday adornments.

The mall has since put up a Christmas tree and may add more decorations in the coming days.

Other posts by customers on the mall’s Facebook page express the same anger as Atkins, but none include derogatory statements.

Calls and emails for comment to multiple Parsippany-Troy Hills School District administrators were not immediately returned.