Irmo Mayor Addresses "Racist", "Offensive" Facebook Post

Irmo Mayor Hardy King responded to community members that questioned him last month about what they call an "offensive," "derogatory" and "hurtful" post they said they found on his personal Facebook page. 

During Irmo Town Council's regular meeting on Tuesday, King took time to address the post that has angered some members of the Irmo community.

The post read:

"Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day."

"Give a man a welfare check, a free cellphone, food stamps, section 8 housing, a six-pack of beer, a crack pipe, and some Air Jordon's [Jordans], and he'll vote Democrat the rest of his life."

At council's Nov. 20 meeting, several members of the community expressed their disapproval of the message and questioned King about why he would post the message.

There was also talk of King commenting on the post saying "so very true," which King denies. 

Irmo resident Deborah Breedlove, who talked to Patch before Tuesday's meeting, said King is missing the point when it comes to their concerns about the post.

“The insulting thing is he didn’t think anyone should bring it up," Breedlove said after the Nov. 20 meeting. 

View video of the Nov. 20 meeting by clicking here. Discussion of the Facebook post starts at the 30-minute mark. 

At the time of that meeting, King said the post wasn't on his Facebook timeline but it could have been in his news feed, which is a constantly updating list of stories from people and Pages that a person follows on the social media site.

After looking through his Facebook page to determine where the post came from, King said he did share the post with a friend on September 18 but he did not comment on the post. 

The post does not show that King made the comment.

At Tuesday's meeting King said another Facebook user posted the message on his page, which was then shared by one of King's Facebook friends.

King said he shared the post that he saw in his news feed when his friend shared it. 

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King said he shared the post with a "very liberal friend of mine."

“I shared it with my friend who has and continues to send me very anti-conservative, anti-Republican and anti-Christian posts," King said in a statement. "I sent that post to be in his face so to speak, to be spiteful, sarcastic and mean-spirited."

"I did not think about it being on others news feed other than his. I did not send it to offend anyone other than him."

King went on to say, "I don’t believe it was racist nor did I share it with that intent. My intent was to be mean and offensive to him. Being mean is not a Christian character and I was wrong."

King did offer an apology to "anyone who viewed it and was truly offended."

King also called for an apology from those he thinks tried to divide the community by copying the post without including the comment thread. 

Patch has found a Facebook page, "United Against Irmo Mayor Hardy King," that was created on November 18 that appears to attribute the post to King.  

Mayor Pro Tem Barry Walker Sr. told Patch he didn't care where the post came from and that King shouldn't have shared the post with his friend.

"He should have deleted it and not forward it to a friend," Walker said. 

During the meeting, Walker responded to King's statement saying the post was spiteful and hurtful to the community.  

"If you think you’re going to basically say ‘I’m sorry’ to a group of people that you didn’t offend instead of saying it to the people you did offend, it's not going to work," Walker said. 

Do you think the post is racist or offensive? Tell us in the comments.