CLEARFIELD, Utah — Karece Thompson is a gospel rap lover, a Clearfield City councilman, and a Black man. In April, he was the target of a racist comment made by a member of the Davis County Conservatives Facebook page.
"The comment was: 'There are regions across this country where we need every vote we can get. This is not one of those regions. To make the Davis County Republican Party more attractive to Blacks and Hispanics, we may attract the likes of Karece Thompson, a man who has a history of winning elections, though I would never vote for him,'" Thompson stated. "The fact that I have that comment memorized lets you know how deep that comment struck my family."
Although the comment called Thompson out directly, he says it also implied the minority vote isn't respected.
"We always talk about how America is the most unifying and greatest country historically. The reality is we can't live up to any of the past... with the idea that appeasing to minorities in some way lowers the brow or lowers the quality of politics," Thompson said.
Thomspon says comments like this show there is more work to be done surrounding race.
"When you have a cabal of people together that have no idea how to navigate dynamics outside of their normal everyday bubble, it leads to both ignorance and racism. As long as they can be comfortable in that, to them there's no issue," Thompson said.
Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks alongside other members of the Utah Republican Party also condemned the comments.
Oaks said in a tweet: "While I am not part of the group, racism in any form cannot be tolerated. I stand with my good friend Karece Thompson, who did not deserve to be attacked because of the color of his skin."
Utah State Parliamentarian Todd Weiler said in a tweet: "Racism can never be tolerated; it is not consistent with any "conservative" principle. While I am not a member of that FB group, I condemn these actions in the strongest terms. My sincere apologies, [Karece], you don't deserve this kind of harassment or disparagement."
Thompson still stands strong with his party and agrees that comments and actions like this can't be tolerated.
"As this state changes and grows, the youth — a lot of the youth — tend to measure how we operate as Republicans on how we operate when it comes to people that are Black, like it or not," Thompson said. "We gotta reach those kids, because we want those kids to be our voters. How are we going to reach tomorrow when you're hating on someone that looks like me today?"
FOX 13 News reached out to the original poster of the comment, and he said: "In response to an event that was being announced, I made a very poorly though[t] out remark. I deeply regret what I said, and I have made attempts to apologize to Karece. Please communicate to Karece, if you are in a position to, that I still want to apologize. I don't want to get too far into clarifying my remark, because clarification might come across as justification. What I said was wrong. Period."
