Palmetto commissioner refuses to apologize for comments about Hispanic residents

Incendiary remarks from one Palmetto official that “too many” Hispanics could cause problems at the Multicultural Festival on Jan. 19 went largely unexplained at a special meeting of the Palmetto City Commission on Wednesday.

There were no apologies and plenty of blame, but largely toward a person who didn’t make the comments.

Earlier this week, Commissioner Harold Smith, who is black, expressed concern about a suggestion from Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant that a Latin band be included in the festival’s musical lineup. Smith responded Monday by saying, “I don’t want to bring in too many people from the outside,” and “If anyone gets shot, it’s on (the mayor.)“

Smith went on to say, “I don’t want any problems ... No fights, no fuss, so why change?”

Social media lit up over what many saw as racially charged comments and calls for an apology came from across the state and locally, including from the Hispanic business community. But Smith and his supporters, mostly family, tried to turn the blame on Bryant Wednesday night.

“To throw a rock at my family as being racists without consequences now, we are not going to stand by,” said former Manatee County commissioner Charles Smith. ”For (Bryant) to point a finger that we are in a situation where a commissioner is racist, see, I don’t see anyone up here on this commission being racist, but I got a problem with you now, mayor.”

Bryant tried to explain several times that she never called anyone a racist and the controversy is a result of Harold Smith’s own comments.

“Those remarks did not come out of my mouth,” Bryant said. “Those articles were from the tape. They are on the tape if you want the facts. If you listen to the tape, you will hear I had no part in that.”

No attempt to clarify Harold Smith’s remarks were made and the blame continued to be put on the mayor instead.

Another of Smith’s brothers, Tyrone Smith, said, “To assume we are racists against Latinos is ridiculous. I looked up to you all my life and I can’t believe you would do that.”

Charles Smith claims newspapers across the state are trying to get him to say negative things about Bryant and her family. He said what the mayor did, “just makes no sense to me and I’m not upset with this commission, I’m upset at the mayor.”

Bryant reiterated her point on Thursday, noting that the speakers at Wednesday’s meeting clearly didn’t review the tape of Monday’s meeting.

“I believe the city of Palmetto is a diverse community,” Bryant said. “My concern all along was that we address the festival lineup, but certainly the comments that were made were unacceptable and were made by Harold Smith, not me. The city doesn’t own that, he owns that and I welcome anyone to listen to the tape of that meeting.”

A handful of people on social media have spoken out in support of Harold Smith, noting that the festival is attended overwhelmingly by black residents and mistakenly calling it the MLK Festival instead of the Multicultural Festival. Betty Sailes Rhodes called it the, “Martin Luther King celebration,” on Wednesday night.

Rhodes and others like Sharon Amore said their community doesn’t get in the way of other parades and festivals, claiming there isn’t a lot of diversity at the city’s Fourth of July Festival or the Cinco De Mayo Festival.

“Please don’t destroy our community thinking that this celebration is biased,’ Rhodes said. “I can be biased, too, because when Parrish has their parade, they don’t come over and invite us.”

The Multicultural Festival originally took place in March, but the city decided it wanted to expand on the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Parade a few years ago.

“Martin Luther King Jr. fought for people of all color and the parade always reflected that and the diversity of this community,” Bryant said. “There seemed to have been a lack of something to do after the parade so it made sense to have something after the event for the community, but it’s always been the Multicultural Festival, which should be reflective of the demographic of your community, not just one group.”

After Harold Smith’s comments earlier this week, Luz Corcuera, executive director of UnidosNow said she found his comments divisive, offensive and inappropriate. Corcuera suggested some cultural competence training was in order for for suggesting a Latino band would somehow lead to a shooting or other tragedy.

Bryant said it was something worth exploring.

“But the problem with elected officials is you can’t control what they say. You can’t force them to go to training, like I could if I had a staff problem,” Bryant said. “They are elected and I don’t have that kind of control. It’s just really sad that he’s trying to hurt the community and divide the community. That’s just really sad to me.”

In the meantime, the other four commissioners have not reacted. They did not react when Smith made the comments on Monday and did not react on Wednesday when the blame was shifted to the mayor.

“Yeah, I’ve heard from a few people in the community about that,” Bryant said. “But again, I can’t control what they say or what they don’t say, but I can tell you that there are several members of our staff that have been hurt by this.”

Harold Smith said if Bryant runs for reelection in 2020, he will not support her and accused her again of intimidating staff and trying to intimidate him.

“I want to let the commission know that all of us need to stay together,” he said. “Everybody in here knows I’m not a racist.”