Comments that included the Muslim slur "ragheaded" have offended some Facebook friends of Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce lobbyist Hayes Ledford, who posted the remarks to the Web site in reference to 9/11.
"His statement is an embarrassment to Chattanooga, the city to which he is supposed to recruit jobs and industry," said Chris Anderson, a board member with the Hamilton County Democratic Party. "In this case, Mr. Ledford advocated brutal violence against an entire race of people, most of whom had nothing to do with attacking our great nation."
Mr. Ledford made his comments on the social networking Web site on the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. His comments -- which were available to his 730 or so Facebook friends -- were in reference to the attackers of that day, he said.
"Those comments were intended privately for my friends on that site and not any broader public discourse," Mr. Ledford said in a statement Thursday. "I apologize that some may have interpreted my comments as about Muslims in general, which is not true, and that some of my language was inappropriate. This is my personal page with no references to my employer, and the responsibility for its content rests solely with me."
Chamber Executive Director Tom Edd Wilson said he hadn't seen the post, but said it was "something that we wouldn't tolerate, quite frankly."
Mr. Wilson said the Chamber has no policy regarding content posted to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
J.Ed. Marston, spokesman for the Chamber, argued that Facebook is not a public forum.
"It's friend-to-friend communication," he said.
Several of Mr. Ledford's friends, which include local and state officials and business leaders, asked not to be named when contacted about the comments, but said the statements were unfortunate.
Deborah Levine, president and managing editor of the American Diversity Report and one of Mr. Leford's Facebook friends, said people sometimes let their emotions get the best of them.
"Just because you're passionate about something doesn't mean you have to let your language and activities get overheated," she said.
But some commenters on Facebook cheered him on. One person commented on the picture that ran with Mr. Ledford's comment, a photo of the Statue of Liberty holding up its middle finger.
"Love the photo Hayes -- I'm gonna steal it from you now and pass it on," the person said.
Benjamin Bates, a professor at the University of Tennessee's School of Journalism and Electronic Media, said there's always a chance that information on social networking sites such as Facebook could become public.
"People generally attribute a level of privacy to anything that's on the Internet that's not necessarily realistic," he said. "You cannot absolutely promise that anything that goes on the Internet will always remain private."
WHAT HE WROTE
Mr. Ledford's comments appeared above a picture of the Statue of Liberty holding up its middle finger.
"This picture says it all, even after eight years. It symbolized our anger after those ragheaded b------ds manifested theirs through death and destruction. There is no substitute for victory and plenty of work left to be done. There is something to be said about the 'Chicago way,' but Sean Connery (in the film 'The Untouchables') left out the last line ... when they send one of yours to the morgue, you send a thousand of theirs straight to hell.
"We don't need to be reckless in our resolve, nor fail to remember that they came at us. Measure it right, use overwhelming force and decapitate those sons of b------s once and for all."
Text Size:
So would it be excusable for me to refer the murderers in Darfur as "n___ers" because they are bad people? What if it was only in front of 750 of my "friends."
Mr. Ledford, you should be ashamed. That it didn't occur to you that one of 750 people might be offended by a racial slur leads me to believe that this was not simply a comment made in the heat of the moment. This statement suggests, at best, that such epithets are somehow acceptable in your world view.
The use of racial slurs is not OK in such a context. It is my hope that you will learn from this episode - not to watch what you say, but to change the way you think about other people.
Actually the same people who blew up the WTC are the same people doing the killing in Darfur
You see, Mr. Ledford is right, we need to eliminate Islamic terrorists wherever they are regardless of his choice of words which a bunch of politically correct pansies want to quibble over...the enemy has no problem calling us kaffir, infidel, shaytan, devils, rednecks, etc. - in fact most Americans never seem to complain or write news stories when politicians use the term redneck, or hick, or honkey...but that is besides the point
the new black power structure in the US could not be more racist - Obama, Holder, Van Jones, ACORN, Rangel, Sharpton, Jackson, etc.
the key thing they all have in common, including the author of this piece and the commenter - none of you see the threat coming from Islam
@Obviousman - I take no issue with fighting terrorism, and that has nothing to do with my previous comment or the article itself. However, I do take issue with people like Mr. Ledford and yourself who paint entire cultures with such broad brushes. Your brand of extremism and intolerance, one positing that it is noble and just to stoop to the levels of a small number of radicals, rationalizing the abandonment of morals, is a major contributing factor to the strife we find ourselves in as a nation today.
Your ideas directly mirror those of your "enemies." Religious extremists are dangerous no matter which God they pray to.
LONG LIVE MUNTADHAR AL ZAIDI !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I did not read Mr. Ledford’s actual post and therefore will not comment on its content. I have been too outraged since reading of his resignation to actually process what he wrote to determine if it offends me. It is reprehensible that any American would lose his job for voicing his opinion on his personal forum, regardless of how offensive or objectionable others may find it.
We are at war with people who have already slaughtered thousands of Americans. There is no reason to sugar coat it to make it more palatable. Oh, wait, let’s just pretend there’s really not a war going on and get back to watching SEC football in the safety and comfort of our cozy homes while someone else's kid dies in Afghanistan today.
You can be certain that none of the fine men and women of the Jihad Against Democracy are gonna get slapped down at work for calling any of us Infindels bad names. Unless they forget to cut our throats after they curse us.
My brother is just back from a tour of duty to Afghanistan. He, no doubt along with millions of other active duty military personnel and veterans, will be seriously offended that Hayes Ledford was denied the right to voice any opinion he wants on his own personal page. It's an outrageous affront to every principle we are fighting for.
And when you consider the enormous cost of our defending our personal liberties, which has always been paid for with the blood of dead soldiers and marines, the real embarrassment to the city of Chattanooga comes from depriving someone of his personal liberties.
The reason FREE SPEECH and other such delusional fantasies are called "constitutional" rights is because the only place they really exist is on that piece of paper...sitting in a museum somewhere. Government, law, even society itself are all an exercise in denial.