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Harley-Davidson cuts ties with dealership over racist posts

FILE - In this March 13, 2019, file photo Facebook, Messenger and Instagram apps are are displayed on an iPhone in New York. Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes says it’s time to break up the social media behemoth. He says in a New York Times opinion piece that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has allowed a relentless focus on growth that crushed competitors “to sacrifice security and civility for clicks.” (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)
FILE - In this March 13, 2019, file photo Facebook, Messenger and Instagram apps are are displayed on an iPhone in New York. Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes says it’s time to break up the social media behemoth. He says in a New York Times opinion piece that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has allowed a relentless focus on growth that crushed competitors “to sacrifice security and civility for clicks.” (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File) FILE - In this March 13, 2019, file photo Facebook, Messenger and Instagram apps are are displayed on an iPhone in New York. Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes says it’s time to break up the social media behemoth. He says in a New York Times opinion piece that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has allowed a relentless focus on growth that crushed competitors “to sacrifice security and civility for clicks.” (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)

By Associated Press 2 min read

MILWAUKEE (AP) – Harley-Davidson said it is pulling its Facebook ads for the month of July and severing ties with a Tennessee dealership whose owner was accused of posting racist comments on social media disparaging Black Lives Matter protesters.

The post was allegedly made on the Facebook page of Abernathy’s Cycles, a Union City, Tennessee, motorcycle and ATV dealership, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Thursday.

“I’m sick of this black lives matter,” read the post, which also called for Black people to go “back to Africa and stay.”

The dealership’s owner, Russell Abernathy II, told Jackson, Tennessee TV station WBBJ that he did not make the posts and that his account was hacked.

“The derogatory nature of the comment in no way aligns with my personal beliefs or that of Harley-Davidson Motor Co. It personally saddens me that this post has caused such wide-reaching pain to those that have already been subject to so many social injustices,” he wrote in a statement posted on the company’s website.