A float in the Texas Tri-State Parade created by the Confederate Riders of America portrayed President Barack Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in a jail cell Monday.
The group asserts there was no racial meaning behind the float, but local black residents felt it was a step too far.
“A lot of people in the black and Hispanic community are saying, ‘why would you put a black man in a cage?'” Amarillo resident Rodney Darnes told local news station KXXV. “The fact that Hillary is in the float only sets the women’s movement further back.”
The float was officially created by a group called Stars and Bars, and was supported by the Confederate Riders of America. “It was in no way racist,” the President of the Confederate Riders of America Michael Bateman told reporters. “There was a sign right next to them that said ‘Hillary for prison, 2016. We had no racial intentions at all.”
An online poll conducted by the local news organization reported that 66 percent of viewers felt the float was “disrespectful, but not racist.” Forty percent of viewers felt the float had racist undertones.
Clinton said that over half of Trump’s supporters were in the “basket of deplorables,” due to their racist sentiments at a fundraiser in Manhattan Sept 10. Clinton later apologized for the remark the day after the comments in a press release, saying that it was a “gross exaggeration.”
Clinton doubled down on her statements Sept. 14 in an official press release, saying a good number of Trump supporters are truly terrible people, and that Trump is running a “deplorable” campaign. She concluded her remarks by asserting she would continue “calling out the bigotry and hateful rhetoric” of Trump and his supporters.
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