There’s no good reason for elected leaders to share racist content online

Elected officials should learn to stay away from X (formerly Twitter).

Last week, Stephanie Goodman, a representative for District 13 on the Nevada Board of Regents, retweeted a racist and doctored video clip using footage from the film “Tropic Thunder.” In the clip, actor Robert Downey Jr. appears in blackface. He is speaking to a Black character played by Brandon T. Jackson and using an accent and colloquialisms that are designed to reflect racial stereotypes and offensive tropes about Black people and Black communities. At the bottom of the video are text captions labeling Downey Jr. as “KAMALA HARRIS,” and Jackson as “ACTUAL BLACK PEOPLE,” thus calling into question Harris’ race and minimizing her experiences as a Black woman.

As DeRionne Pollard, president of Nevada State University, explained in a tweet responding to Goodman, the doctored video is “offensive and lacks understanding of cultural linguistics and racial identity.” “It didn’t surprise me,” she continued, “given the tenor of recent postings and the political environment that has revealed so much more than for whom one votes.”

That’s a polite and professional way of saying the video is racist and those sharing it should reconsider their choices.

Goodman has removed the post and apologized for retweeting it, saying that she only intended to reference discussions taking place in predominantly conservative online spaces about Harris changing her accent depending on her audience.

Intent matters, as intent is what separates genuine mistakes and opportunities for learning from acts of malice. However, not intending to be racist doesn’t actually make something not racist.

Imagine a child hitting a baseball that goes into foul territory and shatters the window of a car in the parking lot. The child didn’t intend to shatter the window, but the window remains undeniably broken. The child’s lack of intent does not mend the glass, lower the cost of repairing it or otherwise make the repair unnecessary. The same is true of Goodman’s retweet and subsequent apology-like statement.

Placing Harris, a Black woman, outside of a category labeled “actual Black people” unquestionably implies that Harris is not actually a Black person. That’s not politics or “woke” ideology, that’s math, science and the English language.

Moreover, as an elected official who is responsible for overseeing a system of higher education, Goodman of all people should be expected to demonstrate a willingness to listen, learn, grow and gain a greater understanding of why her decision to retweet the post is so offensive for so many people. Instead, her apology, if you can call it that, offered little more than victim blaming.

Instead of acknowledging that the doctored video is racist and apologizing for her poor judgment in retweeting it, she instead implied that anyone who was offended by the video was simply uninformed about her and her intent.

Nevada’s system of higher education serves more than 105,000 students from a wide variety of backgrounds, cultures and identities. To obtain their degrees, we expect those students to question their assumptions and engage in research and fact finding to reach informed conclusions. That’s what education is supposed to be about.

Goodman signed up and spent money seeking election to an office in which she is responsible for helping to lead that educational system. Yet her behavior in this instance demonstrates little willingness to be a student, let alone an educator or the leader of an entire educational system.

Shelly Quiroz Cruz-Crawford, a fellow regent representing District 8, responded to Goodman’s tweet by saying that it is “one of many recent examples that are unacceptably harmful to our students, staff & community.” She also said that “As the IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access) chair, I’m navigating the best course of action w/IDEA council.”

We support Cruz-Crawford’s inquiry and call on Goodman to set aside her personal politics to learn more about why a tweet she described as “comedy” is hurtful and offensive to many Nevadans. As a regent, she can teach Nevada’s students the value of an open mind that is eager to listen, learn and lead by example.