KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) — Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas exposed a racist text message he got from someone upset about wearing masks. It’s something that’s shocking to read, especially now.
“It makes you feel a little heartbroken about where we are as a city and as a community sometimes,” Lucas said.
The text messages, containing a racial slur and what Lucas called a subtle death threat, were sent to him over the weekend.
“They see a black mayor making a decision they don’t like, and so it’s not the decision that’s the issue, it’s my race,” Lucas said. “It’s who I am. It’s this threat. It’s this bullying.”
It comes after a month of protests in Kansas City promoting Black Lives Matter, equality, racial justice, and an end to systematic racism.
“To see overt racism like that and somebody feeling the freedom to do that I think gives me some concerns about what some people are facing in the community and could explain some of the anger we are seeing in the community as well,” the Kansas City mayor said.
Lucas is not naming the person who sent the text messages publicly, but has sent the person’s information to KCPD, considering the messages as threats and harassment.
He did not reply to the messages but does have this to say tot he person who sent them:
“If you get that sort of anger about a mask, right? If you are still somebody who’s trafficking in slurs like that and threats like that, there is something that’s wrong with you.”
But Lucas said not only was he the target of a racial slur and threat, he was also the victim of Photoshop after a photo surfaced of him holding a t-shirt with a nasty message.
There’s all sorts of fake information, photos and videos floating around social media, and this time the mayor was the target. It was a photo meant to make people think he hates the police.
In the edited picture shared on social media, Lucas is holding a t-shirt that reads, “F*** the police,” with 96.5 the Buzz DJ Hartzell Gray, who’s holding a Black Lives Matter t-shirt.
The picture is edited, according to Lucas, and the real photo is of the two holding t-shirts with the radio station logo.
“I mean, who is the person who’s trying to spreading this?” Lucas asked. “Why are they trying to share some message that the mayor hates the police? It’s because they want to fulfill some sort of narrative or division, and we are not going to play that anymore.”
The mayor posted the side-by-side pictures on his Twitter account, calling out a lie that could cause harm to the target.
“Don’t spread stuff that you know is false. Don’t spread stuff that you know it’s just a rumor-villa,” Lucas said. “I’m not the world’s oldest man but, like, folks just need to give respect. Give some classic manners to one another. I mean, that’s the sort of thing we need to build back up.”
Lucas has not outed the people who have targeted him publicly, but police are looking into it.