DALLAS _ Wearing an orange T-shirt and an "I voted" sticker, Randy Smith walked to the podium at Dallas County Commissioners Court on Tuesday to protest what he sees as a grave injustice.
For close to 20 years, Smith, 43, worked as an appointed Democratic Party election judge, his only current job, supervising a polling place on election days for around $10 an hour. Now, the commissioners were about to fire him.
"I do admit I did say some things on Facebook, but I do feel that was my personal opinion," Smith said. "I was not representing the county."
"What did you say?" asked Commissioner John Wiley Price, who had read Smith's comments.
"I don't remember," Smith replied.
"You're joking, right?" asked Price.
A county official placed an iPad in front of Smith on the podium. The screen showed comments he'd written last summer on Facebook, where he'd listed himself as an "Election Judge, Precinct Chair Dallas County."
There, in black and white, were his words:
"why do people post so much crap on n-----s when 3yrs ago I was stabbed and almost lost my life because of one, I know there some good blacks no offence to them."
"i know some good blacks so i dont count them if i did it would be done on one hand."
Smith looked up at the commissioners. "I'll admit that was said, but sometimes people say things in a certain moment and later come to regret it and that's basically what happened on this," he said. "I'm asking for some lenience, or like, a suspension."
But the commissioners had no sympathy. Price shook his head. They voted to remove him from office.
Outside in the hall, Smith said he had been wronged by the county. He said he had only been angry at black people at the time because a black man had stabbed him at a group home. He said he spent 30 days in an intensive care unit and 27 days in a rehabilitative facility.
"I lost 60 days of my life," he said. Regarding black people in general, Smith said, "I knew they all wasn't bad," but he was just angry and exercising his "constitutional right." He said he has "nothing against" black people now.
It was unfair to remove him from office, he said, because the county didn't remove Price from office after he was indicted on federal corruption charges, and those allegations were "a lot worse."
He told a reporter he hoped the story would be published "because I still don't feel that I was done right."
