US Republican resigns after racist comments about NFL players are unearthed

A Republican Party official has resigned from her position after a series of racist social media posts, most of which were aimed at NFL team the Pittsburgh Steelers, were unearthed last week.

Carla Maloney, a former member of Pennsylvania's Beaver County Republican Committee, made the announcement after local news outlet Beaver Countianreceived a tip-off email containing screenshots of inflammatory comments.

In a slew of racist posts, Maloney took aim at "overpaid, ignorant blacks" and complained that white people in America were victims of "reverse racism."

The comments were written under an alternative name, but Beaver Countian's investigation confirmed that Maloney was the user responsible for the posts. The account has since been deactivated.

Many of the racist insults were written after the Pittsburgh Steelers last year protested the American National Anthem by collectively refusing to walk onto the field, and players from other teams - mostly famously Colin Kaepernick - decided to 'take a knee' in protest.

The Steelers' decision to sit out the anthem came in the wake of Donald Trump's NFL rant, during which he encouraged anyone refusing to stand for the anthem to be removed.

After the controversy Maloney wrote:

Steelers are now just as bad as the rest of the overpaid baboons.

How many men and women have lost limbs or died to protect this country, and you baboons want respect.

Let's see how the baboons get paid when white people stop paying their salaries.

In a more general post she stated a belief that America was suffering an epidemic of "reverse racism", and also predicted that there would be "another civil war soon[er] rather than later."

'Reverse racism' is a fear commonly stated by far-right activists, but it's one which is misguided, especially in a Western context. It's been established on numerous occasions that racism is structural, meaning that it requires a combination of individual prejudice and collective power.

Alexia LaFatasummarised these facts concisely in a 2015 op-ed for Elite Daily, writing:

There has never, ever, ever been a national set of laws or systems put in place to systematically oppress white people or push them to a status that is 'less than'.

Not once. Ever. So 'reverse racism' can never truly exist.

Maloney also wrote that she was fed up of "overpaid ignorant blacks telling [her] what [she] should believe in."

"I will tell you what I believe in," she continued, "and that is our flag and National Anthem and America, period. End of story."

You don't like it here? Go to Africa, see how you like it there. We are all Americans, not African American, not Hispanic American.

WE ARE ALL AMERICAN.

Maloney, an outspoken Trump supporter, has since written a letter of resignation and announced it alongside a public apology for her "distasteful, inappropriate and insensitive social media posts."

She also claimed to come from a "diverse family that represents modern America."

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