A candidate in a runoff election for mayor of Denver has deleted her social media account after tweets surfaces about Asians and Latinos, reports 9 News.
The controversy started when Jamie Giellis was unable to identify what the acronym NAACP, the internationally recognized National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, stood for when questioned by a reporter.
A little later, a tweet from her campaign described a fundraising event as a tacos and lowrider fundraiser.
Then Twitter users found a 2009 tweet under her maiden name Jamie Licko which asked “Why do so many cities feel it necessary to have a Chinatown.”
Giellis told 9News “I was noticing that those neighborhoods were changing, that ‘Chinatowns’ became less of the cultural centers that they once were.”
The candidate has stated the campaign has exposed her to different cultures and their “wants, struggles and successes.”
Her supporters ran to her defense.
“Yes, the gaffes are concerning, but at least she’s open to learning, at least she’s admitting them,” said Tony Pigford, who is Black. “But this needs to be about the issues — about the affordable housing crisis, transportation, mass inequity, our homelessness crisis,” he said to the Denver Post.
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