Todd Wright, who in 2017 was elected sheriff of Arkansas County, Arkansas, which has a population of ~22,000 people, of whom about 25% are black, resigned on Friday, Aug. 28, 2020, after audio of his off-duty racist rant in a grocery store went viral on Facebook.
Wright initially resisted calls for his resignation, but the county quorum court (the same thing as county commissioners) forced him out.
In the audio, a person identified as Wright, who is white, berates a woman he’s with for speaking to a black man, whom he called a “f— n—.” The black man apparently just happened to be there.
The south has weighty historical baggage over black men speaking to white women. In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi for that.
After publicity, Wright apologized and denied he’s racist. Suuuure …