NASHVILLE — Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Diane Black said today she acted to “strongly” reprimand an aide who sent an e-mail that has been denounced as “racist” by Democrats.
But Sen. Black, R-Gallatin, said she does not intend to fire executive assistant Sherri Goforth despite demands she do so.
“Obviously this communication was done without my knowledge,” Sen. Black said. “And it absolutely does not reflect my beliefs. I will not tolerate any communications toward anyone in the minority” such as the e-mail.
The e-mail is captioned “Historical Keepsake Photo.” It shows a photo or portrait of each U.S. president except for President Barack Obama, who is depicted in caricature as a pair of white eyes in a black background.
Earlier, Tennessee Democrats denounced the e-mail as racist.
“Once again they’ve lowered themselves into the gutter with a racist, spineless attack on our president in an e-mail sent out of Diane Black’s office by a legislative aide that’s not been fired,” Tennessee Democratic Party Chairman Chip Forrester said .
He said “nothing short of terminating” is acceptable for “this employee who used a government computer on government time to send this kind of racist e-mail around.” He called it “despicable” the employee has not been fired.
Rep. JoAnne Favors, D-Chattanooga, who like the president is black, said she was “disappointed” by the e-mail “because we already have a reputation for having some antiquated ideas and some racist behavior” as a result of political incidents.
“(There are) too many good people here in the state of Tennessee,” she said. “We’ve all worked together to try to improve the relationships and the quality of life here for one or two people to do something like that.”
She said the employee should be fired.
Sen. Black disagreed, saying Ms. Goforth is a “20-plus year employee at the state and always had excellent reviews. She has nothing in her 20 years of ever doing anything inappropriate such as this. She obviously feels very badly about this, and people make mistakes and she made a mistake.”
She said she verbally reprimanded Ms. Goforth, placed a letter in her file and told her she would be fired if anything similar happens. Ms. Goforth sent the e-mail several weeks ago and was reprimanded before the issue became public, Sen. Black said.
Efforts by some Democrats to portray the incident as part of a pattern by Tennessee Republicans is “silly,” said the senator, who is a registered nurse.
“I spent time in Haiti during the time of Aristide working with people with black skin who needed medical help,” she said, referring to former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
