{"id":243497,"date":"2016-08-27T17:27:16","date_gmt":"2016-08-27T17:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=243497"},"modified":"2016-08-27T17:27:16","modified_gmt":"2016-08-27T17:27:16","slug":"us-governor-criticised-for-racist-remarks-said-blacks-were-enemies-of-his-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/08\/us-governor-criticised-for-racist-remarks-said-blacks-were-enemies-of-his-state\/","title":{"rendered":"US Governor criticised for ‘racist’ remarks, said blacks were enemies of his state"},"content":{"rendered":"
The governor of Maine has said that people of colour were enemies of his state, and appeared to suggest they should be shot.<\/p>\n
Speaking about Maine’s effort to combat drug crime, Paul LePage said that “the enemy right now… are people of colour or people of Hispanic origin”.<\/p>\n
“When you go to war… and the enemy dresses in red and you dress in blue, then you shoot at red,” he said.<\/p>\n
Leading Democrats have urged him to resign.<\/p>\n
Mr LePage made the comments while seeking to clarify remarks he made earlier in the week which were criticised as racist.<\/p>\n
The press conference capped a controversial 72 hours for the Republican governor.<\/p>\n
Mr LePage was asked about a statement he made in January, in which he blamed the state’s heroin problem on “guys by the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” who “come from Connecticut and New York”.<\/p>\n
“They come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave,” he said.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Wednesday, he denied it was racist, but said that since January he had been putting together a binder cataloguing drug arrests in the state, and that “90-plus per cent of those pictures in my book, and it’s a three-ringed binder, are black and Hispanic people”.<\/p>\n
Asked by reporters to provide the binder, Mr LePage replied: “Let me tell you something: Black people come up the highway and they kill Mainers. You ought to look into that.”<\/p>\n
He then stormed off, telling the reporters: “You make me so sick.”<\/p>\n
Maine daily newspaper the Portland Press Herald has reportedly filed a Freedom of Information request for the governor’s binder.<\/p>\n
A reporter appeared to suggest to Mr LePage that Democratic state representative Drew Gattine had called him a racist.<\/p>\n
Mr LePage called Mr Gattine and, when he was unable to reach him, left him an abusive, expletive-laden voice message.<\/p>\n
The recording was released by the Portland Press Herald.<\/p>\n
He later invited reporters from the Press Herald and WMTW TV channel to an interview to explain the voice message, and told them he wished he could shoot Mr Gattine in a duel.<\/p>\n