STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) — At least one leader in Portage County is hoping that a recent Facebook post by the Sheriff’s department that was deemed racist by some can be a learning experience for everyone.
Meleesa Johnson, who serves on both the County Board of Supervisors and the Stevens Point City Council, says she found out about the post after receiving an email from a constituent. “The first thing I thought was… I just felt sad, sad was my first feeling and it’s still my feeling.”
Johnson said she doesn’t believe Chief Deputy Kontos is a racist person, she just thinks that he didn’t look at all the possible angles before hitting the send button. “He’s well known in the community, he’s respected, and I think everyone just expected better.” She went on to say she’s not angry or outraged, but she hopes the department learns from the experience. “Anytime something like this happens we have to look at how did it happen? We may not have had the systems in place to help support a better decision.”
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The post featured the popular character “Farva” (played by Kevin Heffernan) from the Super Troopers movie franchise. In it, it’s implied that he’s relaying the name of someone to check for any outstanding warrants or other violations. The trooper spells out the last name Smith using radio code (Sam, Mary, Ida, Tom, Harry), then follows with the first name Tawneequa followed by “common spelling”.
The original post was made Friday evening and deleted by Saturday afternoon. A follow-up post by Kontos didn’t necessarily apologize to those that were offended. Instead, it implied that those who were offended are likely to seek out ways to be offended and may actually be racists themselves. That post was ultimately deleted on Monday morning as well.
Kontos also said the post may have been better received if he had changed the name from Tawneequa to a local name such as Przybylski. When asked about that, Johnson said she doesn’t think it would have gone over any better.
“I’ve learned over the years that all of those Polish jokes that people used to say, they diminish the importance of a really important people in this community.” She says is speculative to say what would have happened if the name was different, but one person who is Polish told her they would have been offended if it was their name placed in the image.
Johnson adds that she would like to see Portage County adopt a diversity affairs commision similar to what Marathon County to bring awareness to issues of race and equality.
