A Black council member read an anonymous racist for filth during a virtual town meeting in Indiana this week after the troll shared their computer screen with a large racial slur, front and center.
On Monday, Toya Smith, the only Black member of the Highland Town Council, led attendees of the council’s monthly meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. Shortly after saying a prayer, she and other council members started their powerpoint presentation, but were interrupted by a viewer sharing their screen.
“I DONT LIKE N-----S,” the screen read, with an image of a Black man wearing overalls with no shirt, a curly blond wig, and a cowboy hat. The image was part of a video on YouTube, where other videos using the racial slur are seen on the side as suggestions. The video on the screen had no audio.
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“Does that say, ‘I don’t like n-----s’?” Smith is heard asking while another council member attempts to take roll call.
The screen clearly disrupts the council members, who stop taking attendance.
“That’s ridiculous,” one of the council members says.
The image sat on the screen for over 20 seconds before it went black.
The group attempted to get back on track and take roll call, as Smith declared a disheartened “here” after her name was called. Right after Smith made her presence known, the meeting is disrupted by the racist image again.
After the image had been removed, council members appeared to go back to business as usual, reviewing meeting minutes and listening to a speaker discuss town maintenance. However, Smith was not going to let the Zoom bomber off that easily.
“I am so disgusted right now that we cannot get past racism,” she says. “I sat here and watched that ‘we don’t like n-----s’ up on that screen for the longest before it was [taken] down. It wasn’t for, like, a second... And I was just going to wait and see who was going to say something.
“Whoever put it up there, this ‘n-----’ will be coming back. I’m not defeated, but it’s disgusting,” Smith continued. “And I want to thank the voters for allowing this ‘n-----’ to make history to serve. But I’ll be back.
“It’s disgusting that it stayed up there for as long as it did,” Smith said.
Council members applauded her stance and spoke in Smith’s defense.
“I want to show my support. What we saw earlier today was blatant racism, and I think it’s disgusting,” Council Member Mark Schocke chimed in. “It’s despicable. It’s not welcome here. We absolutely should not accept it or tolerate it in any way. Whoever did that, you are not welcome here. You should not post like that. … It’s horrible that in 2023, we’re still dealing with this.”
Schocke explained that viewers who watched the meeting through Zoom are able to “apparently, put up horrible things,” and proposed disabling the screen share feature moving forward.
In a Facebook post Tuesday, Highland Council President and the council’s IT director issued a statement regarding the incident.
“Please understand that the racist occurrence at Monday's Town Council meeting took place during an open-door public session,” they wrote. “We will be taking down the video of the meeting in due course. What we will not do is hide this person's disgusting, racist action by sweeping it under the rug. For the moment, the video stands as a stark reminder that evil still lives among us, and that we must be vigilant in protecting our society from such heinous acts. The video will be taken down at an appropriate time and has been reported to the proper authorities for investigatory purposes. Thank you and please stay vigilant against hate!”
Community members also took a moment to show their support for Smith on social media.
“We need to start calling out the dirty politics in this town and not stand for it anymore,” Kathy Camp-Burke commented on Facebook. “Bashing and intimidating good people at these meetings and on social media with lies. This good old boys club and dirty politics needs to stop now.”
“Let’s be clear on exactly what this person did: right after the first Black councilwoman in Highland’s 112-year history finished opening the meeting in her official capacity, they inserted a racist meme into the live stream zoom visuals, which included the N word, and they did this multiple times,” Melissa Vanden Bout wrote. “That was an attack aimed at Ms. Smith. It was a rejection of our democratic election process in which we as a community selected her to represent and govern our town. It was an attack on our unity and our commitment to equality.”
In an interview with The Daily Beast Tuesday, Smith, 51, explained that she is the first woman and first Black member of Highland's town council, saying “it felt very good to bring some diversity” to the council. She became a member of the council, which she referred to as a “good ole boys’ club,” in 2022.
“You hear about what your grandparents go through, and just to make history like that, it meant a lot for me," Smith said.
She was astonished to see the racist image displayed for as long as it was—and how insensitive some of her colleagues appeared when they seemingly brushed the slur off and tried to move on as if nothing happened.
“I was shocked, like, to the point of numb,” she said, adding that Monday was her first day back at work following elections on Nov. 7.
Smith said she lost her seat to a white man and that her last day in office will be in January.
“The timing is what made me mad because I did not win my race, and I’m on my way out. I felt like it was a statement,” she told The Daily Beast. “It felt like a statement because I’ve been here serving.”
Though the Zoom interruption was the first time Smith had been targeted by the public in her role, she said she had been met with some racial pushback previously from colleagues.
But moving forward, she wants to see more diversity within the town council and sensitivity workshops for members. However, she does not think council members should remove the post from their social media pages, especially since she experienced it in real time.
“I'm gonna make sure they remember me, they remember my name. I won’t just be making history by holding the position,” Smith said. “I’m going to be around. They’re not going to just get rid of me. It won’t be that easy, and I will make sure—the last breath in my body—that another woman [will] get an opportunity to sit up there.”
Other members of the Highland Town Council did not immediately return The Daily Beast’s request for comment Tuesday.
