Aaron Schock Adviser Resigns Over Racially Charged Social Media Posts

By Chuck Sudo in News on Feb 8, 2015 7:00PM

Congressman Aaron Schock has not had the best week. The “Downton Abbey”-inspired redesign of his congressional offices was ridiculed and may be a possible violation of House ethics. A few days later, Schock accepted the resignation of his communications director Benjamin Cole after the website Think Progress unearthed a series of racially tinged comments Cole made on Facebook dating back several years.

Most recently as last month, the former Baptist minister posted on Facebook regarding an altercation he had with a black woman in Washington, D.C.

”You white people need to learn.”

That’s what she said to me, after throwing an elbow at me as I walked by, and just before I filed an assault claim against a Black female accompanied by 4 Black males and 1 Hispanic male standing at 14th Street at W NW.

“Do you have a problem talking to me?”

That’s what the Black Metro police officer said to me when he began asking me to explain what happened.

Think Progress then searched Cole’s Facebook page for other instances of racially insensitive comments and discovered posts dating back to October 2013, during the federal government shutdown, in which Cole observed blacks outside his D.C. apartment and compared them to animals that escaped from the National Zoo engaging in “mating rituals” along with the hashtag #gentrifynow.

Buzzfeed, jumping off the Think Progress story, dug a little deeper and found comments Cole made in 2010 where he said a mosque should be erected on White House grounds and that he would do his "absolute best to put as many Black criminals who live and loiter on [his] street behind bars." (Cole also said he was color blind when it comes to criminal behavior.)

Shock didn’t hesitate to accept Cole’s resignation and the statement released by his office made it clear that such behavior and opinions would not be tolerated.

"I am extremely disappointed by the inexcusable and offensive online comments made by a member of my staff," Schock said in a statement to the Journal Star. "I would expect better from any member of my team. Upon learning about them I met with Mr. Cole and he offered his resignation which I have accepted."

Cole had spoken honestly (and thoughtfully, it should be added) about racism in the past. In a 2008 article for Baptist News he wrote about his own reaction to Barack Obama’s election as president and the racist response from other Baptist ministers.

During the course of the past year, I too have been forced to wrestle with my own prejudices. At times, I’ve joined the bigoted banter and helped to scratch the old wounds of racism. Yet on a quick flight back to Washington Nov. 5, I was able to get past my own persuasion about the political consequence of Barack Obama’s election and be thankful that America has become a place where a man with dark skin and an African surname can become president.

Old behaviors, however, are hard to change and for Schock—a media savvy politician with aspirations for higher state or federal office in his future—alienating African American voters is non-negotiable, especially when less than 4 percent of the voters in his congressional district are African American. When Schock was first elected to the Illinois Legislature, he received only 4 percent of black votes. Two years later that number jumped to 39 percent. Schock, who briefly flirted with running for governor, recognized he couldn’t run in Illinois as a pure red conservative.

Cole’s resignation capped a week in which he ham-handedly tried to control any reports on Schock’s redecorated offices.