Outrage as GOP mayor yells N-word at kids: 'You can say it, but I can't?'
The mayor of a Pennsylvania borough defended his use of the N-word during a confrontation with children and young adults at a local park — despite outrage from local parents.Daniel Berard, a registered Republican and mayor of Northumberland, Pennsylvania, told Raw Story via a phone call about an April 17 incident at the Second Street Playground where he said he gave the group a “lawful order” to leave the park.In a video of the incident viewed by Raw Story, Berard uses the N-word after the parkgoers repeatedly called him the N-word and other insults.“Didn't you hear the disrespect and sour treatment that these juveniles treated me with?” Berard asked Raw Story.“It's self-explanatory, and when they called me N—, they called me on the film at least four times, and off the film in the beginning they called me that multiple times. Multiple times. And my response to them is, ‘I'm not your N—.’”Berard used the racial slur again while speaking with Raw Story.“It's a despicable, despiteful (sic), disrespectful word to say to anyone, and these kids didn't know me, and they were swinging that word … like it's part of their vocabulary, and my response to them was, ‘I'm not your N-word.’ That's what I said,” Berard said.Tara Phelan, a mother of a 13-year-old biracial son who was present during the incident, said her son told her the mayor said to the group, “You N— have been told you are not allowed to be at this park once it's dark.”Phelan, a 46-year-old full-time caretaker in Northumberland, said Berard made the comment unprompted and “was using the hard ‘R,’” causing her son to come home upset.He was a mess,” Phelan, who is white, said of her son, who is half-Black. “He just was in disbelief. There was a lot of fear there.” Tara Phelan (second from right), one of the parents speaking out against the mayor of Northumberland, Pennsylvania, with her family (Photo courtesy of Tara Phelan)Berard told Raw Story the claim that he was unprovoked was a "lie." The beginning of the incident was not captured on video. "I used the hard 'R.' They used the 'ga,'" Berard said."Same word, just spoken a different way, and they can claim all they want I said this awful word to them unprovoked, but that’s simply not true."Berard said he "did not know what color they were — did not matter to me" about the parkgoers he interacted with on April 17.Phelan and other residents addressed the incident at a Northumberland Borough Council meeting on May 5 but were disappointed by the mayor’s response, which Phelan called “very smug.”“I was hoping that the response would be that he would issue some kind of a public apology and try and do better, or step down if he's not going to serve all of the members of this community,” Phelan said.Angela Jodon, a 31-year-old Northumberland mother who works in human services, attended the Council meeting and spoke up about the incident after she said her 13-year-old daughter was chased the day before by a man calling her the N-word.“There's some words that you're just not allowed to say, and it's pretty well universally understood that is not a word people say, and [the mayor] was saying it with a hard ‘er’,” Jodon, who is Black, told Raw Story after she saw the video of the incident.“There is a version of the word we all know with the ‘A’ at the end, and it is used amongst people of color towards each other, but that is a word that is not allowed with the hard ‘er.’“Everybody knows that. Socially, it's unacceptable anymore, and it has been unacceptable for a very long time, and I believe because he's in a position of power, he felt like he could say it … it doesn't matter what context you're using it. It's offensive, and it's terrifying for people of color to hear the people that's representing them in the community saying that as well.”‘Unconscionable’Phelan said her son was on his way out of the park around 8:18 p.m. when the exchange with Berard happened. Her 20-year-old daughter was waiting to pick him up before his 8:30 p.m. curfew, and the children know “they have to be out of there by the time it gets dark,” she said.Jeramee Clark, a 20-year-old construction laborer from Sunbury, was present during the incident. He estimated about 20 people were present at the park, ages 13 to 20.Clark, who is Black, said he spoke with a police officer who “did tell us, as long as we're not disturbing the peace or anything, whatsoever, we're fine being there,” even after the park lights were on. Second Street Playground in Northumberland, Pennsylvania (Photo courtesy of Tara Phelan)Berard said part of his job is “to uphold the ordinances of the borough” and that the group told him they would still return after he asked them to leave. Berard said the parkgoers came back to play basketball, prompting him to call the police to tell them to leave.Clark disputed Berard’s account, noting that the mayor was in the alleyway during the exchange.
