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Davis County group under fire after comment targeting Black city council member

By Tim Vandenack - | Apr 17, 2023

Photo supplied

Karece Thompson, a member of the Clearfield City Council.

CLEARFIELD — A Black member of the Clearfield City Council is blasting a conservative Davis County organization after he was singled out in what he says was a racist message posted on its Facebook page.

Karece Thompson, in his second term on the City Council, has received words of support from many fellow Republicans in the wake of the flap, he said. At the same time, the group, Davis County Conservatives, posted a general apology about a “wrong and inappropriate” comment posted on its site, accessible only to members.

But Thompson said the group never offered him a personal apology and he takes umbrage at the turn of events, which picked up steam in a feed on the Twitter account of Utah Sen. Todd Weiler, a Woods Cross GOPer who denounced what he termed the “racist comments.” Davis County Conservatives is registered with the state as a political action committee.

“Those people have a history of harassment in general. … They are not worthy of the Republican family,” Thompson said.

Utah State Treasurer Marlo Oaks, a Republican, also chimed in, chiding Davis County Conservatives in a tweet on Monday.

“To say I’m disappointed to learn of racist comments posted in the Davis County Conservatives Facebook group is a huge understatement. I’m even more disturbed to learn that the organization tasked with supporting GOP candidates & events refuses to speak with the individual harmed,” Oaks said in a tweet thread. He went on: “I call on the Davis County Conservatives to publicly apologize to Karece Thompson and to take action to address this harm.”

Thompson doesn’t see the Republican Party as the problem, noting that Davis County GOPers picked a Black man on Saturday, Yemi Arunsi, to lead the party. Instead, he singled out Davis County Conservatives, which he labeled “a small splinter group which could influence others.”

The author of the post in question — Gary Moore — said he has reached out through an intermediary to apologize directly to Thompson, so far without a response from him.

“That was wrong of me to make a personal attack,” Moore said. “I should not have engaged in a personal attack at all, really.”

Moore said he holds “no racial animosity.”

Don Guymon, an administrator of the Davis County Conservatives Facebook page and one of its primary officers, said he took the Moore comment down Saturday afternoon, as soon as he could after learning of it. Thompson said it had been up since at least last Thursday, when he learned of it.

“We don’t accept racism and that’s what we said in that statement,” said Guymon, alluding to the general apology the group issued. The group welcomes everyone, regardless of race, he said, and Moore, just a member of the group, has been removed from the Facebook group.

Though deleted, Thompson has a screen grab of the Moore comment in question, posted in a tweet on his Twitter account. “There are regions of the country where the Republicans need every vote they can get,” it reads. “This is not one of those regions. But trying to make the (Davis County Republican Party) attractive to Blacks and Hispanics, we draw the likes of Karece Thompson, a man with a history of winning elections in this county, though I would never vote for him.”

Thompson sees the remark as a jab at people of color and at himself.

He interprets it as saying Repulicans “can have a white-dominated party because our region allows it,” he said. If more Blacks and Hispanics are brought into the party, he went on, some seem to worry “we might get another Karece. The depth of racism in that is astounding.”

He had harsh words for the conservative organization. “They’re grifters. They’re coopting conservatives for personal gain,” he said.

Thompson ran for one of 12 Davis County seats on the Utah Republican Party State Central Committee at Saturday’s Davis County Republican Party convention, when Arunsi was elected. He brought up the Davis County Conservatives post in remarks about his candidacy and ultimately finished 30th out of 31 candidates.

“I was mad. I won’t deny it to you,” Thompson said.

In his Twitter feed, Weiler posted a version of the Davis County Conservatives apology that he said was posted and later deleted from the group’s Facebook page.

“A comment was made in the comment section about a member of the DCRP that was wrong and inappropriate,” reads the Davis County Conservatives post, made by Guymon, according to Weiler’s screengrab of it.

Guymon went on to say in the apology that others in the group expressed distaste with Moore’s remark in comments that followed it.

“Racism has not and is not tolerated in this group and does not reflect the views of the DCC. … We deleted the comment as soon as we were made aware and apologized that the comment was not noticed by the admins of DCC sooner. We welcome all who love our country and support conservative values,” it reads.

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