A county commissioner in North Carolina is under fire for referring to slaves as "workers" during a discussion about the removal of a Confederate monument during a Alamance County Board of Commissioners meeting. Commissioner Tim Sutton was defending a Confederate monument when he called his ancestor's slaves "workers" because they were so close with his family. "I am not ashamed of my great-grandfather,” Sutton said during the meeting. “He did what he did. It is my understanding that when he died, from Sarah, my grandmother, that some guys on the farm, you can call them slaves if you want to, but I would just call them workers, that they raised a good bit of my family."
<img src="https://media.8ch.net/file_store/f2360a60e44f7edf1b1901b0d8b5885f69a55119617b78745d7c4d0bb7fe204f.jpeg" style="max-height:640px;max-width:360px;">
<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit Associated Press</span>
Commissioner Sutton admitted he is a chartered member of the Sons of the Confederacy. He went on to defend his statement by saying, "I am not going to be a victim of political correctness." The Alamance County Board of Commissioners meeting's purpose was to decide how city funds would be used and whether the removal of Confederate statues was a good use of those funds. Another commissioner at the meeting said, "The men and women that hold these Confederate monuments dear to our hearts share a stand for no reason other than pride and honor for the sons and fathers that answered the call to defend their homes, their families and their rights.
Other commissioners at the meeting denounced unlawful removal of statues by arguing that the money would be better spent elsewhere. "Please leave the monument alone so we don’t have to spend that money to fix and replace it," said Commissioner Amy Scott Galey. Sutton is unlikely to face any official reprimand for the statement regarding his ancestor's slaves being workers, but once more citizens catch wind of his statement it is possible he could become a target of the mounting social pressure stemming from the heated topic.
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http://www.thetimesnews.com/news/20170821/actbac-to-commissioners-leave-monument-alone
