If you're keeping track at home, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner's press secretary, Mary Benton, has a history of making absurd statements about racism and slavery on social media.
Back in June Benton took to Twitter to suggest the firefighters of Houston host a white pride rally after critics asked why she was promoting a "State of Black Houston" event for the mayor. Drawing a line between white supremacists and first-responders appears to have been an unpopular opinion in a post-Hurricane Harvey community so she eventually deleted the Tweet.
Not to be outdone by her previous absurd attempt at race-baiting, Mary is back on Twitter - this time with another misguided attack on Houston's first-responders.
On September 3rd, shortly before 3:30pm, Benton used Twitter to compare Prop B (when Houston voter's overwhelmingly chose to give pay raises to firefighters) to slavery. Slavery?! Yep - slavery.
So, if the fire union won a vote to, let’s say, reinstate slavery, & the city went to court to have it declared unconstitutional, would you be mad? Because that is how the system works, when the law is at odds with a referendum. The right to appeal is part of the process.
Is there any connection between slavery and a democratic vote to grant pay raises to first-responders? It doesn't appear so, but Mary still chose to go there.
This isn't the first (or even the second) time the character of the Mayor's press secretary has been put into question. Back in January 2018 the Mayor's previous press secretary resigned over a scandal involving using city resources to promote personal projects, including a proposed reality show.
It's hard to imagine the city of Houston, a community still recovering from the damage left behind by Harvey, has political leadership who compares first responders to slavery advocates.
Fortunately for Houston voters, November is coming quick.