Congressional Candidate Denounces Racist Discourse & Politically Negligent Media

Bloomington, IN, May 07, 2020 --(PR.com)-- In January of this year, the Ninth District Democratic committee unanimously decided to disavow the campaign of a congressional candidate who had repeatedly used racial stereotypes and derogatory language in regard to certain minority groups. The Democratic Party also decided to withhold funding and all other forms of support to this candidate’s campaign.

Recently, a well-known and respected local organization granted an interview to this candidate, thus lending public credence to his racist views and tacitly condoning them. In the meantime, this organization had scheduled an interview with Mr. Hood. After long reflection, the campaign decided to cancel the interview and announce that it would not grant interviews to any media outlets that engaged in a similar practice.

"As a campaign, what we do and don’t do has a rippling effect on our city’s politics and the well-being of the community at large," Mr. Hood said. "No principled candidate can knowingly cosign a practice that effectively undermines its foundational promises or appear to endorse a discourse of exclusion and hate in any way. And while we want our ideas to gain as much exposure as possible, we will not pursue this exposure at the expense of our moral commitments or in a way that makes our constituents feel unsafe."

Litzenberg echoed these sentiments. "We knew that there was a risk involved in turning down an opportunity to have our ideas heard in a setting that was bound to attract a great deal of attention," he said. "But in the end, the calculus we performed was an ethical one and had nothing to do with politics writ small. Since its inception, our campaign has been about reform that digs down into the root of how we form and execute public policy. Our goal is to transform the rhetoric that surrounds things like race, gender, and sexual orientation, especially as it plays out in our political discourse. To grant an interview to an organization that has given racist discourse a free and uncritical platform would be a betrayal of everything we collectively stand for, as well as a gesture of deep disrespect to the very people we have vowed to represent."

For more information about Brandon Hood’s platform or to reach the candidate go to Hood2020.com.