Don’t buy Clark Mayor Bonaccorso’s apology for racist slurs (Opinion)

Hey Mayor Sal Bonaccorso, if I buy the apology you’re trying to sell would you throw in the Driscoll Bridge, too? Sorry pal, I’m putting my wallet away.

In a story where absolutely nobody looks good, the mayor of Clark finally acknowledged what the rest of the world knew, that it was indeed him in the recordings using disgusting racist slurs like N-words, spooks and shines.

It was from what’s been called a whistleblower case and some Clark residents were outraged when it came to light that the city settled with the guy who made the recordings for $400,000 to keep him quiet about it — $400,000, of course, that came from taxpayers of the town just to protect the mayor’s political skin.

As things like this often do it all eventually came out. If you haven’t yet heard the many instances of when Bonaccorso used his charming slurs, here it is.

The Clark police chief and an internal affairs supervisor were also caught on the recording and are now on paid leave. The mayor is under increasing pressure to resign.

Instead of doing that, Bonaccorso decided to fix all this by publicly apologizing for the racist language. Which is hysterical considering part of the secretly recorded incidents has him talking to the other men about a time when he had to appear in front of black people to apologize for what appeared to be nooses hanging at the high school in Clark and you can tell his entire attitude was that it was just an insincere apology he was obligated to give.

Now he’s given another.

Look, if you want to decide the apology is real that’s your call. But how gullible does he think we are? Bonaccorso is not apologizing because he has seen the error of his racism. He’s apologizing hoping to save his political hide. And he’s pathetic.

His line about the true measure of a man being whether he can admit an error and learn from it is him just playing his own jury and exonerating himself. Sorry Sal, as my broadcast partner Bill Doyle said on our show, the true measure of a man is in not saying these ugly things in the first place.

Should he resign? Of course. Will he? We’ll see. But ultimately it is his decision. Should he want to remain in office he will eventually face an election and the residents whose tax money he used to keep his racism quiet can decide for themselves.

If they vote him back in office, then those votes will be the true measure of racists.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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