(NewsWorthy.news) – Baltimore’s Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott has claimed he is the victim of a new onslaught of racist attacks following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge, which resulted in the deaths of six men.
Scott responded to claims he was a Diversity Equity and Inclusion appointment saying that the DEI label was being “weaponized” by racists who lacked the courage to use the n-word. The mayor warned that they should be “very afraid.” Scott won 70% of the vote when he was elected as mayor in 2020, yet this did not stop online critics from suggesting he was appointed to his position based on his race. Scott accused the “far-right” of weaponizing the DEI label as an alternative racist slur.
All workers who died in the bridge’s collapse were Latin American immigrants. Democratic Maryland Governor Wes Moore dismissed the claims that DEI policy was to blame for the bridge’s collapse. Among those making the claims were Republican Utah Representative Phil Lyman and Republican Florida candidate for Congress Anthony Sabatini. Engineers blamed the collapse on a $3 million design flaw that could be present in tens of thousands of bridges across the United States. The bridge was constructed in the 1970s, before anti-collision devices such as fenders and protection cells became the norm in the 1980s following a freighter’s collision with Florida’s Skyway Bridge.
Scott stated that he would be ignoring all “conspiracy theorists” and criticized people who never formally studied engineering for “playing bridge engineer at home”. He stressed that the tragedy highlighted that the city’s spirit cannot be broken and vowed to rebuild and to honor those lost in the bridge’s collapse.
One X account’s post labeling Scott Baltimore’s “DEI Mayor” received 25 million views due to Elon Musk retweeting the post. Musk later deleted his retweet after backlash. Scott accused the far-right of painting black people as bogeymen and of arguing that rich and straight white men should be in positions of power and influence. In his campaign that got him elected, Scott promised to tackle issues the city faced with substance abuse and gun violence.
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