Calls for the resignation of Santa Rosa County Commissioner Sam Parker reverberated off the walls of the Santa Rosa County Commission chambers Monday evening after he was shown in a video making an antisemitic remark and then, purportedly, shaking down a store owner for a break on the price of a purchase.
A snippet of what appeared to be security camera footage was presented to the Board of Commissioners Monday by gun store owner Chris Smith during the public forum segment of the Commission Committee meeting.
It showed Parker walk into a store and use an antisemitic trope (Jew them down) when asking the owner for a lower price. He then went on to ask "what happened to my discount?"
"I guess if we would have brought cash you wouldn't have had to charge me tax," Parker is heard to say.
Smith was the first to call for Parker's resignation, questioning his morals and criticizing the hypocrisy of him as a supporter of raising the sales tax, asking for a break on that very tax. "You're a sitting county commissioner asking a local small business to perform an illegal act by not charging a sales tax if you pay cash," Smith said.
Parker was adamant in his own defense. He told Smith his use of the antisemitic term was "not an ethnic slur."
"I'm not referring to the Jewish community. I used that term as an adjective, as a descriptive term of bargaining them down," Parker said. "I didn't do anything wrong."
NGO StopAntisemitism shared with their followers the video snippet of Commissioner Sam Parker defending his antisemitic trope.
As to the comments regarding getting a sales tax break, Parker waved them off as "part of the fabric of my DNA." He said its fundamental to his work as a real estate broker to joke with people about the cost of goods.
After Parker spoke, a parade of people made their way to the speakers' podium to voice their reaction to the video they'd seen.
Sherry Chapman's anger was directed at Parker's use of racial slur. "If you would have said that to me I would have backhanded you, or told you off to make you about a half inch tall," she said. "You owe an apology to every Jewish person in the United States of America for such a remark."
By the time she stood to speak, Deborah Harsher had armed herself with the American Jewish Committee's "translate hate" definition of the term. "Rooted in the false stereotype that Jews are cheap or stingy, the phrase (Jew them down) may seem to be a harmless expression that’s used in everyday vernacular. However, it is an insulting, antisemitic misrepresentation of Jewish behavior that plays into the trope of Jews as greedy money handlers who are unwilling to part with their earnings," she read.
"The common, mainstream use of antisemitic terms, like (Jew them down) plays a dangerous role in normalizing antisemitism and reinforcing conspiracy theories in the minds of antisemites," Harsher said in conclusion.