The Shawano School Board is calling on a board member to resign after he posted what he said was "a joke" about the death of George Floyd.
Shawano School Board member Mart Grams wrote on Facebook on Saturday: "You know George Floyd is drug free for 2 months."
Floyd died in May after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes. The video of his death spawned protests around the world including many marches and protests in Milwaukee, Madison and elsewhere in Wisconsin.
Grams emailed Green Bay TV station WBAY a statement on Sunday, calling his Facebook post "A joke, period. Anyone can say it was insensitive, or poor taste, but, once the racist cards come out, the raw hatred, we have a very poorly trained generation who cannot deal with the slightest contradiction to what the (sic) are told."
Shawano School Board members called a special session Sunday evening to condemn Grams' use of "racially derogatory terminology and of his irresponsible statements mocking the death of Mr. Floyd."
The board called on Grams to immediately resign.
As of 7:45 p.m. Sunday, Grams' post had drawn more than 800 comments, many of them calling on him to resign or for the school board to force him out.
One commenter wrote, "Contrary to what you tried to pass off as a reason when you spoke to Action Two News, this isn't just a joke nobody understood. It's racist trash."
The school district, in the city of 9,300 located 40 miles northwest of Green Bay, issued a statement earlier Sunday to the Green Bay television station saying Grams was speaking as an individual and doesn't represent or reflect the values of other school board members or the school district.
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