Black Camerawoman Has Nuts Thrown at Her, Called 'Animal' at GOP Convention
Two people attending Tuesday night's gathering at the GOP national convention in Tampa Bay, Fla., were thrown out for allegedly throwing nuts at a black camerawoman working for CNN, and for calling out, "This is how we feed animals."
"Yesterday two attendees exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated," a Republican statement confirmed.
While details on who the ejected people are and why they targeted the CNN camerawoman were not revealed, the news network noted that it was made aware of the incident and are looking into it further.
"CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum earlier this afternoon. CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment," the network said in its own statement.
The incident was first reported by Take Action News, where reporter David Shuster tweeted: "GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying 'This is how we feed animals.'"
The story has already attracted close to 10,000 comments on The Huffington Post website alone, attracting a lot of controversy. While some have called it an obvious racial issue, others have suggested that it is a "left wing set-up."
"You wonder why these two people felt it was appropriate to act in such a disrespectful manner? Could it be the undercurrent of racism in the GOP made them think no one would object? This is a lesson in why the tent of the GOP is the size of a pup tent with hateful people crammed in like sardines," commented a user named "mountaingal."
"The dems went too far on this one. A woman I can understand. that would fly. A Black person I could understand. thay would fly. but a Black Woman! You just blew your cover. I'm ashamed of you. Wheres your head? Who's gonna buy that?" suggested a user named "mikehuntsman."