Social media message turns ugly in Ferndale, prompting racist threats
A social media post to honor Indigenous Peoples Day became a free-for-all of crude and menacing language in support of Columbus Day, forcing the city of Ferndale to hide some comments and issue a warning to followers of its Facebook page.
“This is an opportunity to honor the resilience and immense contributions Native Americans have made to Ferndale’s past, present and future. We stand on the ancestral homelands of Coast Salish peoples, who have lived by and on the Salish Sea since time immemorial, and acknowledge the shaping hand of Indigenous peoples on the course of history,” city spokesman Riley Sweeney said Monday, Oct. 10.
“On this day, we ask all residents to take a moment to reflect on our relationship with tribal nations and indigenous cultures including the Coast Salish people and beyond, and how we can all continue to celebrate these lands, and the people who make them so special,” Sweeney said on Facebook.
His post featured a photo of a Coast Salish mural on a building at Pioneer Park painted by Lummi Nation artist Jason LaClair, one of three such murals that the city has commissioned.
That post had nearly 600 comments by Tuesday, Oct. 11, many of them thanking the city for its effort.
But others contained profanity and threats of violence, Sweeney told The Bellingham Herald in an email Tuesday.
“The social media response from residents was mostly positive, but as with any online interaction, the noisiest and most offensive voices steal the spotlight. I am disappointed by those who see a simple recognition of the meaning of this day as an opportunity to antagonize,” Sweeney told The Herald.
“While I believe those few, angry voices do not represent the people of Ferndale, the response shows that there is still so much work to be done in healing the divides within our community,” he said.
Monday was recognized by Washington state and the U.S. government as both Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples Day — part of a growing movement to recognize the genocidal policies of European settlers, and later the American government, against the continent’s original inhabitants.
Ferndale doesn’t give its employees the day off, but city officials sent staff members an email asking them to “reflect on the meaning of the day,” Sweeney said.
Several comments accused the city of censoring free speech, which governments generally cannot do under the First Amendment.
But governments can limit certain kinds of language, including profanity and threats.
Offensive comments were hidden from view but not erased, Sweeney said.
“The city’s social media policy allows us to hide and archive (we never delete entirely), comments that are threats of violence, harassment or hate speech. These are the same rules we have in place for public comment at the City Council meeting. In addition, Facebook imposes a profanity filter upon the comments and auto-hides comments with profanity,” Sweeney said.
Many of the offensive comments came from out-of-state social media users, including Michigan and Florida, he said.
Ferndale has been the focus of several racist incidents in recent years, including a Confederate flag on a float in the Old Settlers’ Parade in 2019 and leaflets posted several times by the white nationalist group Patriot Front shortly afterward.
