Mary Ann Twitty, a former Ferguson city court clerk who was fired from her job for sending racist emails, compared the experience to “being raped.”
The emails were released to the media after the Justice Department alluded to them in its March report on civil rights violations in Ferguson. Twitty was fired after working as a court clerk for 19 years, and two Ferguson police officers who sent racist emails resigned.
“It took me awhile to get over the feeling of being raped and being thrown under that bus,” Twitty told St. Louis CBS affiliate KMOV in an interview on Tuesday, the day Ferguson voters went to the polls. “I'm human, I meant nothing bad by it.”
One of the racist emails sent by Twitty included a picture of Ronald Reagan feeding a chimpanzee, along with the caption: “Rare photo of Ronald Reagan babysitting Barack Obama in 1962.”
Asked by KMOV whether she found the emails funny, she replied, "Funny as in, humor-wise? Humor-wise, yes. Not because it was racist or biased, no. Just funny joke-wise. I feel bad because that's not, I don't want people to look at me and say, ‘Well, she sent those racist jokes out because she's racist or biased.' And I'm not.”