The mayor of Hutto is facing backlash and calls for his resignation after he accepted a gift during a City Council meeting that critics say is a well-known racist symbol against Black people.
Hutto resident Nicole Calderone gave Mayor Mike Snyder a fruit stand with bananas hanging from it and a figurine of a monkey perched by it during a City Council meeting in late August.
Since then, a Black council member during council meetings this month has sharply reprimanded Snyder. And community group Black Families of Hutto has called for the mayor's resignation. Snyder, who is white, has said he did not know that the bananas and the monkey were racist symbols.
Calderone, who is also white, did not respond to a request for comment Monday. She made no racial references when she presented the gift in August.
Nelson Linder, the president of the Austin chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said bananas and monkeys are used to mock Black people.
"From a historical standpoint, Black people have always been compared to monkeys and monkeys eat bananas," he said. "The banana is a global symbol of white supremacy and hatred of Black people."
Linder said that it was "insensitive and racist" for Snyder to accept the gift of the fruit stand with bananas and a monkey.
The incident happened during a Hutto City Council meeting on Aug. 31. Calderone was talking to the council during the citizen comments portion of the meeting when she pulled the fruit stand out of a bag.
"It's a symbol," she said about the bananas and the monkey on the stand. "I'm one of the many monkeys who keep trying to climb the ladder for bananas regardless of how many times other monkeys try to pull me down and beat me up," she said. "To me the bananas represent what I expect and what I'm willing to fight for: low taxes, keeping a roof over our head and food on the table."
She also asked council members to learn how to listen to each other and not debate just to "prove a point." Calderone then gave the fruit stand to the mayor who left it on the dais during the rest of the meeting.
No one criticized the mayor for accepting the fruit stand during the Aug. 31 meeting, but that changed at the next City Council meeting on Sept. 7.
"This act demonstrated prejudice and raised questions about the mayor's commitment to foster an inclusive and equitable community," said council member Brian Thompson, who is Black. "Accepting a gift of bananas, a historically racist symbol used to demean and dehumanize Black Americans, is not only disrespecting myself and Council Member (Dana) Wilcott but undermining the trust and inclusivity needed for effective government."
Thompson asked the mayor to publicly apologize, work on getting cultural sensitivity training for the City Council and "try and repair the trust this incident has eroded."
Onnesha Williams, co-founder of Black Families of Hutto, asked the mayor at the Sept. 7 meeting to resign. She said the mayor allowing the fruit stand to stay on the dais during the previous council meeting was a form of harassment.
"It's the same as going to work and having a noose hanging at your desk," she said.
She also accused Snyder of having made a racist comment against Black people that has already cost the city $12.5 million. A jury awarded a previous city manager, Odis Jones, the money when he sued the city for racial discrimination. One of Jones' attorneys has said that a former Hutto police chief testified during the trial that Snyder once told him that "Black people were crooks." The city is asking for a new trial.
Snyder apologized at the Sept. 7 meeting about what happened and said the bananas were not meant to slight any person or group. "I can definitely see where it could be taken wrong and can see different people have come from different backgrounds," he said.
Snyder continued being criticized at the City Council's meeting Thursday, with Chas Moore, the co-executive director of the nonprofit Austin Justice Coalition, saying, "The mayor has made it blatant that he doesn’t care about Black people."
Williams asked the City Council at that meeting to pass a vote of no confidence in the mayor.
Hutto school board member Terrance Owens, who is Black, said during the Thursday meeting that he didn't blame Calderone for giving the gift to Snyder. "She has a right," he said. "She has what she wanted to say."
However, Owens said, when Snyder left the fruit stand on the dais during the meeting, "We could not see the mayor's face," he said. "All we could see was bananas."
He asked the council to get diversity training.
Snyder continued to apologize at the Sept. 21 meeting saying he didn't know the bananas and the monkey were racist symbols.
"Where I grew up, we didn't have this sort of thing," said Snyder, who was raised in Kansas City. "We didn’t hate people on the color of their race. I am sorry I didn't catch on to the undertones," he said, adding that the city's leadership is diverse with two Black City Council members and a Black police chief.
Snyder also said the City Council has asked the city's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Commission to recommend who can provide diversity training in a session that would not only be for the council but would be open to the public.
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