‘It breaks my heart’: Everett city councilor criticized for racist meme

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An Everett city councilor is facing criticism and calls to resign after he circulated a racist meme online.

In messages with a city official and other residents, Ward 3 Councilor Anthony DiPierro sent a cartoon meme that referenced the n-word, the Everett Leader-Herald reported last week.

DiPierro, 27, was admonished by members of the community at a City Council meeting Monday, with some saying he should step down from his position.

“Councilor, you are not 10,” Everett resident Janice Lark said, according to the Boston Globe. “You know the impact of using the n-word.”

Lark, who is Black, recalled being called the slur as a child and said the councilor should know better.

Guerline Alcy Jabouin, also a Black resident of Everett, said DiPierro should resign his seat, the Globe reported.

“It breaks my heart to hear from a sitting councilor talking about a derogatory word about Black people,” Jabouin said. “It hurts more to know that the city’s not doing anything about this.”

After the messages were reported by the Leader-Herald, DiPierro apologized in a letter to the editor of the Everett Advocate.

“I recognize what I did was wrong,” he said in part. “The use of such [a] word is never okay.”

On the same page of the paper, Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria wrote an opinion piece that the word was “entrenched in centuries of hurt and racial oppression,” and that anyone sharing material with it should be reproached. The city would investigate claims of further racist online posts by city council members, he said.

DiPierro is the son of DeMaria’s cousin, the Globe reported.

Two-thirds of Everett is non-white, though most elected officials in the city are white. The incident involving DiPierro is the latest in a string of tense incidents surrounding race in the community. In January, school Superintendent Priya Tahiliani filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination claiming DeMaria had a “racist agenda” and had undermined her authority. Gerly Adrien, Everett’s first Black city councilor, accused her white colleagues in late 2020 of attempting to push her out of politics after she was pressured to resign for choosing to participate in council meetings remotely, GBH reported.

In a statement to the Globe, DiPierro said he was working with the city’s Human Resources department to rectify his actions. He said he had spoken with minority and religious leaders and would meet with them this week.

“For now, I am ashamed, disappointed and embarrassed, but I am committed to improving,” he said. “I understand the hurt I have brought to my community. I promise, if you give me the chance, I will prove I am a better person.”

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