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West says that he didn’t actually create the image, but he did share it. He also said that it was meant to be humorous. <\/p>\n
“Why am I being singled out?” he asked. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m prejudiced against anyone who\u2019s trying to tear down this country, Muslims, Mexicans, anybody,\u201d he told The Tullahoma News<\/a>. \u201cIf you come into this country illegally or harm us or take away benefits, I\u2019m against it”<\/p>\n \u201cI just showed it to somebody else,\u201d he continued. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to harm this country, I\u2019m not in favor of you…I don\u2019t appreciate people trying to tear down this country.”<\/p>\n Concerned with a recent string of anti-Muslim acts in Middle Tennessee, The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro had this to say<\/a>:<\/p>\n “This does not only incite hatred but also violence against law-abiding citizens of our great country. Mr. West obviously lacks in wisdom and judgment and, therefore, cannot be trusted as commissioner. I wonder what would Mr. West’s response would be if the same photo was posted by someone with a caption that says: ‘How to Wink at Mr. West, a Coffee County Commissioner?’”<\/p>\n West is also drawing criticism from groups on Facebook, like the Christian Left<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Coffee County, TN Commissioner Barry West (D) posted this on his facebook page on Saturday. This is a hate filled post targeted at Muslims and is not acceptable from anyone, let alone someone holding a public office! Coffee County Mayor David Pennington has released a statement<\/a> distancing himself from West:<\/p>\n “As the Mayor of Coffee County I apologize to the Muslim people. I have no control over what the commissioners do outside of public meetings. I personally wouldn’t have done it, I have a great relationship with the Muslim community.”<\/p>\n Over the weekend, Coffee County, Tennessee Commissioner Barry West posted a photo on his public Facebook profile that has many in the area and across the country up in arms (no pun intended). The image, which is being called a “hate filled post targeted at Muslims,” features an older man in a cowboy hat aiming […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7357,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-655483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7357"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTell Commissioner Barry West this is NOT acceptable and that he needs to apologize to the Muslim community immediately,” they say in a post. <\/p>\n<\/img><\/a>
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