Shame on Clark mayor for uttering vile slur

Clark Mayor Sal Bonaccorso revealed his odiousness again when he used a reprehensible slur to criticize a political opponent. (Courtesy of Clark Township)

If you had asked me two weeks ago whether I could think any less of Clark Mayor Sal Bonaccorso, I would have thought the idea impossible.

This is, after all, the guy who was caught on tape using racial slurs and excoriating all women in law enforcement as “disasters.” He denied saying any of this until audio recordings proved it, then issued a lame apology in a video that is no longer available .

But the mayor wasn’t done offending people yet. Jackie Roman and Riley Yates over at NJ Advance Media reported earlier this month that during a recent Clark council meeting, Sal didn’t like one of the speakers, so he called him a “f*cking r*tard.” He muttered it, but he muttered it into a microphone.

If you know me personally, you know the use of this slur is a particularly sore point for me because one of my sisters has Down syndrome. I grew up at a time when it was far more common to hear children and even adults use the word frequently, and it always made me cringe to hear friends and classmates bandy it about.

Luckily, times have largely changed . Thomas Baffuto, the executive director of the Arc of New Jersey, reminded me that his organization’s name used to have the word in it. But people with intellectual and developmental disabilities advocated for a change because it so offended them.

“They don’t want to be called the r-word and we’re going to stand alongside them and fight this whenever it comes up,” he said.

And it still comes up, alas. Not just from frat boy comedians like Matt Rife who can’t think of any other way to get people to laugh, but also from our alleged leaders. Former Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York used it on Fox News to mock a former colleague. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia used it in a video, then defended herself after being confronted by a constituent who has a son with Down syndrome and autism.

“You can actually look it up in the dictionary, there is a definition that means stupid,” Greene told him.

I’ve never seen any proof Greene has opened a dictionary, but if so, which one is she using? I just looked the word up and not only is there no alternate definition meaning stupid , there’s also a warning that the word is considered offensive.

What’s particularly odious about this specific slur is it targets a community that has a lot of members who don’t have the means to stand up for themselves . But not all of them. Kayla McKeon is the first registered lobbyist with Down syndrome , and in that role she has met with some of the most powerful people in the nation (people with far more power than Sal). I asked her what she thinks of the word.

“It is derogatory and extremely offensive,” she said.

McKeon works with the National Down Syndrome Society, which is working to get the slur eliminated from federal statutes and the Washington, D.C., code ( that happened here in 2010 when Chris Christie was governor). If only she could eliminate the slur from the mouths of our local officials.

I emailed Sal to see if he would chat. He did not respond. He didn’t deny using the word when he spoke to NJ Advance Media, but he said if he did use it, “I don’t think this was done with malice.” What other way is there to use it?

The mayor is seeking reelection this year. Apparently his various uttered slurs — and criminal charges! — don’t matter to Republican voters there: He ran unopposed in last month’s primary, and he’ll probably win in November, too. Pity poor Clark.

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