Update, March 27: O’Rear lost his bid for Student Body President, coming in third with 12 percent of the vote.
Just when racism at Duke and misogyny at Carolina were making me feel like my alma mater NC State might one day have a shot at the crown for “Triangle’s Most Progressive University,” this bullshit happens.
Dwayne O’Rear—husky lover of huskies and racist homophobe—is running for Student Body President.
Technician, in one extraordinarily long paragraph, describes some social media interactions of The Bro’s Choice for President.
In Nov. 2010, O’Rear saw two gay people embracing each other and kissing in the Brickyard, which he posted on Facebook about, exclaiming, “helllllllllll no!!!” He also once offered advice “to the cute girls always with the gay guy: get yourself a real man.” In April 2011, he stated President Barack Obama is a Muslim, Islam is a “false religion” and no one likes Muslims. On this same Facebook post, he called another commenter with a Muslim name a “raghead” and told him to “go blow yourself up like your cousins do lmfao!” Last month, he tweeted during an N.C. State basketball game, “Why is there a female commentator covering our game @espn?”
Nice one, Dwayne. Way to empower bigoted white dudes everywhere that they too can run for Student Body President.
Despite the fact O’Rear might actually be tapping into a sizable Good Ol’ Boy constituency at NC State, his comments have not been well-received.
A Technician editorial asked him to drop out of the race and called his views “ignorant and morally questionable.”
Check out this epicly uninformed exchange:
Good call, Yousef. You can’t reason with straight, white men, who recognize they no longer exclusively control the United States.
You can read an entire reddit thread here, which includes plenty more gems from O’Rear.
O’Rear’s explanation is twofold.
First, he claims many of his friends have access to his Facebook account and that he is not responsible for the majority of the posts. It’s unclear whether this explanation will actually distance him from his core constituency, as well as the rest of the NCSU campus.
Second, O’Rear and his former campaign manager admit that O’Rear really was a racist asshole a couple of years ago, but that he’s better now (head explodes).
Here’s what Alex Canoutas, who resigned as campaign manager, told O’Rear, according to Technician.
“I just told him ‘It’s over, dude. You need to protect your image and reputation at this school. You need to apologize to get people not to think so lowly of you anymore. If you don’t say anything it’s like you’re standing by those views and you still have them. I’ve been your buddy since freshman year, and I know that’s how you were then, but that’s not how you are now, so you’ve just got to issue a heartfelt apology to let people know that.’”
NC State votes for its new Student Body President today. Don’t forget to vote, bros.
