[There was a video here]

Heroin use has exploded across the American northeast, and, according to Governor Paul LePage of Maine, men with names like “D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty” are to blame.

The Portland Press Herald reports that the pretty overtly racist remark came during a livestreamed town hall meeting in which LePage discussed the state’s drug scourge

You can listen to his reasoning in the video clip above, in which he also explains that these black drug dealers frequently “impregnate a young white girl” after they sell their heroin, but before they head back south. That comment evokes an audible “huh” from one member of the audience, though others laughed at his examples of stereotypical “black” names that also sound like possible friends of Bazooka Joe.

These aren’t people who take drugs, these are guys that are named D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty... [Laughter] These type of guys who come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here they sell their heroin then they go back home. Incidentally half they time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue that we gotta deal with down the road.

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: E93A 40D1 FA38 4B2B 1477 C855 3DEA F030 F340 E2C7