Court documents featuring audio recordings of a Georgia school superintendent either exposes the administrator’s racist attitude toward black people or highlights his fine reenactment skills in his role as a plantation owner from the antebellum South who is displeased with his field hands’ cotton-picking efforts.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Buford School Superintendent Geye Hamby (pronounced alternately as “Guy” or “racist anal douche”) is the focus of a racial discrimination lawsuit after the district fired 66-year-old Mary Ingram.
Ingram was employed by the district for 18 years, mostly as a paraprofessional and was one of the first dozen students to graduate from Buford Schools after the district was integrated in 1970. In 2014, she presented a petition to the school board to integrate gold into the district’s colors to commemorate the black schools that were once a part of the district.
“I was afraid we were about to lose our heritage,” Ingram told the Journal-Constitution. “I wanted them to know it was important to the community.”
In response, Ingram says she began receiving negative writeups after years of being a model employee and was ultimately fired after a confrontation with Hamby.
As part of the court filings, lawyers representing Ingram presented evidence of Hamby’s racism, including two audio recordings of Hamby talking to someone on a construction site, channeling his inner plantation-owning personality:
“Can you get me a, show me our general how many of these deadbeat niggers we employ?” Hamby asks the unidentified man, following up his inquiry with: “Have you got more of these big niggers than the ones from the temp service?”
He airs his frustrations over a “deadbeat nigger” who was caught using his cell phone while waiting on a fork lift, yelling: “Fuck that nigger. I’d kill the goddamned... shoot that motherfucker if they let me ... Alright. Well check out what’s going on with all the niggers down there.”
In a later conversation, Hamby recounts how someone named Philip dismissed two black workers:
“I know Phillip told tow of the niggers to get off the job site...Send us a park-quality person. Don’t send us a deadbeat nigger from a temp service.... We’ve got young kids right here that put in the work. They can do more than the deadbeat niggers.”
Ingram’s attorneys said the recordings were submitted anonymously but have been verified by independent experts who were prepared to testify to the veracity of the tapes.
Hamby makes $308,000 per year as superintendent of the 4,800-student Buford School district. and the district was ranked as the top school district in the state of Georgia last year, according to Niche.
Hamby says he has been instructed not to comment publicly on the case, adding: “This is a personnel and legal matter pertaining to a disgruntled employee.”
Administrators at Buford City Schools, which is 46 percent minority according to Public School Review, has not responded to The Root’s request for comment
The Buford City school board is 100 percent white.