FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Broward School Board member Ann Murray said Sunday night a hacker posted on her Facebook page a meme about white privilege that many criticized as racist.
About 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Murray’s Facebook page shared a post from another user with the meme, “When I was born, they must have ran out of white privilege because I had to work my ass off to get where I am.”
The reaction was strong, with commenters using terms such as “racist,” “tone-deaf,” “disgusting” and “reprehensible.” The post was deleted by 9 p.m. Sunday.
Murray, 77, said “I swear on my husband’s grave” the post didn’t come from her.
“That’s the second time in two months my Facebook page has been hacked. I may be shutting the whole thing down,” she said. “Goodness gracious. Why would I put something out there like that?”
She later posted that Facebook customer service notified her “about UNUSUAL account activity, with someone signing in from UNRECOGNIZED DEVICES.”
She went on: “I apologize for anything that posted, that was disrespectful.”
Murray said her son was upset when he noticed the post and called her. She asked her daughter, who has access to her account, to remove it.
“I only post funny things, mostly about animals,” she said.
Her page Sunday also included posts that were supportive of the Black community, including AFL-CIO endorsements of several prominent Black political candidates and a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.
Murray said she did post those.
Although Murray has been a strong ally of Robert Runcie, Broward’s first Black superintendent, she’s also been dogged by her use of the “n-word” 13 years ago.
Murray used the word in 2007 when she was a supervisor in the school district’s transportation department. She was with a group of employees providing transportation services during the Super Bowl when she referred to watching a previous football game in the “n——-” section at the top of what is now known as Hard Rock Stadium.
Her use of the word wasn’t widely known until 2011, after she’d been twice elected to the School Board. Although the slur became a campaign issue in 2014 and 2018, she won both elections.
“Back in those days, so many friends that had worked with me stood up for me and knew that was totally taken out of context,” Murray said.
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