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Professor Thomas Lecaque was featured on our website Friday afternoon. There was a story about Lecaque saying anti-mask folks are “terrible people” with a “shitty worldview.” There was another story about Lecaque, who supports abortion, talking about what he thinks Jesus would with the vaccine and masks. And there was a story about Lecaque saying Ankeny is in the situation it is with the mask debate because of overprivileged, racist white people.

At first, Lecaque denied calling anti-mask people racist.

Then he said he was taken out of context.

Shortly after that he deflected.

Finally, Lecaque decided to just make his Twitter account private after one more post about feeling like our stories were an example of defamation. It should be noted that accusing someone of defamation when it isn’t so could also be construed itself as defamation.

But I digress.

Instead, let’s focus on what Lecaque did say in his Twitter thread about the anti-mask movement in Ankeny.

The whole thread started with this tweet from Pat Rynard.

So, for context, Rynard is talking about the mask debate. He’s talking about the anti-mask folks in Johnston and how they contrasted with the anti-mask folks in Ankeny.

Another Twitter user at that point asked what the excuse is for Ankeny.

And Lecaque chimed in:

“Too many overprivileged white people with too much time online in a single town.”

A liberal Twitter user took Lecaque to task:

“I’m a liberal. But this comment? You’re why dems are even in close races with Rs: stop vilifying white people. We could bring in the sane middle if you didn’t claim all white folks are racist.”

Lecaque said that wasn’t what he said and attempted to explain. That explanation, of course, centered around Ankeny’s whiteness.

In closing, he added:

There is the conversation. Individuals can decide for themselves whether Lecaque called anti-mask folks in Ankeny racist.

Lecaque, who has no hidden his 80,000-plus tweets from public view — likely for good reason — is no stranger to claims of racism.

For example, he said:

“If Trump telling these fuckers to get the vaccine gets them to do it then I guess he has served a single positive purpose in his petty, vulgar, racist, misogynist, violent, rapist life and can go ahead and depart.”

And there was this about those who oppose Critical Race Theory.

And of course, Lecaque tweeted about more racist people.

While claiming he is a victim of being singled out, it appears he would be guilty of the same thing after he called out Gene Stevens, a former police officer, who offered comments against the Ankeny mask mandate.

Look, Lecaque can say what he wants to say on Twitter. But the best thing about Iowans is they are gifted in detecting the truth. If he really believes he was taken out of context, why lock down the Twitter account? Why not repost all those statements and show the evidence rather than make the typical allegation of “out-of-context.”

He said all of these things above in this story. If he misspoke, just admit the error. If he truly feels he was taken out of context, perhaps he could explain what the proper context was for saying:

“Racism is not the only problem when we are talking about white people, but it’s not not part of the problem here.”

Author: Jacob Hall

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