HANOVER, YORK COUNTY, Pa. -- The Mayor of Hanover is saying she was the target of a hateful flyer.
The mailing sent by someone around the borough.
Myneca Ojo is Hanover's first black female Mayor.
She declined an on camera interview with FOX43 because she says she doesn't want to give hate a bigger platform.
As for neighbors, the people we spoke with don't get why someone would send a flyer like that.
"That makes me feel awful. I cant believe people are saying that about our mayor," said Amber Long, who has lived in the borough much of her life.
The flyer allegedly called Ojo a racist, a socialist, a communist, an African feminist, and "an outsider from the Republic of Harrisburg", according to a neighbor's post in the Hanover Area Watch Group online.
"Maybe they're just not ready for a female or an African American at that to be in charge of, be the Mayor of Hanover," added Long.
"It's disappointing. You don't hear about that stuff around here, but then again, now days, you just don't know," Tom Groft, whose lived in the borough for decades.
We knocked on doors all over Hanover, but we couldn't find a single neighbor who got one of the flyers.
Instead, neighbors wrote about what they received online.
Mayor Ojo discussed the flyer in a Facebook post, writing, "I want to inform you that some extremely negative information has been mailed in our community that is racially offensive about my position as Mayor. I do not desire to provide the publicity to the anonymous author that sent a mass mailing. I believe it is not consistent to the positive level of support for my appointment that I have received from Hanoverians. Hate propaganda has been sent all over the mid-state in the last year and I do not believe the sender to be from our area. Hanover as a community is better than this lone individual’s desire to divide our community with hateful rhetoric designed to instill fear."
The Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission thinks that it should be discussed in some way.
"She is the first African American in this official position, and one of the things you want to do is let people know this has occurred, and you want to address it," said Chad Dion Lassiter. "I think that if you white wash it, so to speak, it doesn't go anywhere. It just continues to put up that wall of silence."
Neighbors FOX43 spoke with sent the mayor some support.
"Them people don't mean nothing. It's what you think of yourself," said Groft.
"I think she's going to do a great job," added Long.
Borough officials sent a similar message as Ojo... not wishing to speak about the flyers.
