In a video of the incident viewed by Raw Story, Berard uses the N-word after the parkgoers repeatedly called him the N-word and other insults.
“Didn't you hear the disrespect and sour treatment that these juveniles treated me with?” Berard asked Raw Story.
“It's self-explanatory, and when they called me N—, they called me on the film at least four times, and off the film in the beginning they called me that multiple times. Multiple times. And my response to them is, ‘I'm not your N—.’”
Berard used the racial slur again while speaking with Raw Story.
“It's a despicable, despiteful (sic), disrespectful word to say to anyone, and these kids didn't know me, and they were swinging that word … like it's part of their vocabulary, and my response to them was, ‘I'm not your N-word.’ That's what I said,” Berard said.
Tara Phelan, a mother of a 13-year-old biracial son who was present during the incident, said her son told her the mayor said to the group, “You N— have been told you are not allowed to be at this park once it's dark.”
Phelan, a 46-year-old full-time caretaker in Northumberland, said Berard made the comment unprompted and “was using the hard ‘R,’” causing her son to come home upset.
He was a mess,” Phelan, who is white, said of her son, who is half-Black. “He just was in disbelief. There was a lot of fear there.”
Tara Phelan (second from right), one of the parents speaking out against the mayor of Northumberland, Pennsylvania, with her family (Photo courtesy of Tara Phelan)
Berard told Raw Story the claim that he was unprovoked was a "lie." The beginning of the incident was not captured on video.
"I used the hard 'R.' They used the 'ga,'" Berard said.
"Same word, just spoken a different way, and they can claim all they want I said this awful word to them unprovoked, but that’s simply not true."
Berard said he "did not know what color they were — did not matter to me" about the parkgoers he interacted with on April 17.
Phelan and other residents addressed the incident at a Northumberland Borough Council meeting on May 5 but were disappointed by the mayor’s response, which Phelan called “very smug.”
“I was hoping that the response would be that he would issue some kind of a public apology and try and do better, or step down if he's not going to serve all of the members of this community,” Phelan said.
Angela Jodon, a 31-year-old Northumberland mother who works in human services, attended the Council meeting and spoke up about the incident after she said her 13-year-old daughter was chased the day before by a man calling her the N-word.
“There's some words that you're just not allowed to say, and it's pretty well universally understood that is not a word people say, and [the mayor] was saying it with a hard ‘er’,” Jodon, who is Black, told Raw Story after she saw the video of the incident.
“There is a version of the word we all know with the ‘A’ at the end, and it is used amongst people of color towards each other, but that is a word that is not allowed with the hard ‘er.’
“Everybody knows that. Socially, it's unacceptable anymore, and it has been unacceptable for a very long time, and I believe because he's in a position of power, he felt like he could say it … it doesn't matter what context you're using it. It's offensive, and it's terrifying for people of color to hear the people that's representing them in the community saying that as well.”
‘Unconscionable’
Phelan said her son was on his way out of the park around 8:18 p.m. when the exchange with Berard happened. Her 20-year-old daughter was waiting to pick him up before his 8:30 p.m. curfew, and the children know “they have to be out of there by the time it gets dark,” she said.
Jeramee Clark, a 20-year-old construction laborer from Sunbury, was present during the incident. He estimated about 20 people were present at the park, ages 13 to 20.
Clark, who is Black, said he spoke with a police officer who “did tell us, as long as we're not disturbing the peace or anything, whatsoever, we're fine being there,” even after the park lights were on.
Second Street Playground in Northumberland, Pennsylvania (Photo courtesy of Tara Phelan)
Berard said part of his job is “to uphold the ordinances of the borough” and that the group told him they would still return after he asked them to leave.
Berard said the parkgoers came back to play basketball, prompting him to call the police to tell them to leave.
Clark disputed Berard’s account, noting that the mayor was in the alleyway during the exchange. Clark said he did not leave the park and return.
“Not once did he come up and tell us to leave at all,” Clark said.
The video shows Berard speaking to the group from a car.
“Their disrespect to me is unconscionable, and these are juveniles, so, what I say to them is to their parents: get your kids under control,” Berard said.
The next day the park was full of trash with “squirrels crawling in the bags that they left,” Berard said.
“They were so disrespectful to me that anything that I may have said to them in response to their disrespect to me pales to what they said to me,” Berard said. “I was embarrassed for them.”
‘Shocked’
The NAACP calls the N-word “derogatory, degrading, dehumanizing and is one of the most offensive words in history” in an official resolution. The Anti-Defamation League calls it “a racist and offensive slur, has been used throughout history to demean, humiliate and degrade Black people.”
The use of the N-word by Black people in music and conversationally has been studied by scholars.
"Black people have successfully divested the N-word of its original offense and in our struggle to survive the devastation it occasions, gave it new meaning, made it approachable, survivable," said Jacqui Stanford, a race expert, in a BBC article.
When asked if he understood why people of color specifically find the N-word disrespectful, Berard said, “You can say it, but I can't? On its face, that's racist."
“If you can say it to me, but I can't say it back to you, that's racist," Berard said.
“It makes them feel uncomfortable. It makes them feel disrespected. How do you think it makes me feel? No one cares about what the adult thinks and feels. Nobody cares about the white man, which I find outrageous.”
Jolon called Berard’s response to Raw Story “childish” and said the mayor used racist “dog whistles,” or coded language, such as calling the parkgoers “juveniles.”
Angela Jolon with her family (Photo courtesey of Angela Jolon)
“They said a word you're not allowed to say. Wow. That's in every culture,” Jolon said.
“Cultures have things that they're allowed to do and say that other people are not allowed to be a part of. That is in every culture, and that doesn't make other cultures racist.”
Clark said he was “shocked” by the mayor’s response to Raw Story and had “no words.”
“He's the grown-up. He was the adult. He was the superior in that situation,” Jolon said.
“If he felt like they were disrespecting him, instead of rising above in that moment as an adult should, as a leader should, when they went to his supposed low — that's how he felt — he went lower. He took it to hell … it's like, where's your accountability?”
Phelan said Northumberland has recently seen an increase in its Hispanic, Asian and Black populations, who have expressed issues with being “profiled” and “slurred.”
“Since we've had an influx of people of color, the racial things have been just an ongoing issue,” Phelan said.
“I think it starts [with] leadership like the mayor. You're a leader. You need to be able to serve everybody in this community,”
Berard said of racial tensions and profiling in the borough, “I think it's a manufactured problem, and if the Black kids want to talk to white people like they talked to me, then they're going to get [it] back.
“There was absolutely no reason for them to treat me with the disrespect that they did.”
'Case is closed'
Berard said he and his family members, including grandchildren, have been "harassed and threatened" since the incident. He said his Facebook was scoured, looking for "something to point toward racism."
A repost about Carnival Cruise Line that Berard shared about "Blacks on weekend cruises getting drunk and starting fights" was found and sent to a councilwoman, Berard said.
His 18-year-old grandson and college-age granddaughter were harassed by "anonymous posters," but another grandson who is Black was not harassed, Berard said.
When asked on Thursday if he would apologize to the families, Berard said "absolutely not — as a matter of fact they should apologize to me for their terrible actions, not only to mayor of the town, to an adult who did not want that kind of disrespect."
Berard said he considered the story to be "over."
"This is their drama, not mine, and I don’t want to any part of their drama," Berard said.
"The case is closed as far as I’m concerned. I've already forgiven them for how nasty they are to me."
Denise Guilbault, Borough Council president, did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.
