Dennis Kneale wrote in his Aug. 29 Newsmax column:
In the blood sport of social media, when a headline-grabbing lawyer or a self-trumpeting politician throws down the race card, the accused “racist” gets into even more trouble denying the charge.
The media salivate over the slaughter.
A dentist in Rochester, N.Y. became collateral damage in one such kerfuffle, and on Aug. 8, 2023 he filed a lawsuit in state court against two of his tormentors, alleging defamation and tortious interference in his business due to “the hate crime hoax perpetrated against him.”
Nicholas (Ned) Nicosia has served thousands of patients in Rochester since 1987, when he joined the family practice started by his father in 1956.
His name came up in a lawsuit filed against the city on behalf of a Black firefighter, alleging 15 years of racial harassment on the job.
Although Nicosia wasn’t a defendant in the suit, he was cited as hosting a supposedly racist party in July 2022, which the fireman was “forced” to attend.
Instantly he received an avalanche of hate messages and threats by text, email and social media.
One helpful heckler suggested he should kill himself.
Four of his employees quit under the strain.
[…]Nicosia is a moderate Democrat whose wife is a staunch Republican.
They hosted a party for 10 people on July 7, 2022.
The party theme was to make fun of local Democrats; the decorations included a large picture of President Trump.
Guests dined on pasta salad, pizza, fried chicken, and macaroni and cheese.
A local fire captain and three on-duty firemen visited the party, stayed a while and left without incident. Weeks later, a staffer returned from her lunch hour one day to tell Nicosia: “Doctor, you’re on television!”
“And that’s how I found out about it,” he says.
“And that’s part of it, to catch me off guard, which is why it’s called ‘firehosing,’ because you don’t have any time to react. And then you’re just backpedaling.”
[…]The complaint, 41 paragraphs in, describes the party as a racist gathering spoofing Juneteenth. A bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken served at the party was a “racist trope to ridicule Black Americans.”
The lawsuit claims the Black fireman “experienced immediate unease upon arriving at the location. His discomfort intensified as he proceeded up the driveway and saw a sizable cutout of former President Donald Trump, a figure known for race baiting and divisiveness.”
So, a firefighter who runs into burning buildings was unnerved by a Trump photo? As for photos of local Democrats held up by sticks planted in Nicosia’s yard, the lawsuit says: “They literally had Democrats’ heads on stakes.”
Sad story, right? Well, not so much. Kneale left out the part where Nicosia’s wife did confess to being kind of a racist. As one local news outlet reported:
[Attorney Corey] Hogan also indicated that Znidarsic-Nicosia runs additional Twitter accounts. “I think she has a number of different handles,” he said.Mary Znidarsic-Nicosia and her husband, Nicholas Nicosia, wanted to clear their names after being accused of throwing a racist party. So, they made a plan and held a press conference this week.
Step one: The wealthy, white couple from Rochester, N.Y., adamantly defended themselves against what Znidarsic-Nicosia called “false claims of racism.”
Step two: Znidarsic-Nicosia confessed to a room full of reporters that she also happens to run a racist, anonymous Twitter account.
“In full disclosure, I do have a Twitter parody account that operates under a veil of a persona — and I have made blatantly racist comments under that persona,” she admitted.
“The culture of Twitter operates that way. It gives you an opportunity to be someone you’re not,” she explained.
[…]While the real estate agent did not disclose her anonymous Twitter handle, the now-defunct @HoHoHomeboyROC account used the image of a bust of a Black mammy that she admitted she owns. Screengrabs of previous posts include other anti-Black imagery, reposts of other accounts trolling Black people – often in an offensive interpretation of Black vernacular – and several fake ads for KFC.
Local columnist Casey Seiler added that “the @HoHoHomeboyROC account was not racist in some sort of relatively genteel #BLM-are-all-communists manner. It engaged in absolute gutter-level hate, featuring messages and memes that wouldn’t look out of place in Der Sturmer.”
Kneale then offered a benign description of the party:
Nicosia is a moderate Democrat whose wife is a staunch Republican.
They hosted a party for 10 people on July 7, 2022.
The party theme was to make fun of local Democrats; the decorations included a large picture of President Trump.
Guests dined on pasta salad, pizza, fried chicken, and macaroni and cheese.
By contrast, others described the gathering as having “brazenly ridiculed Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the United States, by perpetuating racist stereotypes of Black people. The menu consisted of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Hennessy cognac,” and that “The party was also said to feature a woman dressed as County Legislator Rachel Barnhart dancing in a mocking and sexual manner for attendees.”
Kneale then touted Nicosia’s lawsuit against Barnhart and “tort attorney” Nathan McMurray for defamation for publicizing what happened, but he didn’t mention that Barnhart was mocked in an apparently cruel fashion at the party. He also didn’t mention that it’s hard to claim defamation when you’ve revealed that you run a secret racist Twitter feed.