She called them rednecks and they gave her something to “pine”.
The vice mayor of a southern New Jersey town is under fire after a social media post blasted residents of the state’s rural Pine Barrens region, known as “pineies,” as “mentally retarded, congenital idiots.” Officials announced that he resigned.
Natalie Stone, who held that position at the Tabernacle, sparked outrage in 2020 when Facebook posts mocking people in the area were dug up by political opponents. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Tuesday.
“It is true that the Pineys are said to be incestuous, illiterate, retarded and fools born of incest, producing generations of fools and whores,” Stone wrote, adding that he had just read a book about the region.
Paul, a Republican,’s comments infuriated some residents of the town, located in Burlington County, which describes itself as “Gateway to the Pines,” and led to calls for her resignation last month.
“The Deputy Mayor of Tabernacle (Town of Piney) feels this way about Piney,” one woman wrote on Facebook.
Residents then called for her resignation on April 22, and one town official even claimed that her comments about community members were racist, according to a local newspaper. Pine Barren Tribune.
“She said something racist!” Commissioner William Sprague Jr. said after asking if she could be “fired.”
Stone, who was elected in January, apologized at a public meeting and ultimately resigned earlier this month.
“The reason I left is because it became clear that people would rather spend more time mocking committee members than working together to find solutions to the Tabernacle’s many problems. “That’s when I realized I wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything,” she said. Tuesday questioner.
“There was a post about me every day for two months straight.”
She claimed critics dug up old Facebook posts and launched an online bullying campaign out of spite over another civic issue.
She said earlier this year she voted in favor of demolishing the Tabernacle’s 19th-century town hall, sparking a backlash from local residents and an “uncontrollable uproar” online.
Most of the online anger was directed at her, “and not at the two male commissioners who shared the vote,” Stone said. He has appeared in several indie films.
She also said she was reading “New Jersey’s Lost Piney Culture” when she posted.
The book addresses early misconceptions among Pine Barrens residents, including former New Jersey Governor James Fielder’s insistence that people living there should be sterilized.
The term “piney” is widely accepted among people born and raised in New Jersey’s unique Pine Barrens, some of whom even wear “piney power” T-shirts and bumper stickers. Masu.
However, the term has historically been a derogatory term to describe the early settlers of the area, which had vast pine forests and sandy, acidic soils that were unsuitable for traditional agriculture.
Urban Dictionary defines a “piney” as “a person who lives in the pine forests of southern New Jersey and wears an unbuttoned flannel shirt with a Lynyrd Skynyrd or Molly Hatchet tour shirt underneath…live concerts.” He has been known to yell “Free Bird!” whenever he is in the bleachers of “Free Bird!”.
