Penn-Williams calls for apology, sanction
NORWALK, Conn. — A Democratic Common Council member is facing backlash and questions from fellow Democrats about the beliefs she has expressed on social media.
Council member Diana Révolus (D-District B) recently posted a meme about the NAACP on a Facebook page she posts to under a pseudonym. It took the initials for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and spelled them out to stand for “Negroes Always Asking Caucasians Permission.”
Norwalk Branch NAACP President Brenda Penn-Williams called for the Democratic Town Committee and the Council to sanction Révolus. She added that Révolus wouldn’t enjoy the freedoms she has if not for the NAACP.
“I think is very insulting for her as a Common Council person, and as a Black woman. She ought to be ashamed of herself. She needs to write an apology to the NAACP,” Penn-Williams said. “…Does she know what NAACP stands for?”
Neither Mayor Harry Rilling nor Council President Tom Livingston (D-District E) responded to an email asking about Penn-Williams’ call for a sanction. Norwalk Democratic Town Committee Chairwoman Eloisa Melendez declined to comment.
Penn-Williams did not contact NancyOnNorwalk. An unhappy Democrat sent NoN a screenshot of Révolus’ Facebook post and NoN called Penn-Williams, who said she heard about the post and found it offensive.
“The NAACP has done a lot in this country to make sure that people of color advance. They have made sure that people of color are not discriminated against,” Penn-Williams said. “She wouldn’t be where she is today if it wasn’t for the NAACP. So before she starts speaking, first she should understand the goal of the organization.”
It’s not obvious from the screenshot that Révolus made the post but a second Democrat explained that she uses a pseudonym. There are multiple posts on the page confirming that it’s Révolus.
Révolus didn’t reply to an email from NancyOnNorwalk. NoN called District B Democratic Committee Chairwoman Sonja Oliver, who said she’d talked to the Council member. Oliver provided NancyOnNorwalk with a statement from Révolus:
“In regards to the NAACP, post that was found on my private Facebook page in my newsfeed; there was no malicious intent to the NAACP organization as a whole. Over the past few years, I have found our local chapter to be a little slack and therefore I have become dismayed with the local chapter. I did not create the poster {cq} it was on my news feed and I pressed to share. It was meant to be a joke considering the organization was not created by people of color. I also found it funny that NAACP is our go-to for racial injustice and it was created by Caucasians.
“Questions for those having an issue with the post. Did they also find the comment David Heuvelman made to Nicol Ayers offensive? He told her to make sure she did not align herself with anyone on the council from District B. I would think there would be more interest in going after that than something that came across a feed and was reposted.
“Another issue that I would think warrants more attention would be the picture that was posted on Facebook with X (s) through the faces of everyone that opposed the proposed distribution of the Board of Ed budget funds made and shared by Ilianna Zuniga and Sharon R. Encarnacao Baanante. That to me depicts assassination, with the current climate of random shootings I would think this would be an area of concern.
“To anyone that was offended by the NAACP post I repeat I was not attempting to be malicious and I invite you to do the research on the founders of the organization once you know the history maybe you will see the irony in the post.”
Heuvelman and Ayers did not respond to an email asking about Révolus’ comment. They are Democratic Council members representing District A. NoN has not seen any social media exchanges between the two.
Zuniga and Baanante are members of the Commission on the Status of Women. Zuniga and Baanante had no comment. On Friday, Baanante left a comment on the published article, saying that she didn’t post the photo with the “x”s. Instead, she posted NoN’s story about the budget, which had the photograph with it.
“The NAACP’s founding members included white progressives Mary White Ovington, Henry Moskowitz, William English Walling and Oswald Garrison Villard, along with such African Americans as W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida Wells-Barnett, Archibald Grimke and Mary Church Terrell,” History.com states.
Du Bois was the only Black person on the initial leadership team, according to History.com. The NAACP was founded in 1909 after a race riot in Illinois and was patterned after the Niagara Movement, “a civil rights group started in 1905 and led by Du Bois, a sociologist and writer.”
The NAACP “aimed to secure for all people the rights guaranteed in the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution, which promised an end to slavery, provide equal protection of the law, and the right for all men to vote, respectively. Accordingly, the NAACP’s mission is to ensure the political, educational, equality of minority group citizens of States and eliminate race prejudice. The NAACP works to remove all barriers of racial discrimination through democratic processes,” the NAACP website states.
It explains, “Despite a foundational commitment to multiracial membership, Du Bois was the only African American among the organization’s original executives. He was made director of publications and research and in 1910 established The Crisis, the acclaimed publication of the NAACP.”
The Facebook page Révolus is using to post opinions under a pseudonym is not private. Anyone who knows the pseudonym, Aries Phoenix, can find it and the posts shared there are public.
The two Democrats mentioned earlier, and a third Democrat months ago, said Révolus has been spreading COVID-19 misinformation; the two Democrats called it inappropriate in her role as a Council member. They also said she’s made comments they interpret as homophobic.
There are no examples of the latter on the misleading Facebook page. Aries Phoenix has multiple posts advertising COVID-19 thoughts; most of the links don’t work because the posts have been removed.
One headlines an accusation that a boy died after taking the vaccine. Another says someone died and Aries Phoenix alleges, “Its the vaccine.” A TikTok link was headlined “killer vaccines.” She also called mothers who protested mask mandates “heroes.”
Révolus declined to comment.
Oliver said she’d spoken to Révolus about “all of those things” and “people take a small portion of something, and they blow it out of control.” Révolus had said text messages were taken out of context and when Oliver read the entire conversation, she concluded that people weren’t including everything.
“Diana’s very vocal and some people don’t like that,” Oliver said.
About COVID-19, Oliver said, “That is old news. At the height of Covid Diana was very vocal about the wearing of masks and the vaccines when they came out. She was very vocal about it during meetings, so everyone is aware of her thoughts on the subject.”
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