Winnipeg council candidate asks voters to accept he's grown since he issued hateful tweets
Bartley Kives | CBC News | Posted: July 28, 2022 10:00 AM | Last Updated: July 28, 2022
Omar Kinnarath issued misogynist, homophobic and antisemitic tweets he now calls horrible
Warning: This story includes offensive images and language.
A Winnipeg city council candidate says he takes full responsibility for posting misogynist, homophobic and antisemitic content to social media a decade ago and wants voters to know he has changed.
Omar Kinnarath, a community organizer vying to unseat incumbent councillor Cindy Gilroy in central Winnipeg's Daniel McIntyre ward this fall, said he is a better person than he was from 2011 to 2014, when he issued tweets including derogatory references to women, gay men and Jews.
While those posts have been deleted, screen-captured images continue to circulate via social media.
Kinnarath says he takes ownership for his actions, repudiates his own statements and understands the harm he caused.
"It's not right to speak that way. You know, you do hurt people when you speak that way or express those things, and I'm just trying to learn from the people around me and become better and be more sensitive," he said in an interview earlier this week.
"I just want people — voters and the general public — to realize that I am a real person. I'm not like the typical politician that tries to hide or shy away from these sorts of things. I do face these things head on."
Kinnarath said toxic masculinity contributed to the way he was socialized and he hopes voters in the Oct. 26 election give him the chance to demonstrate that he has learned.
"I know in my work in anti-racism, where people are called out for racism, you always have to give room for them to improve and to become better people and not think that way," he said.
Tara Mann, a former romantic partner who has a child with Kinnarath, says he is indeed a better person. She described him as a good father who does good work in the West End, and said it would be a shame if his old tweets prevent him from getting elected.
Tweets present challenge: expert
The combination of the volume of his offensive tweets, and how relatively recent they are, present an electoral challenge for Kinnarath, says a reputation management expert.
Sally Housser, the senior manager of public affairs at the Alberta-based Canadian Strategy Group, said while the general public may be willing to overlook sexist, racist or homophobic statements issued decades ago, few reasonable people would have tolerated some of Kinnarath's tweets a decade ago.
The council candidate is doing the right thing by accepting responsibility for his actions, she said, but voters will ultimately decide whether or not he has made genuine efforts to educate himself and reach out to people affected by his words.
"It really amounts to, what emotion are you able to leave voters with? Do they believe you to be real or not? And I mean, that's pretty much an unquantifiable factor, but it is the key one," Housser said in an interview.
Kinnarath said he expected to answer for his old Twitter posts during this election because he's had to answer for them for several years.
"Having dealt with this stuff before and feeling the scrutiny of the public and the media, I definitely feel like it's preparing me for the scrutiny of public office," he said.
He also said he has been the victim of hateful comments himself, and acknowledged they are particularly severe because he is Muslim and a person of colour.
"The things that I said were horrible, that's for sure. But the things said to me in the last seven to eight years? It's bad," he said, referring to threats of physical violence.
"And those people have no remorse. They have no intention to learn or be better or to understand people."