KC state rep expresses ‘major regret’ for Facebook comments deriding women, gay men

A Missouri state representative who is up for re-election posted Facebook comments in 2011 referring to women as “meat” and complaining about “homo shyt,” and was reprimanded as a Texas high school teacher in 2017 for showing an inappropriate online conversation to students.

State Rep. Mark Sharp, a South Kansas City Democrat, said Wednesday he should not have been on social media during class time. He called the posts on Facebook “a major regret.”

“This was almost a decade ago — I was in my early ‘20s,” Sharp, 34, said, of the comments on Facebook. “I’m not trying to justify the actions. I shouldn’t have said any of those things but I really hope that I can be judged more so on my voting record and what I’ve done in Jefferson City.”

Sharp, who faces one challenger in the Aug. 4 primary, was nominated by local Democrats and won a special election last year to replace state Rep. Daron McGee. McGee resigned while being investigated by a bipartisan House committee for alleged sexual harassment of a former staffer.

Sharp’s past came to light Tuesday through multiple posts by an anonymous Twitter account titled “Time’s Up - Missouri,” which was created this month and has tweeted exclusively about Sharp.

The anonymous Twitter posts were shared by several, including Rachel Gonzalez, a Kansas City activist and member of state party executive committee.

“Mark Sharp should resign immediately,” Gonzalez tweeted Tuesday. “It’s time to clean house — he doesn’t represent my Democratic Party.”

Gonzalez was recently the target of what she called “creepy” late-night Facebook messages from Bill Haas, one of the Democrats running for a St. Louis-area state senate seat. Missouri Democrats asked Haas to suspend his campaign Tuesday.

The Missouri Democratic Party did not return a request for comment about Sharp.

Sharp alleged the anonymous Twitter account was part of a “smear campaign” by his opponent, Laura Loyacono. He said he discovered through a records request to the Texas Education Agency that Loyacono’s campaign manager, Cody Atkinson, was the only person who had obtained documents about his case.

Both Loyacono and Atkinson denied involvement with the anonymous account.

Atkinson requested the Texas documents in the course of vetting Sharp and said he handed the report off to leaders of the Missouri Democratic party.

“The record speaks for itself, the documents speak for themselves,” Loyacono said. “His words speak volumes and that is nothing I had anything to do with.”

Teacher reprimand

Sharp was a high school teacher and assistant coach at Caddo Mills High School in north Texas, about 40 miles from Dallas, until he resigned February 21, 2017.

Notes of the investigation obtained by Atkinson show that a few days before Sharp resigned, he was using a classroom projector when a Facebook message popped up on the screen. In it, a woman asked why Sharp had blocked her and used profane language. The message was on the screen for a couple of seconds.

Parents had complained of Sharp’s social media use during instructional time before, the report said. One student said she witnessed Sharp using his iPad to watch a woman with “barely any clothes on” on Facebook.

On the day he resigned, the school examined Sharp’s Internet search history on a school computer and found that he was looking up tactical rifles, used gun stores and shotguns.

Sharp said he shouldn’t have used social media while he was at school. He had been looking at rifles to fit in better with the other coaches at the school, who went hunting.

The investigation into his social media use was opened after he upset school leadership with complaints, according to Sharp.

As one of the only Black teachers in the Texas school district, Sharp said he was told not to teach lessons about Black history. He also complained when the cafeteria, which doubled as a stage for the school play “The Producers,” had a banner depicting a swastika, he said. In the play, the two main characters produce a musical about Hitler.

According to the investigation notes, Sharp was reprimanded for showing a video about police brutality, as well as a scene from “Fences,” a movie based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by August Wilson about a Black man in 1950s Pittsburgh trying to support his family while coming to terms with his opportunities cut short by racism.

The video was “inappropriate” and the scene had profanity, the complaint said.

“I was on an island by myself, trying to bring diversity, to this basically rural, racist school district,” Sharp said.

Caddo Mills Independent School District did not respond to a request for comment as of early Thursday afternoon.

Sharp noted that he was still in good standing to teach in Texas or Missouri, despite the reprimand on his record.

Facebook comments

The Facebook posts tweeted by the anonymous account still exists on Sharp’s personal page and date back to posts Sharp made in 2011 and 2012.

Two posts objectified women as “meat.”

“Question: women are you a piece of meat that any stray dog has a chance at, or are you a lady that only an established man has a shot at?” Sharp posted.

“Dogs need meat...MEN need a lady in the streets and u kno the rest,” he posted.

In talking about national news about coaches being accused of molesting young men, Sharp posted in 2011, “sports used to be a sure way to get away from that homo shyt.”

“When I was 24-25, I said things on Facebook that were stupid, dumb, uninformed and politically incorrect,” Sharp said.

Sharp said the posts do not reflect who he is now and didn’t know the posts still existed.

“It was a mistake on my part and not how I feel,” Sharp said. “Given the chance, I want to make up for those past shortcomings.”

Sharp is the son of former Kansas City Councilman John Sharp.

This story was originally published June 25, 2020 at 12:24 PM.