Recently, Republican Party chairman-elect for Harris County Keith Neilsen took to Facebook to quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," he quoted Dr. King. Nothing wrong with that. But then Neilsen added an image - of a banana.
Most would agree there was something very wrong in that.
The post drew an immediate outcry from top Texas Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
"Dammit, stop it. Stop saying stupid, racist things. Our country is grieving," Cruz tweeted Friday.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also tweeted that the image was "offensive to me and it should be to every Republican." State GOP Chair James Dickey said Neilsen should step aside as new county chair.
And Nielsen did just that, posting on Facebook that the image was "misinterpreted" but that he would not be taking his position.
Cynthia Brehm, who chairs the GOP in Bexar County, drew similar outrage recently when she posted on Facebook that Floyd's death may have been staged.
"I think there is at the very least the "possibility" that this was a filmed public execution of a black man by a white cop, with the purpose of creating racial tensions and driving a wedge in the growing group of anti-deep state sentiment from common people that have already been psychologically traumatized by COVID-19 fears," she wrote.
Two other county chairs, Lee Lester of Harrison County - not too far from Texarkana - and Jim Kaelin of Nueces County, seemed to give credence to the idea in their own social media posts. And Sue Piner, Comal County GOP chair, chimed in with a conspiracy theory about billionaire (and the far right's favorite bogeyman) George Soros paying protesters.
Again, top Texas Republicans stood up against these sort of posts, including Cruz, Dickey, Gov. Greg Abbott, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Land Commissioner George P. Bush.
There was a time when such statements would have been routinely passed off or explained away as some benign eccentricity. That time is gone. We are glad to see these Republicans taking a stand. Maybe that will get the message across.