Kahllid Al-Alim, a candidate to represent District 1 on LAUSD’s Board of Education, has apologized for social media activity that sparked controvery recently — and led the local teacher’s union to suspend campaign activities in that race.
Al-Alim, one of seven candidates for District 1, had apparently made and liked posts on “X,” formerly Twitter, that have been decried as antisemitic; he also followed accounts that were sexually explicit in nature, including those that promoted women on the adult site OnlyFans. The posts were on his personal X account, which has now been deleted, rather than his campaign website. But a series of screen grabs, which a consultant for one of Al-Alim’s opponents provided the Southern California News Group, seemingly confirm the sexually explicit accounts he followed, and showed posts from other accounts and shared on his page that were antisemitic.
When contacted by phone this week, Al-Alim did not deny the posts but instead referred to a statement on his campaign website.
In that statement, Al-Alim apologized for the posts, including one promoting the second volume of “The Secret Relationship Between Jews and Blacks,” by Louis Farrakhan, the controversial head of the Nation of Islam.
“I want to apologize for my posts about the Farrakhan book,” Al-Alim said in the statement. “I was wrong. I have connected with educators and community members and have since learned about the issues. I fully rescind that post. It has no place in our schools.”
He also apologized for the sexually explicit content.
“It was inappropriate,” he said. “I will never do that again.”
But that apology hasn’t stopped the backlash against the candidate, who had nabbed the endorsement of the powerful union that represents more than 35,000 teachers within the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“Kahllid Al-Alim’s social media activities were offensive, anti-Semitic, and unacceptable,” UTLA said in a Friday morning,…
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