'Racist Monkeys, Get AIDS,' Teen School Board Candidate Apologizes For Tweets

Lapeer Community School Board candidate Austin Franzel, 18, apologized for -- and then defended -- a 2016 tweet in which he said the "Black Girls Rock" youth empowerment group is a racist double standard.

In April of 2016, his original @FranzelAustin Twitter account complained about a racial double-standard for potential youth empowerment group names. "If there was a #WhiteGirlsRock we would be the white Devils! But it's perfectly okay to #BlackGirlsRock? Racist monkeys," tweeted the teen.

"I was personally upset because I thought they were attacking white girls and so I fought reverse racism with racism," Franzel responded to critics of his 2016 tweet. "I know that is wrong now. I fully do not support that."

Several past Twitter posts and other social media comments from Franzel have featured astoundingly racist and homophobic comments despite his campaign to lead the community school board. The eighteen-year-old's past tweets have compared Black Lives Matter to the Ku Klux Klan and told one person critical of Donald Trump to "get Aids." As Michigan Live first reported, Franzel attempted to apologize for the comments after they were outed by shocked fellow students.

"Last year was a year of growth for me," Franzel told MLive. "I shouldn't have said those hateful, terrible things. I don't believe in any of those things now."

Franzel has since changed his Twitter account, declaring himself a "Republican of Lapeer county/Young Republican! Candidate for Lapeer community schools Board of Education." He challenged several of the "liberal students" calling him out to a debate.