With just weeks until the November general election, Miles Burnett, the Democratic candidate for the City of Binghamton’s mayoral race, is facing backlash after a video resurfaced of him repeatedly using a racial slur as an adolescent.

The video shows Burnett in front of a webcam discussing the lyrics to “Smell Yo Dick,” a rap song by Riskay. In the nearly minute-long clip obtained by Pipe Dream, Burnett, who is white, repeated the N-word twice when analyzing one of the song’s verses.

When quoting one lyric of the song that uses the N-word, Burnett said, “He’s Black, it’s just a word for individual.” Later, while explaining a line from the song’s chorus that talks about a man coming home at “Five in the morn’,” Burnett said, “That’s ‘morning’ for you people who do not speak ‘ethnic.’”

Earlier this week, Burnett apologized and expressed regret for the video, which he said was recorded while he was “an adolescent child.” In a Sept. 24 Facebook post, Burnett claimed he was 14 when the video was posted and added that he would not do the same now as an adult.

“Those words were not appropriate then, and they are not appropriate now,” he said. “I got into this race to fight for a better Binghamton for everyone and that’s what I will continue to do.”

Mayor Jared Kraham, who faces reelection for a second term, condemned the video and said it should disqualify Burnett from the race. He also claimed Burnett was nearly 17 when he uploaded the video, not 14.

On Sept. 25, in response to Kraham’s comments, the Binghamton City Democratic Committee released a press statement with a link to a 2007 article about standardized testing that Kraham wrote while in high school.

The City Democratic Committee accused Kraham of “demeaning the intelligence of the black community” in the article, which was focused on standardized testing and its potential limitations. After describing his experience taking the SAT, Kraham said in the article that tests and quizzes have become a major metric that high schools use to evaluate how much students “learned” about a subject.

“Schools have to use tests to ‘standardize’ their teaching practices, even though it’s believed more and more today that tests might not be the best tool to judge the amount of material learned by a single student,” Kraham wrote in the article. “One good thing that standardized tests have done is to tell us that white, suburban, American kids are smarter than black, inner-city, American kids year after year.”

“Did you miss it?” he continued. “Let’s review that sentence: ‘One good thing that standardized tests have done is to tell us that white, suburban, American kids are smarter than black, inner-city, American kids year after year.’”

On Friday, Kraham told Pipe Dream that he was “mocking and criticizing” the idea that standardized test scores accurately reflect how much students really learn through satire.

In a post on X, the Broome County Republicans called Burnett’s video “abhorrent” and called on all elected Democrats in the county to condemn it. Benji Federman, the party’s chairman, told The New York Post that Burnett’s “hateful language and nonstop lies make him utterly unfit for public office.”

Comment requests have been sent to the Binghamton University College Democrats and College Republicans.

Karen Beebe, chair of the Broome County Democrats, said in a statement that there was “no excuse” for the video and commended Burnett for apologizing.

“I believe that children grow up and learn to be better adults,” Beebe said. “Miles is a strong and thoughtful leader who has made a deep impact on our community. He is the only candidate in this race committed to making Binghamton better for ALL residents.”