A Brooklyn-based primary candidate running for the New York State Assembly claims that a mailer that was sent out by his campaign calling one area a “negrohood” was an unintentional typo. The New York Daily News reports that Bill Akselrod, who is running against Democratic Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz, apologized yesterday, taking “full responsibility” for what he said was an “inadvertent error.”

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Akselrod, who has said that he himself faced discrimination as a Jew in his native Russia, apologized to “anyone who was offended” by the mailer, which was sent out by the Friends of Ben Akselrod last week. The portion of the text in question asserts that Cymbrowitz “has allowed crime to go up over 50% in our negrohood so far this year.”

A cursory check of multiple word processing and text programs’ spellcheck functions showed that “negrohood” in not a word in any of them. Furthermore, it generates a squiggly red underline line every time it’s used, which would presumably make it difficult to miss as a commonplace “typo.”

Raw Story will leave final judgment to the reader.

In his statement, Akselrod stated that he is firmly against “any form of racial and ethnic bias” and criticized his opponent for concentrating on the mailer rather than on the issue of crime.

The primary election takes place on Tuesday, Sep. 13.

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