Can you hear me now?

The gaffe heard ’round the region

Kevin Flores’ campaign to win the Ward 2 Position 2 seat on the Springdale City Council got a huge boost Tuesday, courtesy of the man he hopes to replace.

Rick Evans, the current occupant of the Ward 2, Position 2 seat on the council, was overheard before Tuesday’s regular meeting referring to his potential opponent as “some little Mexican lawyer.”

“He’s real liberal,” Evans said, continuing his conversation with one of his City Council colleagues. “That’s his biggest problem.”

As if his status as a “Mexican lawyer” wasn’t a big enough problem.

Trouble was — at least for Evans — a nearby microphone was hot and his comment was broadcast as part of the city’s video live stream of the meeting. Friends and supporters of Flores captured the comment digitally and within a few hours, it was all over social media.

In the digital firestorm that followed, the many criticisms of Evans’ demeaning comment also came with pledges of support for Flores, an attorney and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. With that resume, he’s likely to be a pretty formidable candidate, even without his opponent’s help.

A chagrined Evans apologized Wednesday. To his credit, it wasn’t one of those “I’m-sorry-you-were-offended” non-apologies we frequently hear from politicians refusing to accept responsibility for their own foolishness.

Evans owned it. “There’s no excuse for my actions last night, and there are not enough words to express how sorry I am,” he said.

As with all apologies, his actions going forward will prove whether he meant it.

As for Flores, he said he wasn’t offended. “The words didn’t hurt me,” he told the newspaper. “They’re just words.”

But he did express disappointment that Evans, a leader in the community and member of the City Council for more than 20 years, was comfortable uttering such an inappropriate statement in a conversation at city hall.

And that’s the point. The casual nature of Evans comment, diminishing Flores’ fledgling candidacy based on his perceived background and ethnicity, is actually the “biggest” problem.

The attitude the comment represents only exacerbates the divisions that hold back communities from prospering and uniting. Particularly in a town like Springdale, which is as diverse as any in the region, dismissing someone offering himself for public service because of his Latino surname shouldn’t be the norm. Too often, it is.

While this controversy ought to act as a personal lesson for Rick Evans, it’s also a collective one for Springdale. Clearly, we’ve got more work to do as long as it remains easy and acceptable to dismiss someone based solely on their heritage, skin color or nationality — or for that matter, their chosen profession.

Flores, for his part, has a background that’s certainly impressive. He says his family fled civil unrest in El Salvador and settled in Utah, then Northwest Arkansas. Flores graduated from Springdale High, served in the Marines, including deployment to the Middle East, became a naturalized citizen and went to law school.

That’s a truly American success story worth celebrating, even by those who might disagree with Flores on politics.