A social media account featuring racially charged posts and bearing the photo and name of the woman who was hired in April as Vallejo’s second assistant city manager was taken down after the Times-Herald made inquiries about it Wednesday.
The account apparently belonged to Vallejo resident Nalungo Conley, who started work Monday as the City’s second assistant city manager. She reports to City Manager Andrew Murray, as does Vallejo’s other assistant city manager, Gillian Haen.
A screenshot is taken of a recent X (formerly Twitter) post by new Vallejo Assistant City Manager Nalungo Conley. The X account belonging to Conley was taken down Wednesday afternoon after the Times-Herald asked questions about the controversial posts. (Janis Mara – Times-Herald)
The X account @nalungomc1 had 372 followers, with posts dating back to July 2024. It included the retweets, “White women marry bigoted white men and birth and raise bigoted white boys,” and “Black people I think it’s time we withdraw ourselves from anything but blackness.”
Most of the posts with racial references were retweets — someone else on X wrote the tweet and Conley reposted it on her feed. (X is the new name of the longstanding social media site Twitter.)
Other retweets included “…Every single time, the majority of white women will be loyal to upholding skin privilege,” and “This is why the black LGBTQ community doesn’t trust the white LGBTQ community. They will sell our rights away to protect their whiteness.”
The Times-Herald was notified of the X account via an email account identified as that of an Aaron Schlessinger. The email contained screen shots of the tweets, which the Times-Herald verified Wednesday before the X feed was taken down. Schlessinger does not live in Vallejo. No one else contacted the Times-Herald regarding the account.
Former Richmond mayor and longtime Richmond City Council Member Tom Butt first noted, “I would be suspicious of anything I read on social media.”
Butt added, “Vallejo’s a very diverse city and if she is going to be effective there, she will have to deal with that. There is no room for bigots in a city manager role.”
A screenshot of a recent re-tweet by new Vallejo Assistant City Manager Nalungo Conley is shown. (Janis Mara – Times-Herald)
The population of Vallejo is 27 percent White, 17 percent Black, 23 percent Asian and 30 percent Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census.
A prominent Bay Area journalist shared his thoughts.
“I think with any kind of quotation of this nature one should experiment with changing the words referring to race or color and see if it still strikes you the same way,” said Adam Hochschild, the co-founder of Mother Jones Magazine.
“And if I do that with this quote, it would read, ‘Black women marry bigoted black men and birth and raise bigoted black boys.’ I would feel it was racist. And I think the same thing applies if it’s White instead of Black. Or if one substitutes anything else, Asian, Mexican, anything else,” said Hochschild, a lecturer at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Phone calls and emails to Conley, Murray, Vallejo Public Information Officer Robert Briseno, Human Resources Director Stephanie Sifuentes and Vallejo Councilmember JR Matulac were not returned.
Vallejo Mayor Andrea Sorce responded, “It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to comment on this, it should go through the PIO.”
The Times-Herald made the inquiries Wednesday. The X account was deleted later that day.