AUSTIN – Republican Party of Texas Chairman Steve Munisteri today is calling on Bill White, the Texas Democratic Party’s nominee for governor, to apologize for using racially charged rhetoric. White made the following remark on Tuesday before a group of African American leaders in Dallas, according to the Dallas Morning News.

During remarks to a group of African-American leaders having lunch at a Dallas Luby’s, Bill White said he wanted to be a servant of the people, while Gov. Rick Perry wanted to be something else.

“I’m here on a job interview,” White said at the forum sponsored by state Rep. Barbara Mallory Caraway and The Elite News. “We need a governor who’s a servant, as opposed to Rick Perry, who wants to be treated as master.”

“It is very disappointing in this day and age, when it is so important for public figures to promote unity and harmony among our state’s diverse population, that Bill White would choose language that when viewed in context of the group to which he was speaking, clearly can be interpreted as a racially divisive statement,” said Republican Party of Texas Chairman Steve Munisteri. “Bill White’s use of the word ‘master’ when speaking to an African-American group no doubt was a political calculation on his part to conjure up a racially divisive message. There is no place in modern day politics for a statewide candidate to try to exploit racial discord. I call upon Bill White to apologize to Gov. Perry for the use of this language, as I know the governor to be committed to representing Texans of all backgrounds. And I call upon Bill White to cease his inflammatory rhetoric.”