“Last summer, the NAACP passed a resolution calling for a civil political discourse,” Shelton said in an e-mail to TheDC. “We continue to call on all Americans to abandon vitriolic language. It serves as a distraction from the real issues our society need to address and distorts the challenges we as Americans have to confront to make our nation greater still.”

Shelton would not, however, address the content of the video directly.