A West Virginia mayor and her businesswoman friend are being asked to resign after calling First Lady Michelle Obama an “ape in heels.”
“It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House,” posted Pamela Ramsey Taylor, director of the government-funded Clay County Development Corp.
“I’m tired of seeing a Ape in heels.”
Beverly Whaling, the mayor of Clay County, co-signed the racist post, commenting “Just made my day Pam.”
The post was eventually deleted, but not before it was captured in a screenshot and shared thousands of times of social media.
An online petition says that both women, who apparently deleted their Facebook pages, should lose their jobs for the “hateful, racially motivated statement.” The page garnered more than 53,000 signatures.
As pointed out by the New York Daily News, every county of West Virginia went to Donald Trump during the presidential election, with more than 77 percent of Clay County supporting him.
Taylor told WSAZ that she has since been reprimanded by her job and was not sure if she would keep her title as director. She also said that she was considering bringing a lawsuit against those she says slandered her.
Whaling told Washington Post that her comment “was not intended to be racist at all.”
“I was referring to my day being made for change in the White House! I am truly sorry for any hard feeling this may have caused! Those who know me know that I’m not of any way racist!” she said.