Official sacked after calling Michelle Obama an 'ape in heels'

An official in West Virginia has been fired after making a racist remark on social media about First Lady Michelle Obama.

Pamela Ramsey Taylor, a local government official in the town of Clay, took to Facebook after Donald Trump's presidential election victory to comment on first lady-elect Melania Trump.

"It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady in the White House. I'm tired of seeing a Ape in heels," she wrote.

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Underneath the post, Clay Mayor Beverly Whaling voiced her approval. "Just made my day Pam," she remarked.

In the firestorm that followed, Taylor was removed from her post as director of the Clay County Development Corp and Whaling handed in her letter of resignation on Tuesday.

Whaling told the Washington Post that her comment had not intended to be racist "at all", explaining: "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."

According to WSAZ news, Taylor apologised but insisted the public response was so negative it had been a "hate crime against me". She said her family have received death threats.

Other Clay residents have been at pains to stress that Clay is not a racist place. "They are good women, and I don't think they meant anything by it," town clerk Tina Goode tells the Post. "We're not a racist town."

But 16-year-old African American student Katie Payne disagrees. "Normally when people say things like that around here, it's swept under the rug," she says. Her grandmother, Doris Neal, recalls that when Katie ran for her student body president, "they teased her about buying watermelons".

The latest US Census, carried out in 2010, found that Clay had a population of 491, none of whom were black. Clay County had 9,000 residents, of whom 0.2 per cent were black.

There has been a spate of racist incidents across the US following Trump's election victory, notes The Independent. As of Tuesday, more than 200 incidents had been reported, with experts believing the true figure is much higher.