Buena Vista Clerk Still Working Two Weeks After Using Racial Slur

Buena Vista Township has plenty of shit to deal with right now.

The small city, located five miles northeast of Saginaw, has been making national headlines as of late because its school district completely ran out of money last week and hasn't scheduled classes since May 3. By the looks of it, the schools won't reopen this year.

A couple weeks weeks prior to the revelations about the school district's financial implosion, the township's clerk, Gloria Platko, stirred up a controversy after interim Township Manager Dexter Mitchell played an audio recording of a phone conversation he had with Platko where she called the township supervisor, Dwayne Parker, an "arrogant nigger."

MLive with the details of the dialogue:

Platko told Mitchell that Parker is "just rubbing me the wrong way.

"He is just doing whatever he can. You know what I think of Mr. Parker right now, and I know you're not even going to like this," Platko said in the recording. "But he's just an arrogant (N-word). And I'm sorry to say it that way, but that's the way I feel."

Initially, Platko, a Democrat, defended herself.

Platko said she was taught at a young age that there was nothing wrong with the use of the N-word and she believes people are taking her use of it the wrong way.

"Every race of people have (N-words), every culture has (N-words)," 69-year-old Platko said. "Look up the definition. I learned that way back in grade school. I learned that at St. Joe's and Holy Rosary.

"They're blowing this up and trying to make it a racial thing and it's not. I will defend any black person in this township except Dwayne Parker — he's a lowlife."

MLive later reported the township board passed a resolution calling upon Platko to resign.

Platko, apparently in sheer determination to show that times don't change and racism exists on both sides of the political spectrum, later apologized and said she's absolutely not a racist. It was a "slip of the tongue," she says, not a "racial thing."

Platko told the local NBC affiliate:

"I'm sorry to my five other board members and I'm entirely sorry to this entire community," says Platko.

...snip...

"I've eaten Thanksgiving dinner with black friends at their house. So I'm far from prejudiced. You need to go interview some of the black people who have supported me for the last four or five years," says Platko.

The Detroit Free Press reported today that (seemingly) all of Buena Vista's 8,500 or so residents, as well as Saginaw's NAACP, are calling upon her to resign.

But Platko, who is white, has trudged along, doing her job through email and the occasional phone conversation. Calls and visits to township hall have found her out of the office often since the April 22 meeting where the audiotape was played.

Another moron, U.S. House Rep. Don Young of Alaska, is reportedly continuing to trudge along and do his job after referring to migrant workers his family had employed as "wetbacks" back in March. So is arrogant homophobe Dave Agema, a Michigan Republican National Committeeman who last month vehemently boosted an anti-gay column he posted on Facebook written by another arrogant homophobe that cited a Holocaust-denying former-Klansmen.

America.