The mayor of Warren, Mich., Jim Fouts, faces renewed calls for his resignation in light of truly shocking comments that were recorded and posted online that compare blacks to chimpanzees, and denigrate older women as “dried-up cunts.”
The Motor City Muckraker on Monday published several audio clips that allegedly feature the 74-year-old former psychology teacher making a series of jaw-dropping statements about blacks and elderly women, comments that followed other crude recordings about disabled folks published last month.
Fouts, meanwhile, has denied making the statements, alleged they were engineered to sound like him, and has rebuffed calls for his resignation.
“You know, blacks do look like chimpanzees,” a man states in one of the recordings as others snicker in the background.
“I was watching this black woman with her daughter and they looked like two chimps. Their mouths were elongated out, you know, a duckish look.”
In another recording the mayor allegedly used the n-word in describing an experience from his teaching days.
“I remember this one kid in my class, I told you, some years ago he said, ‘We have a party store.’ He said, ‘My dad had rules.’ What are they? ‘Only two ni**er at a time,’” Fouts allegedly said.
On older women:
“Their pussies … when they get old they’re just mean hateful dried up old cunts.”
“You think I want to date a fu**ing 60-year-old hag? F*** that shit. I’m not interested in any old ugly hag. I think after a certain age they’re all dried up, washed up, burned out …”
The week before Christmas, the Motor City Muckracker published recordings that allegedly revealed Fouts’ thoughts on people with disabilities.
“What good are they?” the recording said. “They are dysfunctional human beings. They aren’t even human beings. … I don’t want to be around them, and I wish them well in a cage.”
Fouts was immediately fired from his weekly radio show on 910FM Radio Superstation after the first recording was published by Muckracker and highlighted by Fox 2 Detroit last month. Fouts denied he made the comments and alleged Macomb County Executive Director Mark Hackel doctored the audio to make is sound like the mayor’s voice.
“This recording was not me! (he has the expertise available to him to electronically engineer it),” Fouts posted to Facebook, referring to Hackel.
Hackel told the Muckracker the recordings were provided by Fouts’ current and former staff members.
On Tuesday, numerous federal, state and local lawmakers in his party issued a joint statement calling on the mayor to step down.
“Each of us represents the citizens of the City of Warren,” read the statement, posted to U.S. Rep. Sander Levin’s website.
“We have listened to the audio tapes with the voice we recognize of Mayor Jim Fouts. These comments are hateful. They are racist and disparaging of women. The leader of our State’s third largest city should be a role model for how we treat each other and anyone that harbors these feelings and expresses them is not fit to lead. We believe that these comments, and the previous comments about people with disabilities, do not represent the people of the City of Warren. Therefore, we believe that it would be best for the people of Warren for Mayor Fouts to resign, and we call on him to do so,” it continued.
“It would have been our preference that the individuals making these audio recordings would have immediately turned them over to the proper authorities for investigation so they would have been handled in an appropriate manner and reduced the discussion about the motivation for the recording and the circumstances of the release.”
On Monday, Fouts took to Facebook to address the controversy, and stuck to his claim it’s all a conspiracy to force him out of office.
“Just attended what should have been a joyous occasion for our 4th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. ceremony,” Fouts posted to Facebook Monday. “Instead Mark Hackel and friends attempted to hijack this ceremony by releasing more vile, vitriolic, phony tapes against me.”
He continued on Tuesday.
“There is tremendous effort to force me out immediately by slander, by character assassination, lies and by out right condemnation of me,” Fouts wrote. “I will not resign. I will be here through at least 2019 as the people wanted me to. I will not capitulate to a rush to judgement by those who wish to take over city hall and hijack the 2015 election.”
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