A county supervisor in a small town in Iowa had to answer for why he casually used a racial slur in a public meeting.
Steve Wanders, a county supervisor in Mahaska County, arbitrarily used an anti-Black slur as he was discussing the HVAC system at a county-owned building during a March 4 public meeting, The Oskaloosa Herald reported.
“The heating and air conditioning in that building is all chopped up because it used to be a grocery store, so it’s just kind of what I call n*****rigged, whatever you want to call it,” Wanders said.
Wanders was asked about the slur days after the meeting. He said that he wasn’t speaking derogatorily about Black people, but said the phrase with no hesitation because it’s a term he’s used for years.
“In our farming operation, that’s what we call a lot of stuff,” Wanders said. “It’s just a phrase, we say it all the time. To me, that’s what it is.”
Wanders said he didn’t know there were other phrases he could use in place of that term—like jerry-rigging — that have the same meaning and don’t include pejoratives. He said he’ll start using alternative phrases in the future.
Other supervisors at the meeting overheard the slur, but didn’t speak up about it.
“I heard it. I didn’t bring any attention to it because I didn’t think I wanted to,” fellow county supervisor Chuck Webb said, adding that no county official or member of the public has complained since the meeting. “We haven’t heard from anybody else.”
Others who didn’t notice it said they had never heard Wanders speak that way before.
“It didn’t register for me that he said it,” County Auditor Madison Garden said. “I would certainly never say anything like that.”
Public officials using slurs at local community meetings isn’t uncommon.
In January, a Florida councilman drew backlash for using a racial slur during a planning and zoning meeting.
He launched into a rant during the meeting, aiming criticism at supporters of President Donald Trump and denouncing racism in law enforcement, but drew the ire of many community members who believed he could have made his point without using the slur.
In Ohio, a township trustee was called to step down from his position after he used the N-word during a public meeting about incorporating Juneteenth into the new calendar for the local fire department, calling the occasion a “n—ger holiday.”
