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Maryland school librarian filmed admitting she called man n-word in parking spot row

Mythili Sampathkumar
New York
Thursday 15 November 2018 10:55 EST
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Maryland school librarian filmed admitting she called man n-word in parking spot row

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A white school librarian in Maryland was caught on camera admitting to using a racial slur.

Dawn Lennon posted the video, taken in a Walmart car park in La Plata, Maryland, on Facebook and can be heard asking the woman: “Did you call my husband the n-word?”

Darlene Sale, a 70-year-old employee of Potomac Landing Elementary school in the Prince George’s County Public Schools district, said: “yes I did”.

Ms Lennon wrote in the Facebook post that Ms Sale appeared to call her husband by the slur “because he didn't move out the parking spot the way she wanted him to. I saw where she was parking her vehicle and confronted her.”

Ms Lennon’s children were with her at the time.

“The thing I thought was so profound is that she was proud of it and didn't try to deny it,” she wrote about Ms Sale who was looking straight into the camera and speaking.

She was also wearing a jacket emblazoned with the Washington area NFL team's logo .

Ms Sale pushed Ms Lennon’s camera aside and continued walking in to the store.

The video has been viewed more than 125,000 times since it was posted on Monday.

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Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS), rhe school board which employs Ms Sale as a media specialist, said it was aware of the video and was investigating the incident.

“We are working to address parent & community concerns. Diversity & tolerance are our core values. We expect all members of the PGCPS community — administrators, faculty, staff & students — to behave in a respectful manner,” it added in a statement.

Prince George’s County is actually majority-minority, with a population of 62 per cent African American, 17.8 per cent Hispanic, 4 per cent Asian, and 13 per cent white.

Ms Sale has since been removed from her position at the school but not terminated. The school district indicated it is investigating the incident.

Ms Lennon told the local ABC News affiliate: “To my surprise finding out that she teaches children that she would use such language like that..I wanted my children to see that you don’t tolerate this kind of racist rhetoric and bigotry.

“None of this should be tolerated. She needs to apologise to the school system, she needs to apologise to those children.”

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