Updated 8:14 p.m. PST
Last night’s Oscars tweet from the satire site The Onion was over the top and demeaning. The tweet, which was deleted from the @TheOnion Twitter feed an hour after it was made, read:
“Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a c*nt, right?”
Those words are mean enough but even more so because Quvenzhané is a 9-year-old. I substituted the “*” for the “u” above.
My Twitter timeline lit up after news of TheOnion post circulated.
I don’t even know what to say. Black girls are apparently never too young to be the target of crass sexualized slurs.
— Grace (@graceishuman) February 25, 2013
@jennpozner @theonion that writer needs to be fired right now and named and shamed
— mcbyrne (@mcbyrne) February 25, 2013
Even though the tweet was deleted, the LatinoRebels.com site managed to catch a screen shot of the tweet. You can see it here.
What’s next?
As of 8:22 a.m. PST, The Onion has not issued any kind of apology. Taking down the tweet was the first step but that doesn’t make up for the horrendous nature of the tweet.
What do you think is an appropriate response from The Onion on this matter?
Updated: 8:14 p.m. PST
Shortly after posting this article, The Onions’ CEO, Steve Hannah broke with the satire for a few minutes and posted an apology to Facebook.
On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars. It was crude and offensive—not to mention inconsistent with The Onion’s commitment to parody and satire, however biting.
Hannah continues to write that they made changes so that this doesn’t happen again and that they are “taking immediate steps to discipline those individuals responsible.” You can find the whole The Onion apology here.
Photo credit: quinnanya on Flickr – license