3769 days ago
Justine Sacco is some American PR bird (quite high flying until yesterday) who tweeted ahead of a flight to South Africa “Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just Kidding. I'm White!' One suspects that her employer IAC will be sending her a P45 for Christmas.
IAC has already suspended her, airbrushed her name from its website and says it will be taking “appropriate action.”
Her tweet is tasteless and it is racist. IAC will undoubtedly be able to show that she has breached its employer handbook (bibles of political correctness and jargon) in some way and/or that she had brought it into disrepute. We all know that making a racist remark is now the most uber-crime of all. Ok it is marginally less of a heinous offence in the eyes of a Western liberal than first degree murder but it is marginal. Incidentally the crime is not just making a racist remark but making a remark that may be deemed racist. And that means saying more or less anything.
Hence in the 21st Century West Ms Sacco is toast.
For the avoidance of doubt I do regard her remark as racist.
Thirty years ago this thick woman would have made this “joke” next to the office water cooler and got away with it. Thanks to email and twitter comments like this go viral and once the “activists” and media elite get onto the case there can only be one outcome.
My Christmas hope? Ms Sacco learns her lesson. Her prejudice is unpleasant but if she can keep it to herself I hope that she finds another job and is allowed to get on with it.
Do those baying for her blood really want to ruin her whole life? I suspect many of them do. And I find that just as unpleasant as the prejudices of Ms Sacco.
