Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

We won’t go back.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

This fight is for everything.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / Exactly What Was Her Job In PR Anyway?

Exactly What Was Her Job In PR Anyway?

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Today’s racist stupidity, courtesy of another privileged white person:

InterActiveCorp said Saturday that it has “parted ways” with PR director Justine Sacco, a day after a racist tweet from her account went viral.

The tweet, “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” sparked outcry online and spurred a hashtag that trended on Twitter.

“The offensive comment does not reflect the views and values of IAC. We take this issue very seriously, and we have parted ways with the employee in question,” the company said in an e-mail Saturday.

IAC is a New York media conglomerate whose brands include Match.com, Vimeo, Ask.com, UrbanSpoon, OKCupid and the Daily Beast.

And while what she tweeted is less offensive than most of the everyday content from the Daily Beast, you have to wonder if maybe this sort of shit should be covered extensively for PR Majors. If not, I can guarantee there will be a chapter on this shit in the 2014 fall syllabi. Seriously, though, this is like a renowned mathematician being unable to calculate a 20% tip.

Reader Interactions

82Comments

  1. 1.

    HinTN

    If you have ever worked service you know 20% just says, “That was adequate.” It is really tough out there. Give if ya got it!!!

  3. 3.

    Cacti

    @HinTN:

    Down with tip creep.

    Living wages for hospitality industry employees.

    Tips should be what they’re meant to be, a gratuity for good service.

  8. 8.

    Cacti

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Didn’t Nooners have a similar emission recently?

    Richard Cohen couldn’t understand why anyone would take offense at him writing:

    “People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children.”

    What he meant was “The average member of my country club”.

  9. 9.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Cacti: No, I meant this:

    There aren’t really a lot of nice things about flying. It’s scary, germy, full of delays. They don’t clean the planes as they once did—the tray is not clean and as you open it and see the coke and coffee marks, you wonder if it was used on the last flight by a Senegalese tourist with typhus.

  14. 14.

    Cacti

    @srv:

    Who will save us from this PC wave of anti-First Ammendment Rights by the left?

    A&E is also violating my First Amendment right to have a show on their network.

    They’ve never even asked.

  15. 15.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Omnes Omnibus: a-yup

    Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, like so many Americans, dislikes air travel. Her December 20 column devotes a few paragraphs to the horrors of sitting on an airplane, among which is the ever-present threat that the seat assigned to you “was used on the last flight by a Senegalese tourist with typhus.”

    Do the people who bring on TeeVee to talk politics look at the Magick Dolphins column and think, “Oh, well, she’s very religious”?

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    You know, the purveyor of this web site is a fat ugly clumsy cracker from West Virginia who’s Subaru is presently parked in a corn field. Hey just kidding! I’m white!

    That should be our new tag line around here.

  17. 17.

    BGinCHI

    If she gets malaria at least it will keep her busy while she’s moving back in with her parents.

  18. 18.

    Ash Can

    Her Twitter account (before she deleted the whole thing) had other tidbits in it that did not reflect well on her. Bitching about service in a restaurant, bitching about Obama tying up traffic in Beverly Hills with his motorcade, making fun of British and German people, pretty typical privileged-white-person stuff. I guess the moral of the story is that if you’re a nobody in a nothing job, your racist tweets aren’t going to be picked up by anyone other than possibly some nut-pickers, but if you’re the fucking head of communications of a fairly large and prominent company, you’d better not be an ass on Twitter, because more people are going to notice.

  19. 19.

    jl

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: If you’re in the privilege insider VSP club, you can be racist as you wanna be, and no consequences. Not even a mention.

    Last couple of big infectious disease carrier scares in air travel I read in news involved middle class whites, but, hey that is reality, and who cares about that?

    But down the ladder, people like this Sacco, who may be racist, or maybe is just dim, or thoughtless, face consequences.

    But further down, lots of regular people face far worse consequences no matter what they do.

    My cheerful thought for today. Happy Holidays!

  20. 20.

    Villago Delenda Est

    this is like a renowned mathematician being unable to calculate a 20% tip.

    Let’s see now…square the appetizer, add in the entree, and then toss in the drink total and double it, carry the 7…

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @efgoldman:

    Did they cancel her company card and make her find her own way back?

    Mitt Romney would, and without the bother of the tweet.

  22. 22.

    jl

    Wonder how much this Sacco person has in common with another thoughtless oaf?

    Mayor Disputes Christie’s Claim That Officials Weren’t Notified Of Bridge Traffic

    ” The mayor of Fort Lee, N.J. is disputing New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s claim that top transportation officials were unaware of gridlock caused by lane closures in September on the George Washington Bridge, the Bergen Record reported Friday.

    Christie suggested at a press conference Thursday that local authorities never notified the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s executive director, Patrick Foye, of the supposed traffic study that closed down lanes on the bridge and paralyzed traffic in Fort Lee. ”

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mayor-disputes-christie-s-claim-that-officials-weren-t-notified-of-bridge-traffic

    I admit that when I first read the story I jumped to to the conclusion that Christie was behind it, and in my enthusiasm for his downfall, made a snarky comment about at the infamous BJ blog.

    Then I thought ‘Naw, it was just some vicious moron lieutenants in his machine that did it on their own, Christie isn’t stupid enough to get within ten miles of shit like this.’

    Now, I’m not so sure.

  23. 23.

    The Dangerman

    I’ll assume her next job will come after a stay in rehab; some of her tweets sound like someone with a serious problem (and, as someone that hates to fly, I can understand getting loaded before a long flight, but getting loaded then tweeting sounds like a bad idea).

    First the Duck Dynasty Dude, now this Woman; been a bad week for spewing shit over the networks.

  24. 24.

    chrome agnomen

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    you know she lying for more than the fact that her lips are moving. for one thing, if i fly, it’s always coach, and the trays are always clean. for another thing, she has never flown coach in the last 40 years. full of shit, she is. (water:wet)

  25. 25.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    I heard about this on our local alternative radio station last night (KROQ). The deejay (female and I think Cuban-American) was so disgusted and pissed off that she refused to repeat the tweet on the air, but just kept saying how racist it was.

  26. 26.

    Litlebritdiftrnt

    This is the typical thing that a totally un self aware person posts on twitter, they are so buried in their own little bubble that they just glibly post this shit and think they are golden. Someone needs to burst that bubble and fast. These people are dangerous because they are so out of touch.

  28. 28.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    Since we’re talking about asshole racists, Fred Clark at Slacktivist had the ultimate takedown of the Duck Dynasty asshole and his defenders and does not mince a single syllable:

    ‘Duck Dynasty’: White evangelicals rallying for racism

    I have another epic post by him that I’ve been meaning to work in somewhere, and it’ll work for the Duck dude because it explains how and why homophobia is a cover for racism for Southern Baptists and how central racism is to the theology of churches associated with the Southern Baptist Convention:

    Slavery, seafood, sexuality and the Southern Bible

  29. 29.

    jl

    @Jay:

    Some other twits she twitted, from the link:

    ‘ “I had a sex dream about an autistic kid last night. #fml” tweeted on Feb. 24, 2012, and “I can’t be fired for things I say while intoxicated right?” tweeted on Jan. 30, 2013. ‘

    I think it is a difficult question whether this person is a conscious racist, or a thoughtless callous dingbat, an equal opportunity crass output machine.

  30. 30.

    Baud

    whose brands include Match.com, Vimeo, Ask.com, UrbanSpoon, OKCupid and the Daily Beast

    If I were on one of the dating sites, I would change my profile to say, “Don’t have AIDS cuz I’m white.”

  33. 33.

    jl

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): Thanks for the links. I’m reading them now.

    In my opinion, that famous vision was God telling Peter to kill and eat the messengers from Cornelius.

    But I’ll keep reading.

  38. 38.

    Ash Can

    @efgoldman: Her name and contact information were deleted from the IAC web site around the time her plane landed (and possibly while she was still in the air).

    Funniest thing? Someone at the airport in South Africa snapped a photo of her walking along a corridor. She was talking on her cell phone, and the picture-taker overheard her saying, “No, I really didn’t think it would.” Twitter ain’t private, folks.

  39. 39.

    WaterGIrl

    Sometimes you don’t even need to read the post.

    “Exactly What Was Her Job In PR Anyway?” answered my one remaining question I had after I heard about this last night.

    Edit: though I have enjoyed the thread!

  41. 41.

    drkrick

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): I think there’s some talking past each other going on here. The evangelicals I’m seeing are defending the homophobia and ignoring gthe racism. That’s dishonest, but it’s not the same as defending the latter. Even Jerry Falwell left biblical defenses of racism to the fringes 50 years ago.

  42. 42.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    Her mistake was she didn’t follow-up tweet about her love for God, and her Savior Jesus Christ and her unshakable Faith in God and Family.

  43. 43.

    Ash Can

    @ruemara: Daughter of a South African billionaire, no less, if the low-down on LGF is correct, which would do much to explain her racial views. So she’s not likely to starve anytime soon, and maybe, just maybe, she might learn a thing or two in the meantime about how to treat others.

  44. 44.

    Ahh says fywp

    @efgoldman: Doesnt matter. Ive met Sacco’s type and they inevitably think that ignorant comments about hurr hurr furriners are funny because they’re furr’n, caucasian or otherwise.

    “I get it-it’s funny because youre an asshole.”

  45. 45.

    Gatchaman

    Oh shit. Countdown to my sister-in-law’s next Facebook diatribe on freedom of speech and the pussification of American in 3…2…1…

  46. 46.

    Ahh says fywp

    You give them too much credit. They are crying about gay hate because GLAAD stomped their widdle toesies. Had a prominent African American spoken out about those plantation comments you would see vileness poured out freely on that subject. @drkrick:

  47. 47.

    jl

    @Gatchaman:

    Good luck. Tell her that you know one liberal (me, definitely a real one, since I am here at this miserable lefty blog) who defends absolutely Duck Dynasty dude’s right to talk all he wants and render himself hateful and ridiculous in the eyes of the nation.

    And I want all companies run by people who think like Duck Dynasty dude to defend him and stick by him, so I know who to boycott.

    I am 100 percent for freedom of speech. Need to flush these vicious goofballs out, or at least allow themselves to flush themselves out, and thereby flush themselves down the toilet bowl, in the eyes of the public.

  48. 48.

    Joel

    @HinTN: Fuck that, man. I worked service and we pooled our tips. 17% was the average, which we knew because the management counted everything (chain restaurant). I think tips are a goddamn scam, anyways. Just pay the servers a living wage and stop hiding charges from the customer.

  50. 50.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Joel: Yup, the customer should know and be willing to pay the price of a meal up front, not get a discount after they’ve eaten it.

  51. 51.

    jl

    ” Seriously, though, this is like a renowned mathematician being unable to calculate a 20% tip. ”

    I disagree with that. Because a renowned mathematician explained it to me once. Being able to understand and prove that calculation of a tip that way makes the set-up some kind of category, or algebraic ring or field or abstract fight club octogon shaped thingee is math.

    Getting the number right is mere “figures”.

  53. 53.

    MikeJ

    @Joel:

    Just pay the servers a living wage and stop hiding charges from the customer.

    A great idea, and one that actually works. However, until restaurants actually do pay a living wage, servers need the tips to live. Customers should not decide unilaterally to end the tipping system.

  54. 54.

    chrome agnomen

    meanwhile PBO just started his 1.4 billion$/day vacation in that foreign country, hawai’i.

  56. 56.

    rda909

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Hey just kidding! I’m white!

    That should be our new tag line around here.

    Ain’t that the truth. And explains the many years now of “progressive disappointment” in the most liberal president in generations…who just so happens to not be “white.”

  57. 57.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @jl: My Math Econ prof would give us a 90% correct grade if the method was right and answer wrong. Wrong method, right answer 0%.

  58. 58.

    Gravenstone

    @jl:

    “I can’t be fired for things I say while intoxicated right?” tweeted on Jan. 30, 2013. ‘

    Let’s hear it for prescience, or maybe just simple foreshadowing.

  59. 59.

    Scotius

    @Litlebritdiftrnt: It’s amazing how many people have run into trouble for expressing how they really feel on Twitter. It reminds me of Asif Mandvi interviewing that racist Republican county chairman in North Carolina: “You do realize we can hear you, right?”

  61. 61.

    Foregone Conclusion

    @Joel: I’m British, and I find the idea of a 20% tip pretty astonishing. Perhaps I’m just being mean (I normally pay 10% tip), but then again Minimum Wage is around $9.50. I’m now thinking of all the times I’ve been in the US and I’ve paid 5-10% and been thought of as mean…

  62. 62.

    MikeJ

    @Foregone Conclusion:

    I’m now thinking of all the times I’ve been in the US and I’ve paid 5-10% and been thought of as mean…

    The IRS calculates how much servers should pay in taxes based on how much they sell. In other words, the server is paying taxes on your tip even if you don’t leave one.

  63. 63.

    WaterGIrl

    @Scotius:

    You do realize we can hear you, right?

    I missed that interview, but I still laugh out loud whenever people mention that Asif Mandi actually said that.

  64. 64.

    Foregone Conclusion

    @MikeJ: Ridiculous system. I very, very rarely refuse to pay any tip, because waiters and waitresses are poorly paid wherever you live, but I don’t mind paying a little extra when I’m eating out to make sure the person I’m serving at least has a decent wage. I only eat out occasionally, so it doesn’t even make much difference to me.

  66. 66.

    Foregone Conclusion

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m not a dick, now I know I will (the next time I’ve over the Atlantic) tip a little more. I just think it’s a stupid way of doing things.

  68. 68.

    Foregone Conclusion

    @efgoldman: Depends where you eat. Tbh ‘service charge’ is a bit of a con, because there’s no certainty it’ll actually go to the servers. Even where there’s a service charge, I normally leave a small amount just in case the extra 10-15% on the bill goes straight to the boss.

  69. 69.

    schrodinger's cat

    @BillinGlendaleCA: That’s how physics problems even for freshmen are graded too. One pt for the final answer with the right units. So if you got everything right but the wrong numerical answer then you would lose only 1/2 a point. If the student gets the right answer but does not show any work, that would be worth zero points.

  72. 72.

    Pete

    Don’t worry, there’s a happy ending! She lost her job and got a whole ton of murder and rape threats on Twitter! Justice is done.

    I’m sure that would have happened to a maths grad who didn’t do a 20% tip correctly.

  74. 74.

    Ken

    @jl:

    “I can’t be fired for things I say while intoxicated right?”

    She’s the one who signed the contract with the company, and (if it’s like most companies) sat through the four hours of employee orientation and watched the mandatory yearly code-of-conduct training videos. So if she didn’t know the company policy, it’s her own fault.

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @drkrick:

    Read the second link. Fred lays out his case for the two things being inextricably intertwined for the Southern Baptist Convention even if the racism isn’t officially talked about anymore. I found his arguments very persuasive.

  76. 76.

    Jasmine Bleach

    Y’know, originally I thought IAC (the company this racist worked for) was doing the right thing–firing her and roundly condemning what she tweeted.

    Then, as always seems to freakin’ happen, the company goes and say something that basically walks it back:

    We hope, however, that time and action, and the forgiving human spirit, will not result in the wholesale condemnation of an individual who we have otherwise known to be a decent person at core.

    No, damnit–she’s absolutely NOT a “decent person at core.” If you think that, there’s something wrong with you. At core, this woman is a racist bigot, probably an alcoholic (judging from the multiple times she tweets idiotic things while intoxicated), not to mention seriously stupid.

    Ideally, they would have just said she was fired and we don’t accept that crap. But they can never seem to just leave it at that. There’s always a “but she ain’t so bad” thrown in for good measure. Pisses me off. (Just speaking in the general scheme of things.)

    I guess I get to add Match.com, Vimeo, Ask.com, UrbanSpoon, OKCupid and the Daily Beast to my list of companies and websites to boycott.

  77. 77.

    Cervantes

    @efgoldman:

    There was another guy who was “too smart to get within ten miles of shit like this.” You old enough to remember Nixon?

    From the time of his earliest election campaigns — Jerry Voorhis (1946) was a Communist because he was endorsed by a group whose name was similar to some other suspicious group — Helen Gahagan Douglas (1950) was “sleeping with a Jew” and “pink right down to her underwear” — and in his time on the House Un-American Activities Committee — long before Watergate, it was clear that Nixon reveled in foul play.

  78. 78.

    LosGatosCA

    The whole thing was just a typo. What she was trying to type on her iPhone before the auto-correct went wild was:

    ‘Going Galt. I’m leaving this loser job as soon as I get back from Africa.’

    Edward Snowden or the Target card hackers likely messed with her spell checker.

    ETA: Reminds me of that stand up comedian who commented on the United jet to LA that nearly dropped out of sky because the engines were turned off:

    “Do they really have to teach the crew – ‘When you’re in the air KEEP THE FUCKING ENGINES ON?’

  80. 80.

    xenos

    @efgoldman: Tipping rules in Europe work differently in different countries. In Germanic countries you round up to the nearest Euro, maybe leave a couple more on the table for the busboy if you have left a mess. Anything more is creepy.

    Then again, the country where I live has minimum wage calculated on a monthly basis, universal healthcare, and college tuition capped at 200 Euros per month, so the servers have their dignity. They do a good job but never fawn over the customers or do the whole peppy schtick you get at American chain restaurants that puts me off my feed.

  81. 81.

    TriassicSands

    I was struck less by the racism of her comment than how mean-spirited and insensitive it is. Just a little more evidence supporting my contention that Modern Republicans are horrible people.

  82. 82.

    Plantsmantx

    It’s very satisfying to know that she had to or will have to take that long flight back to the U.S. knowing that not only did her stupid ass get fired, but it got fired in just about the most public way possible. It’s a shame that she didn’t have wi-fi on the flight to Africa. That way, the “unfolding ordeal” really would have been an ordeal- for her.

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