Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
I know the white tears are going to come out for this one.
I am also fully aware that we shouldn’t laugh at other people’s “misfortune,” but I cannot help it in this case.
She did it to herself.
In case you don’t know who the “she” is I’m talking about, allow me to get you caught up.
Barbie Bassett, a white meteorologist, was a longtime morning anchor on WLBT, an NBC affiliate that serves the Jackson, Mississippi market.
I say “was” and not “is” because Barbie messed around and found out what happens when “keeping it real” goes wrong. She was taken off the air after a stunt she pulled on March 8.
During a news segment in which Bassett and her colleagues were discussing Snoop Dogg’s 19 Crimes wine collection, one of her co-anchors suggested that Snoop get a wine collaboration going with one of their coworkers, “Julie.” Barbie enthusiastically agreed, and when the co-anchor went on to suggest that Julie would then go on to get a Snoop Dogg tattoo, Bassett replied, “Fo shizzle, my nizzle” live and on camera.
Allow me to make a few notes here that provide context for why this is wrong and why this matters.
Barbie Bassett is and was a news anchor in Jackson, Mississippi. Mississippi thee blackest state in the union, and Jackson is thee blackest big city in thee blackest state in the union.
I’m sure Barbie was a beloved part of people’s daily news routine down there, and that’s fine, but there’s this thing that happens when white people get too comfortable around Black people: They start thinking they can say and do things they normally wouldn’t if they didn’t have that familiarity.
To be clear, “nizzle” is a euphemism for the n-word. Most of us…
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