Wendy Williams lost a primary sponsorship for her show due to her comments about the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).
William remarks led to the show’s lost of the Chevrolet sponsorship, which began in April to include on-air promotion of the 2016 Chevy Malibu. The deal included custom digital content, social media marketing and was set to continue for the rest of the year, as reported by Lovebscott.
The host discussed during The Wendy Williams show Jesse Williams’ BET Awards acceptance speech, in which he commented about the Black Lives Matter movement where he participated and the racism in America.
“On the other hand, I would be really offended if there was a school that was known as a historically white college. We have historically black colleges. What if there was the National Organization for White People, only? There’s the NAACP,” commented Williams.
However, Wendy Williams later made a clarification about the remarks and said that her words were misunderstood. According to Williams, she finds nothing wrong with historically black colleges. Her father graduated from Lincoln and her brother from Virginia State.
“Now, I understand historically black organizations and universities have been around because we as black people were not allowed to go to your schools, drink out of your fountains, ride in the front of the bus, sit at your countertops,” she said during Thursday’s show.
In 2016, Williams continued, racism is still alive and, well, very much so. She stated that in light of the two police shootings in Baton Rouge and Minnesota, stuff is still going on in 2016, and she does not know when it will stop.
“For the record, no I am not a Stacey Dash and for the record, I am a very mighty, proud Black woman. Hopefully, you got what I said and will not screw up my words like you always do, and read me for filth on the worldwide web,” she concluded.
Even though she later tried to ease the critics about the remarks, people were online and asked others to boycott the show. Users in Twitter even assured not to be a fan of the show but called others to stop watching it due to the offensive comment from Williams.
Calls to fire Jesse Williams
Wendy Williams was not the only one who receive negatives comments due to some of their own. A woman named Erin Smith created a petition on Change.or for removing the 34-year-old, Jesse Williams, from Grey’s Anatomy, as reported by US Weekly.
According to Smith’s petition, Jesse Williams’ BET Awards speech promoted racism and hate against law enforcement and white people. If it were the opposite case in which a white person had made the same speech, that person would have been globally destroyed. However, for Williams, there had not been any consequences.
On Sunday afternoon, the petition has raised over 26,537 signs. Another person started a petition asking for the opposite, to keep Williams on the show, which has raised 10.142 on Sunday afternoon as well. Shonda Rhimes, Grey’s Anatomy creator, responded to the petition on Twitter, but the answer was in support of Williams and his stand on the matter.
After that, Smith took a direct offense and made an actualization to the petition to include the comments from Rhimes. The woman said that Rhimes response was a “blatant slap in the face to the entire human race.”
Smith added that the writer and creator have fired other people for fewer infractions and that she chose to applaud William’s actions instead of taking an affirmative response and neutralize the situation, the woman wrote in the petition.
She said that Jesse could have simply issued an apology since a “true ‘humanitarian’ would never have created this situation.” Everything could have simply avoided if he had admitted “to using his words poorly.”
BET Awards
On June 29, Clueless star Stacey Dash called Williams a “plantation slave” and referred to the entire BET network as racist. Dash assures that BET is keeping racism and segregation alive, and the past Sunday’s award show proves it, she wrote in a blog post.
“Particularly the speech given by Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams, whose tirade after receiving the 2016 BET Humanitarian Award for his black activism was nothing short of an attack on white people,” she added.
Williams responded to Dash remarks over a tweet by saying that it is best not to answer to people who is just looking for attention.
Source: CNN