Earlier this month, NeNe Leakes went up on stage and told a heckler that she hoped that she gets raped. It was neither a good thing to say nor a good career move.
Well, there must be something awful in the air that"s making Real Housewives go up on stage and stay stupid, offensive things. This time, the perpetrator is Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice.
Teresa Giudice … being unkind? Difficult to imagine, we know. As you"ll see in the video below, the subject of her ire is none other than actress Sofia Vergara.
Teresa Giudice is getting blasted right now for some inflammatory, offensive comments that she made on stage for a panel discussion titled: "Gettin" Real With The Housewives."
Teresa, perhaps best known for flipping tables and for serving time in prison, was asked about her celebrity encounters.
The best … and the worst.
Teresa was quick to point the finger at Modern Family actress Sofia Vergara.
She describes Sofia as a "b–ch," saying that she stepped in front of her and captured the spotlight.
Oh, and Teresa also commented that Sofia should be nicer, because she"s an immigrant.
Obviously, this is offensive, potentially on multiple levels.
Let"s start with how it"s potentially unfair — Teresa seems to be describing Sofia"s entire personality based upon a single encounter in which the two women were photographed together.
But … what"s really grabbing people"s attention is the outright xenophobia and potential racism.
The suggestions that immigrants in particular should be nice or good-natured is appalling.
Sure, everyone should be nice.
Suggesting that a particular class of people are obligated to be nice … has all sorts of nasty implications and really shows that you don"t consider them to be equals.
While the folks over at TMZ who first shared this video were quick to point out the xenophobia, we think that Teresa is specifically motivated by racism.
Do you know why we think that this is racism and not more garden variety xenophobia?
Because Teresa Giudice"s husband, Joe Giudice, is an immigrant.
Seriously.
The dude"s in prison now, and it"s even possible that Joe Giudice will be deported after he finishes serving his sentence.
Joe was born in Italy, which makes him an immigrant.
What"s more is that Joe Giudice never obtained US citizenship.
So we more than suspect that Teresa doesn"t have a problem with just any old immigrant.
What"s different about Sofia? Well, she"s not a European immigrant — she"s Columbian.
Sofia also became a US citizen — even getting a perfect score on her citizenship test. Which should be easy for US citizens who were born here but requires a lot of learning for a newcomer.
(Seriously, you can take it for fun online and it"s not hard, but a disturbingly large number of native citizens would be unable to pass it)
Sofia Vergara is a celebrated, award-winning actress and the highest paid woman on television. She also ranks reasonably high up there among the most powerful women in the world, in some listings.
We guess that, to Teresa Giudice, she was born in Columbia and that makes her somehow … lesser. That"s sad.
You know what else jumps out at us about this?
Teresa Giudice believing that immigrants should be nice implies that she doesn"t believe that native citizens have to be friendly.
And that explains a lot about Teresa Giudice.
