You don’t need The Bachelorette spoilers to tell you that race would somehow come into play this summer on ABC’s reality dating staple.
On cue, The Bachelor contestant Leah Block is apologizing for racist comments she made about the current season this week.
If you didn’t see what she wrote on Twitter, prepare your forehead for the inevitable slap, because it’s very likely happening.
The current season features the franchise’s first African-American lead in Rachel Lindsay, and a much more diverse cast than usual.
With that obvious context, Block tweeted Monday:
“I’m sitting here watching @BacheloretteABC and my roommate just sat down on the couch and said, ‘What is this? @LoveAndHipHop?’ DEAD”
DEAD?
Bachelor Nation didn’t take kindly to the reference – apparently in the pejorative – to the VH1 reality show and its entirely black cast.
One alum, Astrid Loch, asked Block if she was watching with Lee Garrett, one of Lindsay’s suitors who’s been accused of racism himself.
Lindsay then chimed in by responding to Block’s tweet directly, and referencing Garrett, writing, “Let me know if she wants to meet Lee.”
“They sound like they would have a lot in common.”
Wow. After that response from Rachel, Block later deactivated her Twitter account altogether and set her Instagram to private.
All of this took place while topic of race became the center of discussion on Monday’s episode for the first time this season.
“The pressures that I feel being a black woman, and what that is … I don’t want to talk about it,” Lindsay told the producers.
“I get pressured from so many different ways being in this position, and I did not want to get into all of this tonight.”
“I already know what people are going to say about me and that they will judge me for all of the decisions I’m making.”
“I’m going to be the one that has to deal with that – nobody else,” she said, at her wit’s end. “And that’s a lot.”
As for Block, she apparently got the message, and addressed her controversial tweets in a letter to her Facebook Wednesday.
“I come forward honestly and openly, to extend my sincere apology for the tweet from my account on Monday, June 19,” she began.
The tweet in question stemmed, she said, “from a place that humored the failure of representation of minorities in reality TV.”
That wasn’t how it came across, she acknowledges, and instead, she simply “belittled the significance of Rachel’s presence on the show.”
“I acknowledge that entertaining this kind of humor is a passive and careless action that stifles the progress the black community has made.”
“It is vitally important to prioritize these experiences and help destroy the oppressive forces that threaten minority communities.”
“My tweet did neither of those things and I see that as a personal failure [and] in my initial Twitter responses … I was defensive.”
“The attacks directed at me felt to be responses to the epidemic of injustice we have towards individuals of marginalized identities.”
“Especially the black community. I accept responsibility for my ignorance and as I move forward I will engage in these issues.”
That way, she says, “I can become an informed ally who would never consider that tweet to be funny in the first place.”
“Our Society should have no place for hate that targets any minority group,” she concluded on an optimistic, yet concilliatory note.
“We can’t make the future better until we make ourselves better. And I’m starting now. Best of luck to Rachel and her suitors this season.”
Amen to that.
