Ebony Magazine Apologizes for Editor’s Racial Snipe at RNC Staffer

EBONY magazine has issued an apology to RNC staffer Raffi Williams after its editor Jamilah Lemieux slammed Williams (a black man) on Twitter as a “White dude telling me how to do this Black thing.”

When Lemieux was confronted about getting Williams’ race wrong, she offered a trite apology while adding, “However, I care about NOTHING you have to say.” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus put out a statement denouncing Lemieux’s “attack” and called on EBONY to apologize. And now they have done just that, acknowledging that Limieux’s comments were not part of the magazine’s long tradition of believing “as Black people, we are all somebody—we all count.”

EBONY strongly believes in the marketplace of ideas. As the magazine of record for the African American community, Lemieux’s tweets in question do not represent our journalistic standard, tradition or practice of celebrating diverse Black thought…

EBONY acknowledges Senior Editor Jamilah Lemieux’s lack of judgment on her personal Twitter account and apologizes to Raffi Williams and the Black Republican community.

You can read the full piece here.

[photo via screengrab]

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Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

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