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Who is Wendy Bell?

Before Wednesday, Wendy Bell was a lead anchor for WTAE-TV, Pittsburgh’s ABC affiliate. Today, Thursday, however, she’s the white Pittsburgh female equivalent of Tommy from Martin.

So she’s unemployed?

Yes.

What happened?

A week ago, as a response to a shooting in Wilkinsburg, Pa., (a suburb of Pittsburgh) that left six people dead, Bell shared her thoughts on the story in a Facebook post. The post went viral; receiving tens of thousands of likes, shares and comments.

So what was the problem?

The problem was that Bell’s post was perhaps the clearest example of “white privilege” and back-pattingly “well-meaning” white obliviousness these old eyes have ever seen. Like, remember that scene in Anchorman when Ron Burgundy compliments Baxter for eating an entire wheel of cheese? This was that. I was more impressed by how she hit every target on the privilege dartboard than upset by it.

What exactly did she say? Can I find it anywhere?

Well, her original Facebook post has been taken down. As are the edits she made to it hours after it was published to try to make it less offensive. And the comments attached to it; many of which were deleted for being too critical. The sorry/not sorry apology that came afterward—where she apologized for people interpreting her words as racist instead of just saying “My words were racist”—is gone too.

Fortunately, a full transcript of what she originally said can be found here.

 

READ MORE: TheRoot.com

Article Courtesy of The Root

Picture Courtesy of Twitter and The Root

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