Hollywood Hypocrisy Continues: Racist Remarks Aimed at Yet Another Actress
Recently, former child star and actress Tamara Mowry- Housely broke down in tears during an interview with Oprah Winfrey while describing the bigotry and hateful remarks received in 2011 when she married Adam Housley, a FOX News correspondent. One would think that in a nation in which our President himself is biracial, and *according to a Pew Research Center study, 1 of every 12 marriages are interracial. Not to mention that Mrs. Mowry-Housley herself is a product of a marriage between an African-American mom and a Caucasian father. So why are many piling on the hate on Tamara Mowry-Housley?
As someone who is also in an interracial marriage, this issue hit home for me. While we had not experienced the outright hatred that Mrs. Mowry-Housley has, I can certainly emphasize with her plight. Everyone has the right to express their opinion, but at all costs, unfiltered? What happened to tolerance and being accepting of diversity and multiculturalism? What ever happened to the notion that if you can’t say anything polite, to just not say anything at all?
Would it have been any different had Mrs. Mowry-Housley married someone who is a Caucasian who worked for Media Matters or the Huffington Post? Would the haters still express the same level of criticism? One can only speculate and we will never know. It may simply be a matter of ignorance and racism. In the mostly unfiltered blogosphere, online commentary often becomes the Wild West in terms of the civility and tone expressed by spectators. Called a “white man’s whore” and making references to slavery, one can see how upsetting this was for Mrs. Mowry-Housley.
This, of course, is not the first time that a prominent African-American has been attacked by their choice of spouse. Talk show host Larry Elder cites the example of Ward Connerly, an outspoken opponent of affirmative action, who was criticized for being married to a white woman in his 2001 book, “The Ten Things you can’t say in America”. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has also been criticized for
With Martin Luther King’s upcoming birthday, one would hope that in 2014 that we would not have this level of racism and bigotry. Yet, the PC Police that claim to support “diversity” and “multiculturalism” are not speaking out against these brutal claims in the blogosphere aimed at Mrs. Mowry-Housley. The likes of Jessie Jackson Jr., Al Sharpton, Melissa Harris-Perry and the other famous race-baiters are not stepping up to defend their fellow African-American woman.
Progressive liberal children’s advocate Marian Wright Edelman (who married a white, Jewish man the year after the SCOTUS issued their ruling in the landmark Loving vs. Virginia case) and I agree on this one point for certain. She tells PEOPLE Magazine in 1992, “You don’t marry races, you marry individuals.”
