Rihanna rage against racial slur corrodes editor’s career
When Dutch fashion magazine Jackie ran a story about pop star Rihanna’s style, describing her as the “the ultimate n—-bitch�, Rihanna didn’t shy from calling them on it (while calling them a few no-no words of her own). In the controversy’s wake, the editor who approved the story has since resigned from her post. Jackie magazine published a statement announcing this news on its Facebook wall on Tuesday.
“I hope you can read English,� Rihanna tweeted to Jackie’s editor-in-chief, Eva Hoeke, “because your magazine is a poor representation of the evolution of human rights! I find you disrespectful, and rather desperate!! You ran out of legit, civilized information to print! There are 1000s of Dutch girls who would love to be recognized for their contributions to your country, you could have given them an article. Instead, u paid to print one degrading an entire race! That’s your contribution to this world! To encourage segregation, to mislead the future leaders to act in the past! You put two words together, with the intent of abasement, that made no sense.
“Well, with all respect, on behalf of my race, here are my two words for you: F— you!!�
The offending article was written in Dutch, although various outlets have run excerpts of the piece translated to English. (According to E! one section reads: “Rihanna, the good girl gone bad, is the ultimate n—- bitch and displays that gladly, and for her that means: what’s on can come off. If that means she’ll be on stage half naked, then so be it.�) And while it’s unclear whether Rihanna had a translator on hand to help her through the finer points of the piece, the headline alone could have prompted the controversy. The story ran under the title: “De N—-bitch.�
According to a statement posted on Jackie magazine’s Facebook page, readers had been expressing their disgust with the headline online prior to Rihanna’s response, and Hoeke addressed the situation through both her Twitter account and a statement published on Facebook, in which she apologized for the “slip� and said that the “title of the article was intended as a joke — it was a bad joke, to say the least.� She continued: “Furthermore, I hope that you all believe there was absolutely no racist motive behind the choice of words. It was stupid, it was naive to think that this was an acceptable form of slang — you hear it all the time on TV and radio, then your idea of what is normal apparently shifts — but it was especially misguided: there was no malice behind it.�
Although Rihanna has, as evidenced above, already shared her strongly worded opinion of the situation, a recent Facebook post by the magazine invited the singer “to share her feelings and thoughts on the article in the next issue.�
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