‘Bachelor’ Alum Leah Block Apologizes For Racist Tweet
The Bachelorette’s current star Rachel Lindsay has been dealing with a lot of criticism from racially charged tweeters for being the first black woman to star in the hit series — one of them being a Bachelor alum herself, Leah Block.
But Rachel was having none of it. After Leah wrote on Twitter, “I’m sitting here watching @BacheloretteABC and my roommate just sat down on the couch and said, ‘What is this? @LoveAndHipHop_? DEAD,” she quickly deleted it afterwards and apologized.
But it was too late. Rachel had already saw it and wrote, “Let me know if she wants to meet Lee… they sound like they would have a lot in common.”
Lee Garrett was contestant who was eliminated and was also tweeting out racist comments.
Leah later wrote on her Facebook a longer apology:
“The tweet came from a place that humored the failure of representation of minorities in reality TV and belittled the significance of Rachel’s presence on the show,” she wrote. “I acknowledge that entertaining this kind of humor is a passive and careless action that stifles the progress the black community has made in television and continue to make in this industry. 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.”
She continued: “In my initial Twitter responses to concerned Bachelor Nation fans, 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 so I can become an informed ally who would never consider that tweet to be funny in the first place.”