Quite the craziness over the past few days, huh? It’s been pretty overwhelming to say the least. I had to take a mini break for a little bit there because there’s just been a lot to digest. A lot of time on the phone, a lot of reading, and a lot of introspection in terms of where I want things to go and where I want my voice to be in it. Ashley Spivey and I have been doing IG lives since around May of last year weekly (minus the month or so we took off in December). I think I can safely say that the IG Live we do tonight at 8ET/5PT will be one of the more important ones we’ve done. And you know what? Some of you are going to hate it. Some of you are going to roll your eyes. And I’m guessing some of you are going to unfollow me. If that’s the case, so be it. So many assumptions have been made about me and my intentions since last Thursday’s podcast where I asked if you’d be interested in hearing from a family member of Rachael’s on the podcast. Without even knowing anything other than that sentence, the amount of people who can immediately know everything and predict the future was pretty mind blowing. I wish you could people could help me with the lottery. Well actually no, because those responses couldn’t have been more wrong. This will all be talked about tonight on the live. I hope you take the time to join us and if not, barring any technical glitches on IG, it’ll be saved on my IGTV forever. Hope to see you there because we have tons to go over and a lot of people out there really need to actually listen to things that maybe you don’t want to.
I want to go over the timeline since Thursday’s podcast because so much has happened since then. I also want to address just the nonsense that is being spewed. So Thursday, I asked on my podcast, on my IG story, and on Twitter if you’d be interested in hearing from a member of Rachael’s family on the podcast. All I wanted was to see the response. On Twitter you can see the poll was at 60/40 saying “yes.” IG responses was probably closer to 70/30 saying “yes.” However, the people who said no and gave a reason why, were all roughly 1 of 2 things:
“We don’t need you giving racists a platform” or “We don’t need to hear from them because all they’ll do is make excuses for her.”
Everyone who said that was totally out of line. You didn’t even know who I was talking to, what they were saying to me, or what they were going to come on and say. It’s infuriating that everyone seems to know everything that someone’s gonna do before they do it, even though you didn’t even know who the person was.
Here’s the situation. I did plan on having a family member on. The reason why was because by talking to them, I was told Rachael has been wanting to make a statement for a while, but the show was telling her not to. Then later on Thursday, a picture of Rachael at an Old South formal in college was posted, the internet blew up, and behind the scenes the people I were talking to decided it’s best they didn’t come on. The firestorm was getting too big. However, at no point if that podcast were to have taken place, was that family member going to come on and give ANY excuses for the stuff that’s come about online regarding Rachael. “Indefensible” was a word they used a lot. “Mortified” was another. I’ve been in touch with the family members all weekend. Literally all day every day. I expect that a statement from Rachael will be coming today. And in that statement, I fully expect her to take ownership for everything that’s been posted directly about her. She’s not going to make excuses, and she’s not going to try and explain herself either. She knows some of the things she’s done are wrong and are racist.
Now, will an apology ease everyone’s mind? Of course not. Nor should it. There’s A LOT of work that needs to be done post apology. This is just the beginning. Nothing Rachael says in a statement will change anyone’s mind who already thinks she’s a white supremacist and/or racist. This is no different than Hannah Brown’s situation this summer – except we don’t have to wait two weeks to hear from her for the first time. She’ll make a statement hopefully today, a lot of people will side eye it, a lot of people will say she’s only apologizing because she got caught, and plenty won’t even blink an eye at it. That’s what she will be dealing with for a while I assume, and from what family members have told me, she understands that. Ashley and I will dive much deeper into this tonight on our live, but rest assured, A LOT will be covered.
What I want to say is this after going over so many things this weekend being attributed to Rachael and/or family members by random Tik Tok’ers. Not everything you see in a Tik Tok has been vetted out and accurate. In fact, there are quite a few that flat out aren’t true. Problem is, that cat’s out of the bag. You know how many people have sent me feministmama’s and Maddy’s Tik Tok’s since the beginning of the season? And all of them came with a message where the person sending it didn’t even question anything they were looking at. I’m telling you, some of that stuff is flat out inaccurate reporting, and exaggerations to fit their narrative. Rachael absolutely has some racist stuff out there. That is not in question. But not EVERYTHING in those videos is accurate like so many people are just automatically believing as Ashley and I have spent the weekend proving some of the things aren’t. So please, do not feed into that. We are not going to focus on that too much, because we don’t want to make it seem like we’re making excuses for Rachael. At no point tonight will we make excuses for her. But we just wanted to point out that not everything in those Tik Tok videos that so many have taken as 100% accurate is actually factually correct. Again, we’ll discuss all this tonight at 8ET/5PT on my live.
I can’t reiterate this enough. Some of you, judging by your responses to the tweet of Rachael being at an Old South formal as being “just a dress” and “they’re just having fun,” are probably not gonna like tonight’s live. Hell, you might even leave. We wish you’d stay and actually listen as to why you making those statements are just as racist as what that dance stood for itself. It’s going to be uncomfortable, it’s going to be stuff a lot of you either don’t want to hear or have never heard of or thought about before. We want to start a discussion into things. I’ve been pretty silent on stuff like this over the years. I can’t be any longer and I realize that now. The hours I’ve spent talking to Taylor Nolan and Ashley this weekend, the hours I’ve spent reading up on stuff I’ve never read before, the time I’ve spent listening to videos and podcasts – yeah, it’s been a lot. And some of you are probably thinking it’s performative because, well, you have to shit on everything I do. God forbid I just try and learn. And that’s fine. I don’t need people like you to believe me or my intentions. All we ask if you keep an open mind, actually think outside your own little bubble about the grand scope of things, and join us tonight for what we hope will be a positive, but more importantly, informative discussion. See you tonight.
