Kim Kardashian West is great at selling beauty products, but commenting on political and socially charged issues…not so much.
The reality star took to Snapchat late Monday night (Aug. 14) to tell fans to get over it already, in reference to the racist epithets thrown around by YouTube beauty sensation Jeffree Star. Star, who’s amassed a fortune from his own namesake line of beauty, called Kim out via Twitter for what he believed to be struggle swatches of her forthcoming KKW Beauty products.
“Umm.. Kim what is going on with those new swatches?? Looks like chalk,” he tweeted.
Kim’s legion of followers quickly fired back, and started dragging Star for his own product line and racist past. Last year, he found himself in boiling water when a video surfaced of him using several racially charged slurs including the n-word.
In an effort to extinguish what she believed to be an unfair fire, Kim hopped on to her favorite social media app to record a video message urging fans to forgive and forget.
“I know better than anyone that I hate when people bring up my past or mistakes that I’ve made in the past, so like, let him live. Let’s not be so negative. Love you, Jeffree,” she said playfully.
What Kim failed to realize is that as a white woman, it’s easy for her to tell a subjugated group of people to just get over racist remarks. But what she failed to realize, as so many often do, is that getting over it oftentimes means not holding wrongdoers accountable for their words/ actions and negating the feelings of those who have been hurt.
Of course, everyone makes mistakes but it’s not as simple as forgiving and forgetting when the mistake in question involves an individual casually throwing around some of the most painful words in the English dictionary.
Kim has since issued an apology via Snapchat saying that she was “just a bit naïve, and I do want to really apologize for me feeling like I had the right to say ‘get over it’ in a situation that involves racism.”
The apology however came only after becoming a trending topic on social media.
As consumers, the most powerful tool we have is our dollar, so it’s of the utmost importance that we choose to spend those dollars with companies and brands who truly stand with and for us.