Last weekend, The Guardian's Monica Heisey penned an editorial criticizing Amy Schumer for being racially insensitive. She said: “For such a keen observer of social norms and an effective satirist of the ways gender is complicated by them, Schumer has a shockingly large blind spot around race.” Schumer responded to Heisey's piece with a tweet in her defense, explaining that she is definitely "not a racist" and advised everyone to “put down their torches."
A week later, Schumer is coming at fan criticism about her race jokes with a new approach. Instead of assuring everyone that it's comedy, man -- "It is a joke and it is funny!" -- she's, in some ways, finally owning up to how her material has offended some people.
After a fan tweeted at Schumer asking what the deal was with one of her "Donald Trump-ish" stand-up jokes (you know the one: "I used to date Hispanic guys, but now I prefer consensual"), she wrote:
Thank you so much for asking. I wrote this joke 2 years ago. I used to do a lot of short dumb jokes like this. I played a dumb white girl character on stage. I still do sometimes. Once I realized I had more eyes and ears on me and had an influence I stopped telling jokes like that on stage. I am evolving as an artist. I am taking responsibility and hope I haven’t hurt anyone. And I apologize it I did [sic]. Thanks again for asking.
The original Twitter conversation follows:
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