This past Friday, January 10, Tia Mowry Hardrict and twin sis Tamera Mowry-Housley appeared before Oprah Winfrey on her popular OWN TV show Where Are They Now?”. The show revisits and catches up with beloved pop culture stars of previous generations.
During the session, Tamera broke down while discussing racism she encountered in social media over her decision to marry a white man. Although the sisters have a white dad and a black mom, they identify black and are generally perceived by audiences as black women.
We thought we’d share for those who may be wondering, an excerpt of the recap from
our October 2012 posting which had a summary of one such Twitter battle which was the cause of much pain to Tamera.
In this summary, you’ll see her husband Adam Housley come to Tamera’s defense against Twitter bullies.
It happened the night of the Vice Presidential televised debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Republican candidate Rep. Paul Ryan. Here it is:
Tamera Mowry-Housley retweeted
Fox News host
Greta Van Susteren’s Tweet about Vice President Joe Biden’s constant interruption of Republican VP Candidate Paul Ryan during the VP debate. ” I think i might turn this off if it were not my job to watch it…the interruptions make it impossible to learn anything.”
About 1900 people retweeted it, but because Tamera is Black (bi-racial), and her husband, Adam Housley is White, and he works for the very conservative and right-leaning Fox News that was enough for people to assail Tamera with an avalanche of mean, hateful, nasty and misogynistic tweets.
Even though Tamera did not say she was a Republican and say who she was voting for, simply retweeting Greta was enough to send the Twitter Bullies swinging!
In reply, Tamera tweeted then later deleted:
Some came to her rescue…
And then Adam went back and forth with a few …
Finally, fed up, Adam went IN….
After that, most of the “@” Tweets stopped and the two started to get more supportive tweets.
Phew! Live and let live people!
Sadly, I can relate. As a Center Right Independent person who writes about politics for national audiences and have criticized the president in my writing on occasion (even though I am critical of Mitt Romney much too), I have had several hate letters, emails and Twitter attacks calling me all sorts of names from C*nt, to Uncle Tom etc etc.
At one point, I used to get one a month. It stings at first, but I’ve learned that when you put yourself and your opinions out there for wide consumption by a large group of people and are perceived to be in a position of influence because of that wide reach, you will ultimately reach large swaths of folks who will not agree.
Some of those people are simple, narrow-minded, bigoted, racist, and have linear and limited experience that prohibits them from accepting others and not showing disdain for anyone they disagree with…and from behind the comfort of their computer screens, anyone can say smack “@” you that they wouldn’t DARE say to your face.
Got to shake it off and keep it popping!
Looks like Tamera did last night, sent out a bible scripture and has moved on…
