Yesterday as the Oscars were going on, The Onion was live tweeting with their usual brand of sarcastic humor. Unfortunately, whoever it was handling the account went off the deep end by targeting 9years old Quvenzhane Wallis who had been nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. The tweet insinuated that most people were not happy about the nomination, and called her the C-word.
Now, I'm one of those who don't mind the N-word like it was used in Django, but I can never see a good way one can use the C-word. It was never an accepted part of language, and has always been a derogatory reference to a woman's private part. I wonder whether the person who wrote that was high on something, how could they pick on young child like that? Bullying is never a good look, and especially not from adults to children.
Quvenzhane is just nine, she may not even know the meaning of the word and now she has to maybe read about it on her twitter timeline if she has one. Maybe some strange journalist might even have asked her what it feels like to be addressed as such at a post-Oscar party. How will she answer? How will her parents explain? Such a slur is vulgar, it is misogynistic, it is racist, and just all round offensive.
