Justine Sacco said that she’s going to Africa, but it’s what else she said that has triggered an intense backlash.
“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS,” she said via Twitter. “Just kidding. I’m white!”
Saccois with corporate communications at IAC, the parent company of a range of tech products such as Vimeo, CollegeHumor, and Dictionary.com.
“Is that tweet real? You work in PR. You shld know better,” said David Cohn.
“That’s how she squeezed all the cruelty into 12 words!” said Scott Wooledge.
“hy do you think she won’t be fired? Kinda hard to do PR after you publicly make racist AIDS jokes,” added Joe Grossberg.
IAC sent a statement to Sam Biddle of Gawker:
“This is an outrageous, offensive comment that does not reflect the views and values of IAC. Unfortunately, the employee in question is unreachable on an international flight, but this is a very serious matter and we are taking appropriate action.”
