Hmm… we wonder if she ever thought about how much people with AIDS, as well as their friends and family have really suffered.
You may remember Justine Sacco. She’s the former IAC PR exec who was on her way to a vacation in South Africa last December, and tweeted:
“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding! I’m white.”
[ Related: PR Executive Fired After “Hateful” Tweets On AIDS & Africa Go Viral! See Her Apology HERE! ]
Well, she was promptly fired, and has been featured in a new book, called So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, authored by Jon Ronson. The author is sympathetic with Sacco, but it doesn’t make a ton of sense.
Especially considering she defends her horrible ‘joke.’
In her section of the book, Justine explains:
“There was no way that anyone could possibly think it was a literal statement├óΓé¼┬ª It was a joke about a dire situation that does exist in post-apartheid South Africa that we don’t pay attention to. It was completely outrageous commentary on the disproportionate AIDS statistics. Unfortunately, I am not a character on South Park or a comedian, so I had no business commenting on the epidemic in such a politically incorrect manner on a public platform. To put it simply, I wasn’t trying to raise awareness of AIDS, or piss off the world, or ruin my life. Living in America puts us in a bit of a bubble when it comes to what is going on in the third world. I was making fun of that bubble.”
Obviously some people thought it was a ‘literal statement’ or she wouldn’t be in the position she’s in now, would she?
Justine also explained how she felt, following her firing, and how it’s affected her love life, which seems to be a high concern for her:
“I had a great career and I loved my job and it was taken away from me and there was a lot of glory in that. I cried out my body weight in the first twenty-four hours. It was incredibly traumatic. You don’t sleep. You wake up in the middle of the night forgetting where you are. All of a sudden you don’t know what you’re supposed to do. You’ve got no schedule. You’ve got no” ├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥ she paused ├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥ “purpose. I’m thirty years old. I had a great career. If I don’t have a plan, if I don’t start making steps to reclaim my identity and remind myself of who I am on a daily basis, then I might lose myself. I’m single. So it’s not like I can date, because we google everyone we might date. So that’s been taken away from me too. How am I going to meet people? What are they going to think of me?… They’ve taken my name and my picture, and have created this Justine Sacco thats not me and have labeled this person a racist. I have this fear that if I were in a car accident tomorrow and lost my memory and came back and googled myself, that would be my new reality.”
If you’re interested in reading more about Justine, and other people who have been publicly shamed, the book comes out March 31, 2015.
Will you be buying it???