Writer and commentator Amber Athey says in a column for “The Spectator” she was fired from her radio gig at WMAL in Washington D.C. Furthermore, she’s accused of being racist after joking that a brown suit worn by Vice President Kamala Harris resembled a UPS uniform.
“Kamala looks like a UPS employee — what can brown do for you?” Athey’s March 1 tweet read. “Nothing good, apparently.”
Athey states that the tweet originally made no waves. However, days later, the remarks began to be noticed by many on the social media platform.
“All of a sudden, the Kamala tweet was being re-framed as racist, and dozens of Twitter accounts were bragging about contacting my employers about my’ bigotry,’” Athey said.
Furthermore, she claims that her employers at The Spectator “laughed at and promptly deleted the angry emails.” At WMAL’s morning “O’Connor & Company” show, her coworkers operated as if anything was “amiss” following the tweet.
Nonetheless, a little over a week after sending the tweet, Athey was contacted “out of the blue” by Jeff Boden, the vice president of station owner Cumulus Washington, and human resources VP Kriston Fancellas.
“They told me that the tweet I sent about Kamala was ‘racist’ and that subsequent follow-ups defending myself and making fun of the efforts to cancel me were unacceptable,” she said. “I had violated the company’s social media policy, they said, and I was terminated effective immediately.”
“We spoke frequently [on the show] about the dangers of censorship and cancel culture on our program, and yet here they are bowing to the mob. If I can be fired for making fun of the vice president’s outfit, every single host on a Cumulus station is in danger of losing their job at a moment’s notice.”
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
