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Comment by Pinatubo | Hacker News Reader

She's a victim because the consequences were completely out of proportion to her transgression.

Really? She mocked a whole nation, and used a disease that has killed over a million people as a joke in a public forum.

You're right, she should probably be executed for that joke. /s

Yes, exactly, as a joke. The amount of backlash she got is far greater than the atrocity of making a bad joke.

The joke was supposed to be on her ignorant statement not on the nation, the disease or the victims. Unfortunately, no one got the joke.

You should, in general, stay away from the internet -- especially twitter -- people make these joke things about "serious" stuff all the time.

Gotta thicken up that skin, friend.

She was being ironic - making fun of herself by pretending to be a ditzy, entitled white girl who though that she could never get AIDS. Unfortunately, in her absence, people took her literally and assumed she was serious.

She has plenty of reason to now explain it as being ironic, but we'll never know if that was her original intent, will we? Her other tweets from the same period strike me immature and mean-spirited.

So you choose to believe she meant she literally cannot get AIDS?

Come on.

My point is, it's natural for her to say afterwards that it was meant ironically now that the backlash has happened. Maybe she's just a jerk who got caught being a jerk.

My point is, either she was saying it ironically or she was saying it seriously. She can't possibly have said it seriously.

Was it a somewhat insensitive joke? Sure. But you can't take the statement at face value.

Since, we'll never know the context, better call her a racist, publicly shame her. and get her fired!

She publicly broadcasted something that was, at best and assuming one gives her the benefit of the doubt, extremely insensitive and in any case indicative that she is perhaps not the best choice to be a communications director.

If an accountant got caught stealing in her off hours should she expect to find herself still employed?

> She mocked a whole nation, and used a disease that has killed over a million people as a joke in a public forum.

Pssst...Africa is a continent, not a nation.

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