Yahoo Lifestyle STEVE MARTIN ACCUSED OF RACIST TWEET
The veteran comedian has been accused of tweeting a racist remark. Credit: Getty Images.
The veteran comedian was engaging with his more than 4.5 million followers in a series of posts on the subject of grammar, when he was asked a question by a fan.
The fan posed 'Is this how you spell lasonia?', as in the pasta dish, to which Martin replied: “It depends. Are you in an African American neighborhood, or an Italian restaurant?”
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Some took that to be a veiled racial slur, and soon the tweet was deleted, but not before some fans called him on it.
"@SteveMartinToGo - Sorry to se your #race-tinged joke. I'm a #Black, #Female #college #professor & can certainly spell. #Stereotypes" tweeted one fan, @ImNotHereAreYou.
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Martin apologised, but added that he had been misquoted by the website TMZ in their reporting on the comment, which appeared to exacerbate the racial connotations.
"@ImNotHereAreYou My tweet was highly inappropriate. Sadly, there is a misquoted version around with the implications you write about," he replied.
He apologised again to another follower, who tweeted, "An apology would go a long way. He deleted the tweet."
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"I did apologize. But again, a second later I realized what an offensive thing I'd done. Deep bow" wrote Martin.
Some criticised other users for reading too much into the remark, while the website Twitchy apologised for their report, saying: “The original version of this post stated that Martin’s tweet denigrated the spelling ability of people who live in African American neighborhoods.
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“A more likely explanation is that he was referencing the tendency of some African Americans to use names that include the prefix 'La'. If we misinterpreted his joke (and we think we probably did), we apologize.”
Martin, clearly weary from the exchanges, later wrote:
"I'm going to retire now. Retire for the night, that is."
Ben Arnold writes for Yahoo! Movies
