Manhattan Prep School Apologizes for Showing a Ziwe Clip That Called White Women 'Annoying'

I am here to provide you with an update to the truly unbelievable story of the woman who pulled her daughter out of a prestigious Manhattan private school after her teacher showed a video that the mother claimed “openly derides, humiliates and ridicules white women.” Yes, that’s right, the teacher showed her students a clip from the premiere of comedian Ziwe Fumodoh’s Showtime series.

In what can only be described as an absurd overreaction, the mother, Gabriela Baron, wrote a three-page letter to the school’s Board of Trustees railing against the clip, which she called a “gratuitous display of racist hate speech directed at white women.” For context, Baron is referring to an episode that included, among other things, Ziwe observing that Fran Lebowitz is “not concerned with how annoying white women can be.” In another scene, Ziwe asks a group of women named Karen how it feels to be associated with “obnoxious, angry and entitled, often racist, white women.’’

Following the uproar from Baron, the head of the elite prep school in question, Spence School, sent out an email to parents on Wednesday apologizing for the incident. Because if there’s any issue that a school that costs over $57,000 a year to attend is going to treat with gravity, it’s the very real problem of racism against white women!

“As you may know, yesterday a parent, who is also an alumna and a former trustee, sent a letter to the Board of Trustees to voice her strong objection to a video shown to 15 students in her daughter’s Grade 8 history class on the last day of school,” wrote the head of the school, Bodie Brizendine. “We take this seriously; it is never acceptable to ridicule anyone at any time.

“This video is not part of the Spence curriculum. Our teacher and the School acknowledge that sharing a satirical video that made fun of white women was a significant mistake. We are sorry for any harm this has caused to anyone in our community,” the email continued.

I can only imagine how many young white girls went crying home to their parents because of the racial trauma of their teacher showing them a satirical video in which a group of white women named Karen were asked how they felt about their name. (Zero.)

In her Wednesday email to the “Spence Community,” Brizendine also implied that the all-girls school may be changing how it operates in the future as a result of this supposed incident: “We will be strengthening faculty protocols,’’ the administrator said.

I can’t help but wonder if the Spence School handles incidents of actual racism against its students of color with nearly the same level of seriousness that it’s giving to the inane complaints of an entitled mother. Oh wait—we already know it doesn’t.