Brooke Schofield Addresses Past Racist Posts: ‘I Just Didn’t Realize I Was Part of the Problem’
Influencer Brooke Schofield was in tears as she apologized for her past racist social media posts in a new nearly four-minute long apology video.
On Saturday (Aug. 3), Schofield posted her initial apology video to her TikTok account. The video was in response to a fan who wrote, "People are allowed to be hurt by her words, especially those it was targeted at. It's not a non-POC's place to forgive her and defend her 'growth.' People can be hurt."
Schofield said that she has promoted accountability on her platforms but didn't take her own advice in this instance. The racist and offensive tweets were shared between 2012 and 2015, from the time she was an underage teenager and through the time she was in college.
"You have probably seen the tweets that have been floating around. They are not fake. Those are real things that I said," Schofield admitted in the video. "I want to acknowledge that I feel the same way about them that you do. I think they are so disturbing. They're wrong. They're horrible and they're disgusting."
Although she appreciated that some of her followers defended her, but noted that it didn't take away from the harmful words. Schofield explained that she was adopted by her grandparents when she was 10 and that their views influenced her own ideals. She added that she didn't "shift her way of thinking" until after college.
"There are people in my life, who I might've looked up to forever, who I do not agree with," she continued. "I'm very very sorry to anyone who is hurt by the tweets because, obviously they are very hurtful."
"I also apologize for not saying something sooner. I was getting these messages from people who were hurt by them and I felt like by bringing more attention to it, I'd be hurting more people," she concluded.
The racist tweets, in question, included countless profanities, a reference to former President Barack Obama, defending George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin and photos of her dressed up in costume as an unhoused person.
On Sunday (Aug. 4), Schofield returned to social media to respond to a critic who tweeted that Schofield waited 10 years to publicly apologize.
"Again. I thought I was anti racist," Schofield tweeted. "I never thought racism was ok, I just didn’t realize I was part of the problem. I thought I was funny tweeting offensive things, and I wasn’t. And I thought that what I heard on the news had to be true. It wasn’t. I am so sorry."
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