Alex Housden, a TV anchor in Oklahoma is under fire after she said her Black co-anchor, Jason Hackett, looked like a gorilla at the Oklahoma City Zoo. The pair was doing a segment on about the zoo and a video captured of a young gorilla when Housden told Hackett that the primate “kind of looks like you.”
The next day Housden tearfully addressed the comments: “I said something yesterday that was inconsiderate, it was inappropriate, and I hurt people, {…] And I want you to know, I understand how much I hurt you out there and how much I’ve hurt you. I love you so much, and you have been one of my best friends for the past year and a half. And I would never do anything on purpose to hurt you. And I love our community and I want you all to know, from the bottom of my heart, I apologize for what I said. I know it was wrong and I am so sorry.”
Hackett accepted her apology, and notes that she is one his best friends. “What she said yesterday was wrong,” Hackett said, adding that the apology was a “teachable moment” and that “words matter.”
“It cut deep for me, and it cut deep for a lot of you in the community,” he added.
“We’re becoming a more diverse country, and there’s no excuse. We have to understand the stereotypes. We have to understand each other’s backgrounds and the words that hurt, the words that cut deep,” Hackett said.
Despite the acceptance of her apology, many people on social media are asking that she be fired.
