Jada Pinkett Smith gathered disgraced YouTube superstar Shane Dawson for an old video where he flagrantly sexualized the actress’ daughter, Willow, when she was a preteen. He is also being pilloried for past instances of using Blackface and the N-word in many of his videos.
Dawson, 31, spent 20 minutes apologizing to his 23 million YouTube subscribers for a host of transgressions, including trafficking in racist stereotypes and commonly using the N-Word to boost his national profile.
Dawson, however, did not apologize for a decade-old video where he simulated masturbating to a poster of an 11-year-old Willow Smith on his YouTube page. When the video resurfaced, Willow Smith’s mother, Jada, slammed Dawson for his perverted act in a Twitter post that was liked by 530K people. Willow’s brother Jaden also pounded Dawson in a tweet that was liked by more than 800K fans:
To Shane Dawson … I’m done with the excuses.
— Jada Pinkett Smith (@jadapsmith) June 27, 2020
https://twitter.com/jaden/status/1276988488785657857?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1276988488785657857%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fvariety.com%2F2020%2Fdigital%2Fnews%2Fshane-dawson-apology-racist-blackface-n-word-youtube-videos-1234692255%2F
https://twitter.com/jaden/status/1276991250474758144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1276991250474758144%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fvariety.com%2F2020%2Fdigital%2Fnews%2Fshane-dawson-apology-racist-blackface-n-word-youtube-videos-1234692255%2F
Dawson spent the balance of the video, titled “Taking Accountability,” apologizing for repeatedly doing Blackface and uttering the N-word in racist videos earlier in his career.
“Blackface was something that I did a lot on my channel. And there’s no excuse for it. There’s literally no excuse. I made a video six years ago talking about it and I gave excuses and it was wrong. But I didn’t do the work. I didn’t actually look into the history of it and why it’s so wrong and why people were so upset,” Dawson said.
“I am so sorry to anybody that saw that and also saw that people were lifting me up and saying, ‘You’re so funny, Shane,’ ” Dawson continued. “I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be Black and see this white f—ing guy doing blackface and the whole Internet at that time being like, ‘LOL.’ ”
Dawson also expressed remorse for normalizing the racial epithets.
“I’m sorry that I added to the normalization of blackface or the normalization of saying the N-word,” Dawson said. “It’s not a funny word. Especially for a White person to say.”
The apology was woefully insufficient for a number of Twitter users who came after Dawson.
https://twitter.com/MarkDice/status/1277004340335501312
Flip the page to see how Dawson sexualized an 11-year-old Willow Smith, followed by Dawson’s apology and subsequent reactions to his mea culpa. (WARNING: NSFW)
