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Steve Martin Says His Racist Tweet Was Misquoted, Still Sounds Racist
Steve Martin came under fire for his racist tweet (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Steve Martin seems like he might be focusing on the wrong part of his racist tweet that he came under fire for over the weekend.
The 68-year-old comedian tweeted and then quickly deleted on Friday night his response to the question, "is that how you spell lasonia?" He wrote, "It depends. Are you in an African-American neighborhood or at an Italian restaurant."
When there was an outcry over his tweet that people felt he implied that African-Americans could not spell the word, "lasagna," he offered his mea culpa and tweeted: "I did apologize. But again, a second later I realized what an offensive thing I'd done. Deep bow."
However, he made it a point to tell media outlets like TMZ and Salon that they had misquoted him:
Apparently, TMZ misquoted (and has since corrected) Martin as saying "It depends. Are you in an African-American restaurant or at an Italian restaurant," when he really wrote, “It depends. Are you in an African-American neighborhood or at an Italian restaurant.”
The difference was between the words "restaurant" and "neighborhood." It doesn't seem like such a major difference, though. It looks like Martin felt people misinterpreted his joke that African-Americans can't spell. However, Twitchy pointed out that the misinterpretation could have been that Martin was joking that African-Americans tend to use the word "La" in front of names. Um, that doesn't make things any better or less racist.
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Even so, Martin seemed pleased with Twitchy's update on their article:
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