In August of 2015, Kelly Osbourne, a co-host for the television show “The View”, aimed to call out Donald Trump on the issue regarding immigration and the racist comments he made. Her attempt failed miserably as she made the crude statement: “If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump?” The comment was not well-received by her co-hosts as well as the show’s viewers and soon after, Twitter was flooded with infuriated responses to her comment using the hashtag #QueridaKellyOsbourne. Though shortly after the controversy Osbourne released an apology on Facebook stating that she misspoke, this social media event not only raises several questions about social dynamics between the citizens of the United States of America and immigrants but also about accountability of public figures making uninformed statements regarding race on social media.
In recent years, the United States of America has had an unstable socio-political climate with regards to immigration and there has been a great amount of discourse related to the Latino community and its impact on the economy. There has been an increasing amount of antagonization of Latino communities by anti-immigrants which has resulted in several hate crimes and racial profiling, physically and virtually. Social media serves as the primary medium for the spreading of information and in this age, social media can also influence how behaviours and interactions between social groups are spread. Osbourne’s comment magnifies this existing social dynamic since it is a prime example of how the rise of such views on social media platforms can create racial conflict. By reducing Latinos all over America to a janitorial status on live network television with a viewership of millions, Osbourne proliferates the idea that Latino immigrants are solely responsible for the lower job sectors and thus are not benefitting the economy. Though Osbourne claims to be liberal, her comment suggests that her ideologies are not in line with those of pro-immigrants who believe that immigrants are not just a small part of a larger labour force, but in fact in some areas of the country, they are the labour force. This reinforces a larger social problem of the financial superiority that white people have over people of colour in the United States of America, which is evident when a rich, white individual degrades immigrant jobs on national television.
Overall, this event not only reveals how there is a social conflict between immigrants and non-immigrants but it also displays how social media can magnify those negative behaviours. This controversy, more importantly, draws attention to how public figures on social media are responsible for the propagation of misconceptions regarding several social groups and they essentially are ‘spokespersons’ that can help determine social dynamics.
Works Cited:
“Kelly Osbourne’s Remarks On Latinos And Trump Stir Viral Response.” NBC News. N. p., 2015. Web. 7 Nov. 2018.
“Latino Immigration And Social Change In The United States: Toward An Ethical Immigration Policy On JSTOR.” Jstor.org. Davies, Ian, 2018. Web. 7 Nov. 2018.
“Search Twitter – #Queridakellyosbourne.” Twitter.com. N. p., 2018. Web. 7 Nov. 2018.