Former Vanderpump Rules star Stassi Schroeder speaks out about her racist behavior and being fired from the show for falsely accusing her Black co-star of a crime she didn’t commit.
Back in June 2020, Schroeder and her co-star Kristen Doute were fired after their co-star Faith Stowers came forward about the two women making racist comments about her and falsely accusing her of a crime she didn’t commit. Since then, Schroeder has lost most of her endorsement and business deals, and now she’s talking to Tamron Hall about her racist and problematic behavior.
During Hall’s “The Tamron Hall Show,” the host asked Schroeder why now is she speaking up about the termination and misconduct after being silent for so long. “Honestly, now because I needed time to process my feelings. I needed time to process what happened. I feel like one of the most frustrating parts when this all went down was that people expected me to just understand everything immediately, and things like that take time. And I felt like it would be better for me to get a greater understanding of everything and the issues before I opened my mouth again.”
Schroeder said she doesn’t feel she experienced the #cancelculture effect. “I’m someone who messed up quite a few times. I am the reason why I’m in this situation. I think a lot of people wanted me to focus on cancel culture and whether I was a victim or not, and it’s just not how I feel at all.” She said, adding that she isn’t necessarily racist but that she wasn’t “anti-racist” either. “That has been the hardest part of all of this. That is absolutely the hardest part. Just going out to a restaurant or going to the grocery store and wondering if that’s what people think. Throughout this whole thing, I’ve recognized I’ve never felt that I was a racist, I don’t have hate in my heart, but I’ve recognized that I wasn’t anti-racist. I wasn’t. And that’s something I’ve been learning throughout all of this.”
White people often intentionally or unintentionally fail to see how greatly they can affect a Black person’s life because of their #whiteprivilege, especially when they perpetuate stereotypes by lying on Black people for their own benefit or pleasure. After going to a teacher, Schroeder says she now understands her privilege as a white woman.
“I do absolutely understand. I’ve spent the last three months working with a teacher and learning about everything. And there was so much that I didn’t know. I didn’t understand that just because something wasn’t about race for me, doesn’t mean it’s not about race for the other person because I’m bringing my experience as a white privileged woman to this situation, and she’s bringing her experience as a Black woman into this situation. And because it’s about race for her, it is about race. And that’s something that I’ve realized,” she said.
Hall then asked Schroeder about the racist comments she made on her podcast while discussing #OscarsSoWhite. “I’ve been wanting to talk about this podcast more because going through these past few months and working with a teacher and learning about Black history and just the obstacles that Black people face every single day, I look back on the podcast and I am so embarrassed that I even had those thoughts much less put it out there. I was a Karen who basically said, ‘What about All Lives Matter?’ Schroeder continued, “I have been wanting to talk about this podcast because I now know how to speak for Black Lives Matter…to be able to defend it when people are questioning it.”
She also opened up about how she’d explain these issues as well as her own ignorance to her future daughter, saying, And that’s something that I ask my coach about all of the time, how best to talk to a child about this. Because like I mentioned earlier, when I was learning about everything, I think the weeks that we focused on Black history, a light went off in my head. Just learning about everything for a couple weeks straight, all at once, I had never thought about the oppression that Black people face in that way. There was just so much that I didn’t understand, and again, it’s my fault that I didn’t educate myself.”
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