Aside from being a Journalist, I am also a CVS Procare trained Pharmacist during my 30 years in America. I am an HIV expert. It saddens me as a health professional that people still call others, retarded, schizophrenic, drug addicts or HIV jokes.
A New York public relations executive has issued a lengthy apology, after she lost her job for a tweet that made light of AIDS in Africa and race.
Justine Sacco, who had been corporate communications director for IAC, issued the tweet from London on Friday afternoon.
“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” the tweet said.
Sacco’s Twitter account had been deleted by Sunday evening, but was still available in cached form.
IAC, which had condemned the message, said on Saturday that Sacco and the company had “parted ways,” CBS News reported.
On Sunday, Sacco issued the following apology:
“Words cannot express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa, who I have offended due to a needless and careless tweet. There is an AIDS crisis taking place in this country, that we read about in America, but do not live with or face on a continuous basis. Unfortunately, it is terribly easy to be cavalier about an epidemic that one has never witnessed firsthand. For being insensitive to this crisis – which does not discriminate by race, gender or sexual orientation, but which terrifies us all uniformly – and to the millions of people living with the virus, I am ashamed.
“This is my father’s country, and I was born here. I cherish my ties to South Africa and my frequent visits, but I am in anguish knowing that my remarks have caused pain to so many people here; my family, friends and fellow South Africans. I am very sorry for the pain I caused.”
