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Contributor Amariah S Tyler

You’ve probably heard or seen what satirical publication, The Onion,  tweeted about 9-year old Academy Award nominated actress, Quvenzhané Wallis by now. For those of you who do not watch TV, or are not internet savvy, nor are not apart of the social media site, Twitter, here’s what The Onion tweeted about Wallis during last night’s Oscar’s show:

“Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a c–t, right? #Oscars2013

Of course (like all cowards do) they deleted the offensive and crude tweet after they came under fire from a lot of angry tweeters. An hour after, I might add. They also ceased to offer an apology until earlier today. Here’s what the CEO, Steve Hannah, released (via Facebook, no less) as an apology to Quvenzhané Wallis:

“On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars. It was crude and offensive—not to mention inconsistent with The Onion’s commitment to parody and satire, however biting.

No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire.

The tweet was taken down within an hour of publication. We have instituted new and tighter Twitter procedures to ensure that this kind of mistake does not occur again.

In addition, we are taking immediate steps to discipline those individuals responsible.

Miss Wallis, you are young and talented and deserve better. All of us at The Onion are deeply sorry.”

Words cannot express how deeply offended, saddened, and outraged I am that these comments were made about this precious little girl. What should have been a memorable night for her and her loved ones, is now marred due to vulgar, and misogynistic “jokes”. How dare The Onion use that offensive c-word in the same sentence as a little girl and then send out that late apology as a pacifier? The Oscar’s non-humorous host, Seth McFarlane does not get a free pass either for his sexist and inappropriate comment about Wallis and George Clooney during the actual show:

“So let me just address those of you up for an award, so you got nominated for an Oscar, something a 9-year-old could do! She’s adorable, Quvenzhané. She said to me backstage. “I really hope I don’t lose to that old lady, Jennifer Lawrence. To give you an idea how young she is it’ll be 16 years before she’s too old for Clooney.”

Why would you put a little girl in the same category of a grown man? What kind of sick man would even think of something like that? Her mother was in the audience for God’s sake! Not only was this in poor taste, satire or not, it was offensive and unnecessary. Whether or not Quvenzhané is old enough or internet savvy enough to Google the comments made about her does not make it okay. This young lady was just as deserving of the same respect that any of the other ladies that attended and were nominated deserved.

Little Quvenzhané Wallis has an incredibly bright future ahead of her. Set to star in the Will Smith produced remake of Annie, she’s well on her way to having a career than many could only dream of. At nine years old, she has already made history. Let’s not kill her dreams by turning a blind eye to the exploitation and public ridicule of her. Not just her, but other girls as well.  We’ve got to protect our girls and women. Too often women suffer at the hands of vulgar, abusive, or misogynistic comments or images in the media, workplace, school or other settings.  To those of you who want to shrug this off as “It was just a joke!” “It was only entertainment!”, “She’s too young to understand, anyway,” just think if it was your sister, daughter, little niece or cousin.
Ask yourself, would you feel the same way then?