I should point out that Whoopi wasn’t inflammatory — is she ever? Occasionally tone deaf and inevitably a little older and more out-of-touch than I remember her, but basically fine. This is not actually about her, exactly.

This is about this tweet that happened relatively early in the red carpet hours. An outlet called @totalbeauty posted:

I will confess that at first I thought it was a bad joke about how Oprah always wears a taffeta ballgown. I didn’t even think about the bigger implications. But as I checked out the Twitter feed I realized…that it was not a joke about ballgowns.

It was the other thing. On tonight of all nights. And it stayed up for a long time.

They eventually published this apology tweet, but you know…hours later.

 

 

It would be nice to feel like we’re all in this together. This, this conversation we’re having about how to close the gap between what we wish was true about our world and what is true. But situations like this don’t help that cause.