Girl, watch your mouth. It all started when the author of Girl, Wash Your Face posted about her vacuum cleaner at home, which kept getting dirtier and dirtier.
In a clip of a deleted post resurfaced by Angie Treasure, Hollis referenced an April 2021 livestream in which he talked about a woman “cleaning toilets,” saying, “Someone commented and said, ‘You’re privileged AF,’ and I was like, ‘That’s it.’ I’m very privileged, but there were times when I worked so hard to earn money to have someone come in twice a week and clean the bathrooms.” So I said that to her, and she said, “Well, you’re the one who can’t relate.”
Hollis’ response was to point out that icons and historical figures like Harriet Tubman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Marie Curie, and Oprah Winfrey are “all unrelatable AF” and explain that she has no interest in being empathized with.
It’s great that her books sell millions of copies, but she, a respected abolitionist, doesn’t.
A few days later, Hollis apologized on Instagram, explaining, “I know I have caused a lot of pain by mentioning notable women, including several women of color, whose struggles and accomplishments I will never understand.” She continued, “I ignored people who work hard but cannot achieve financial security, often because of an inherently racist and biased system.”
The author of “Girls, Stop Apologizing” added, “The important thing for me to do now, and I should have done already, is to be honest and just listen.”
