Ellie Kemper's Past as 'Veiled Prophet Queen' Under Scrutiny

It was weird going on Twitter this evening and seeing so many people act surprised, because every thread we have on Kemper or Kimmy Schmidt here on Datalounge has at least one person who brings the Veiled Prophet Ball up. That Atlantic article was published years ago and I remember everyone talking about it. I honestly thought a lot of people knew but it seems like almost no one knew, or maybe everyone forgot.

I'm from the St. Louis area and working class and even as late as the 1980s the people I grew up with hated the VP types with a capital H. I had multiple relatives say that the VP organization was basically the Klan for people who thought the Klan had too many white trash elements in it.

The Kempers weren't hated as much as the Busches but it was close.

[quote]Many of the average citizens of St. Louis knew exactly what the VP Ball and Fair represented, and their dissent became nearly as much of a convention as the fair itself. Spencer reports that in the earliest years of the parade there was public backlash against upsetting racial stereotypes depicted on the floats. (It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that African and Jewish Americans weren’t allowed in the VP Organization for many years). Peashooters were sold at local stores around the time of the parade so that bystanders could pelt the ostentatious floats. Unions held mocking counter-parades that skewered the lavishness of the VP Organization.

That's fucked up. I really like Kimmy Schmidt so that just taints it. I want Tituss to comment

Read the damn article. This snobby 'club' started letting black people and Jews join in 1979. Of course, very rich black people and Jews.

This isn't racism. It's snobbery. For fuck's sake.

Clearly, she made a deliberate choice to be born to a wealthy family. How dare she!

I don’t consider her to be a major talent.

It is racism, come on, don't be a dope. Its structure and symbolism is borrowed straight from the Klan and other white supremacist organizations that use occult and mythological sources for their clubs. It's based heavily on the Mystick Krewe who were (are) so racist that in the 1990s when New Orleans passed an ordinance saying Mardi Gras krewes couldn't discriminate based on race, the Mystick Krewe simply stopped participating rather than let anyone not white into the group.

The VP org was no blacks and Jews until 1979, but only changed after pressure from citizens embarrassed that such an outdated racist organization was still part of the St. Louis cultural elite. That just started their trend toward hiding who they are, changing the VP Fair name to Fair St. Louis in the 1990s and doing a little collective historical rewriting, trying to make them sound merely classist and not racist.

Masons have a complicated, problematic and often racist history, too.

Are we going to call all Job's Daughters and Rainbow Girls virulent racists now as a result?

It’s basically the St Louis version of the Mortimer Club from The Golden Girls. All major US cities have racist elite clubs, even San Francisco.

Has she ever responded?

R7 Classism supercedes race in all aspects of society, but that's inconvenient for one race's pursuit for complete domination of Western civilization. Money is what separates people, and the money changers have used race to divide the working class so that they can't get together to fight back against the upper classes of all races robbing them blind.

An articlr

Twitter thread, which does a good job of explaining.

Not KKK, but does have some shared DNA with KKKesque organizations

Hmm, that didn't work - try again

There can only be one true Veiled Prophet Queen of MY heart!

[quote]Not KKK, but does have some shared DNA with KKKesque organizations

What does this mean? Groups of white people congregating together is now KKKesque?

It was a whites-only group for a century, r16.

She also went to Princeton, an institution with a much longer history of racial and ethnic discrimination. Will Twitter place her “under scrutiny” for that, too? It’s not her fault she grew up in Phyllis Schlafly country.

R17 My question was whether or not white people congregating together is KKKesque, not if it was exclusive. I can think of a few groups that are ethnically exclusive but are not called racist for doing so.

I think a comment or two above are directed at my post at r7 and I want to be clear that I never said anything about Ellie Kemper. She was probably told that it was just a social club and the equivalent of a coming-out ball and she was only 19, and I don't personally hold her responsible for anything the organization did. She should probably address this but won't, and no one will really care because she's not a particularly good actress and no one is clamoring for her to appear in anything.

Defending her by saying the Veiled Prophet Org isn't racist is stupid, though. It was racist. Probably still is. Defending the VP as though you have personal stakes in the organization is weird, most of you hadn't even heard of it until today.

The thread has already gone into why the group is KKK adjacent r19, and there are also links you can read. Your question has been answered.

If what you're trying to do is start something, then man up and start it instead of pussyfooting around whatever it is you really want to say.

These comparisons with the KKK are idiotic. Kemper grew up (and is still) devoutly Catholic. Have any of you actually studied the Klan? They (along with plenty of other groups) despised Catholics and spread bilious propaganda against them for decades.

No one said she was in the KKK, r22. The KKK's hate for Catholics is entirely irrelevant here.

The Veiled Prophet Ball is linked to Catholic elites, has been since nearly the beginning. Many of the queens come from local Catholic schools.

[quote] What does this mean?

On the one hand, they weren't burning crosses and killing people.

On the other hand, the leader or founder of the Veiled Prophet thingy was related in some way to the KKK founded, and they didn't let any people of color in for many years. Almost a hundred. So there's that.

I think some context people are missing here is that the KKK had a significant presence in Missouri for a long time (maybe still does) but they weren't that prevalent in the St. Louis area, because as has already been mentioned, the KKK were anti-Catholic and St. Louis is a heavily Catholic area. The St. Louis elite were as interested in maintaining the status quo as the Klan were, but they weren't going to join the Klan, both because of the anti-Catholic sentiment but also because the Klan was considered rural and trashy.

St. Louis in the late 1800s, when the VP and other similar organizations came around, considered itself a world-class city in direct competition with Chicago, and crushing the labor strike in 1878 (with the help of Federal troops) was seen as a victory for the city, the elites, and their international image.

The Mysterious Order of the Veiled Prophet was born out of the elites celebrating that.

Similarly, the Klan had a history of crushing labor strikes itself, often in acts of vigilantism or as unofficial partners of local police forces.

R23 - exactly. Do they think the 'krewes' in New Orleans weren't racist either? There were/are huge Catholic populations in New Orleans - it's not like the Catholics were some anti-segregation, racial equality faction. Far from it.

The KKK doesn't have the corner market on racism. This group looks equally bad.

Here's the thing - she was the 'queen' in 1999, AFTER she graduated in college and during her tenure at Princeton.

Her family wealth and privilege and now this really makes me dislike this formerly very likable woman.

The Klan considered worker rights and unions to be a menace to the American way, much like the Veiled Prophets did.

Has TIna Fey responded?

R28 - is it any wonder that worker rights were anathema to the KKK? I'm mean - they were pissed about giving black people freedom. Now black people want 'rights' at work instead of being underpaid, overworked, intimidated and made feel less than human?

That's not shocking in the least.

So now we are punishing people for being part of organizations that used to be racist? I looks like all this VP does now is hold a ball, and also hold annual festival for the entire community. What exactly is the problem -- now?

Know your history. It will be the (career) death of you one day.

A teenager is responsible for thoroughly knowing the history of civic organizations her family belongs to?

This is beyond ridiculous. People just enjoy finding something they can be offended about--that's all this is.

R21 I read the links. Twitter claims are not sources though I'm not trying to start anything, I'm trying to ask you a question in a thread that you started that pertains to the topic that you refuse to answer.

[quote]Defending her by saying the Veiled Prophet Org isn't racist is stupid, though. It was racist. Probably still is. Defending the VP as though you have personal stakes in the organization is weird, most of you hadn't even heard of it until today.

You are making A LOT of assumptions and bold claims. How do you know that "most of us" haven't heard of it until today? Can you tell everyone in the thread how the org is racist with sourced examples of racism?

[quote]On the one hand, they weren't burning crosses and killing people. On the other hand, the leader or founder of the Veiled Prophet thingy was related in some way to the KKK founded, and they didn't let any people of color in for many years. Almost a hundred. So there's that.

So R24 VP "thingy" was related to the KKK. Bold claim. Where is the source for that, other tha it being a group of white people congregating together? Are you saying that white people with money congregating together is itself an act of racism and discrimination? Nonwhite ethnic groups can congregate and explicitly exclude whites. Why can't whites have their own groups? Can white people exist in their own spaces without having to include other races when other races explicitly exclude white people?

She was 18 when she was anointed Queen of the Veiled Prophet and was given a creepy old man in a dress as her date. I don't hold grudges for weird shit people did when they were 18, unless they keep at it as adults.

Apparently she isn't the queen bee of the Veiled Prophet social scene now and she didn't stay in St. Louis, she got out and established a career for herself where nobody had ever heard of this creepy club in Flyoverstan. Sure, her family money can't have hurt, but it's not like she owes her career to the malign behind-the-scenes influence of her date at the Veiled Prophet ball.

Not only that, but Ellie Kemper is a United States citizen... and the United States used to legally allow slavery!

Obviously, this means that she condones and endorses the US's history of slavery. Had she felt differently, she would have moved out of the country as soon as could!

LOL KKK princess

Her family name is a big banking family name that's everywhere in the midwest.

r18 today's Princeton is easily the most African American friendly Ivy

[quote] Are you saying that white people with money congregating together is itself an act of racism and discrimination?

I'm not, you fat cunt. May I direct you to the Jen Psaki disproving-a-negative theory.

I didn't start the thread, R34, and a lot of what you quoted there was written by someone else.

Her families’ name is on museums in both St Louis and Kansas City.

They’re THAT big in Missouri.

[quote]Nonwhite ethnic groups can congregate and explicitly exclude whites. Why can't whites have their own groups? Can white people exist in their own spaces without having to include other races when other races explicitly exclude white people?

This from the "I'm not trying to start anything" guy.

She's been trying to start something all morning but no one is answering THAT bell.

Did the VP go out and terrorize and lynch Blacks? If not, then no, it's not as bad as the KKK.

This is just the latest round of bored mean white girls on Twitter targeting a successful and wealthy white woman. They love that dopamine if shaming a celebrity and then watching them grovel.

It beats actually doing anything about the here and now.

No one said it was as bad as the KKK. The "KKK princess" stuff on Twitter is the usual hyperbole, and it doesn't seem to be mostly white women, honestly.

You really think white women would go after a cute little rich white girl like Ellie?

The white ladies seem to mostly be saying how sad they are. Everyone else is posting insults and memes, usually the "what white nonsense is this" one, which I admit to chuckling at.

The beach community where my family has cottages, the golf course where my family are members, the winter club where they play tennis and swim were all restricted in practice until the late seventies at least. While our examples are probably not as flamboyantly cringey as St Louis particular brand of society bullshit, anybody who comes from a generational upper-middle-class background is almost certain to have personal experiences with clubs and schools and social institutions that have unambiguously racist and anti-Semitic histories.

Thank you for posting this OP, it makes me angry. Not that it has a God damn thing to do with my life but I personally don't believe we can have enough ANGER and OUTRAGE in our culture. And sarcasm, we need more sarcasm.

Many women from the south participated in antebellum parties and debutante balls, but I don't think many of them are bad people. It's just one of those dumb things people do. They used to do it a lot more 15/20 years ago, but it seems to be dwindling a bit. I don't hold it against them or think they're racist because of it.

Pretty soon, Twitter will be coming after anyone who's ever worn a hoop skirt even as a joke. Those surviving Designing Women better watch out!

Going to St Louis for grad school was such an eye opener for me. I had no idea such troglodytes still walked the earth. A bizarre intensely parochial place with social mores from 150 years ago, and the most intense racism and classism I've ever experienced. I'm hawt and I could rarely get laid there because the men were so into which high school you went to. And if you didn't go to high school in St Louis, you didn't count.

[quote] Defending her by saying the Veiled Prophet Org isn't racist is stupid, though. It was racist. Probably still is.

It "probably" still is? "probably" based on what?

This stupid slippery-slope argumentation is exactly what Trumpards do.

And this guy has a past for "faking" stories. Why in the fuck is he employed at the Atlantic?

I went to undergrad in St. Louis, and got laid all the time. It was a great city. The problem was you r52. You are probably not Hawt.

Isn't it interesting whenever someone starts talking about class issues that race is thrown in to muddy the waters.

Classism isn't merely a question of money. It's Old Money vs. the nouveaux riches - Trump could no more infiltrate High Society than a black person or a Jew could. Well, unless that Jew was named Rothschild and had aristocratic titles.

Classism is inextricably intertwined with racism.

You know she's a comedian, right? She has no impact on the world other than an ability to distract us for a few...

Comedic actress not comedian. I’ve heard her interviews... she’s not funny in the least without a script.

She doesn't but she's part of a larger problem. Look at a lot of the top entertainers from the last 30 or 40 years, the majority are from extremely wealthy families and have used money and nepotism to get them where they are. Culture is damaged when you only get life from one view point, there should be a lot pressure to force studios to hire outside of the pool they've consistently been going to for decades now.

She is not the best thing on her own show.

Why is wealth a larger problem?

across the state in Kansas City I attended the similar Jewel Ball

R61 indeed. I will add that there is a similar problem in mainstream journalism, with huge portions of reporters coming from rich, famous or elite backgrounds. That's why even liberal publications will inlcude articles on how raising the minimum wage is somehow actually a bad thing. Or how our nation's biggest threat is from blue haired 19 year olds cancelling musicians on twitter and not the GOPs decimation of the middle class.

Even The Root commentariet is like

¯_(ツ)_/¯

She plays the exact same character in every role. The relentlessly cheery all American girl. There's no range whatsoever.

The Veiled Prophet was and is just a continuance of the wealthy of the St. Louis area (which now means more long-residing executives than old-line St. Louis families, many of whom in both categories are capitalist "liberals" or "moderates"). Of course, if their kids don't attend Wash. U., they go to an Ivy League school (legacies) after sending them to one of five high schools good enough for their reputations.

Wealthy blacks know not to bother with the VP, because even though they golf at the formerly anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, anti-black, anti-women clubs, they have their own social groups, sensibly. They also are as politically rotten as their peers when it comes to their money, no matter how "glad" they are about Cori Bush.

The Veiled Prophet is not a KKK descendant. It's a descendant of newer money, older money that was new money not that long ago, and the attitudes the monied and formerly monied (they don't change just because they're down to their last million) schmucks who ruin the city's quality of life as much as street crime does.

R65 don’t forget The NY Times real estate section where the “journalists”:write about young people seeking an affordable one bedroom apartment in Manhattan. The youngsters can afford $800/month and mom and dad will kick in $1225. At some point the “journalist” will bemoan all the rent controlled apartments out there that limit the number of available apartments, thus driving prices up. They are still writing that shit. As if 40% of apartments are rent controlled (it’s less than 2%).,And they go all woo-woo when trying to figure out rent stabilization and how it harms them.

I don't think rich kids should be hanged for following their rich family traditions. But I'm biased.

I do think unattractive, boring rich kids shouldn't be on tv by dint of being able to stick it out and audition longer than hot, talented poor people. That's a goddamn shame.

I couldn’t stick with that Kimmy Schmitt show and she’s one of the reasons. I wanted to slap her one-note face. Tina Fey likes working with rich kids like Kemper & Marci Klein.

R54, are you saying that the Atlantic's article on the Veiled Prophet is faked? Seriously?

[quote] This is just the latest round of bored mean white girls on Twitter targeting a successful and wealthy white woman. They love that dopamine if shaming a celebrity and then watching them grovel.

WW!

[quote]This stupid slippery-slope argumentation is exactly what Trumpards do.

This is the kind of thing that would get you punched in your face in real life.

Based on what we know, I said that this org was definitely racist in the past, and I personally thought this organization was probably still racist, and you said that means I'm essentially a Trump voter. There's no logic to that on any level.

Of course, you're so stupid and incoherent with unnecessary rage that you couldn't even spell the "tard" part of "Trumptard" right, which we all know is your favorite part.

Pretty much every person on this thread who has freaked out in defense of this organization they know nothing about has gone on to reveal the exact kind of person they are.

To see what a bs story this is open up any of the original viral “Ellie is a KKK princess” tweets and the first reply will be the author saying “Just because it’s not the KKK doesn’t mean it wasn’t bad.”

I'm so fed up with Woke Princesses on twitter desperately trying to prove how self-righteous they are. Can you imagine what these bitches are like in real life? absolutely unfuckable

The VP had reformed and allowed black members in, in 1979, or around 20 years before Kemper was Queen. Also, from everything I've read about the organization it appears to be more of a class thing than a racial thing, which would have largely been the same in the pre-Civil Rights era. They were against unions, white or black. But, of course they wanted poor whites and blacks separated to dilute their power, just as the elites of today.

It is interesting that a day passed without her clearing things up. Clearly she had to hire a crisis PR team, and they are working on a response.

This has come up before and she always ignores it. She'll probably ignore it again.

I wonder what her uncle Edmund makes of this.

How is this different from every other city that has its society balls and the young virgins are paraded about by their big money families. Isn't this an American "thing:?

Ellie is a crappy actress. But, she seems to be an ok person in interviews and doesn't seem to be a show off attention whore like Mindy Kaling.

Just another sweet, nice rich white girl. What's the problem?

"How is this different from every other city that has its society balls and the young virgins are paraded about by their big money families."

In regular debutante balls, the girls are paraded in front of eligible young men and their families, with the hope that they'll find a rich husband. At the Veiled Prophet ball, she's given an old man in a dress and bridal veil as her date, it's a symbolic virgin sacrifice.

For the record, the girl on the right is not white.

The Root comments were what I expected--as in, why is this news? Black people are perfectly aware of the racist past of many, many institutions. VP integrated 20 years before Ellie K got on board, so her getting slammed here is kind of ridiculous.

Like I said, this is being pushed by the mean white girls of Woke. Who don't want to, say, defend voting rights in Texas because that's not as exciting.

I don't think EK will respond. I don't think she's doing anything right now and this is a non-scandal, so what would be the point?

R84, Christ, that's tacky.

Do we know if Josh Hawley was ever crowned the Veiled Prophet Queen?

𝗕𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝗘𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗲 𝗞𝗲𝗺𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄𝘀 𝘄𝗲’𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗻-𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗹

The latest evidence that we’re living in 1692 Salem was the manufactured outrage about “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” star Ellie Kemper, a gifted actress who is guilty of absolutely nothing.

Yet thanks to some idiots on social media, and some practitioners of journalism who ought to know better, she will apparently now forever be considered some sort of adjunct KKK princess by stupid people for the crime of having attended a debutante ball as a teen.

“Yes, The Office’s Ellie Kemper Was Beauty Queen of a Racist Ball — and She Was Escorted by a Bush” ran a typical headline in the Daily Beast, the online wokester version of the Weekly World News, only without the adorable pictures of baby vampires.

The Daily Beast story starts to dissolve in its own juices in the subhead, “The ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ star was Queen of the Veiled Prophet Ball as a teen in 1999. It was founded by a Confederate soldier but its ties to the KKK are tenuous at best.” Well, that’s quite a comedown, from “racist” in the headline to a “tenuous at best” link to the KKK right below that. As the story went on, it debunked itself. The problem is that a sound debunking doesn’t quite stick in people’s minds as well as “KKK princess.”

The stories got going after some excitable person on Twitter contrived a link between Kemper and the Klan over the picture of her being crowned “Prophet Queen” in the 1999 ball, when she was 19. “i mean ….. ellie kemper was apparently crowned in a legit kkk beauty pageant,” wrote one user. “So no one gonna tell me Ellie Kemper aka kimmy Schmidt was crowned KKK queen in 1999,” wrote someone else. “Ellie Kemper being a KKK princess is so random I’m not even sure to begin with the questions,” wrote a third.

Twitter greatly magnified the problem by labeling Kemper a top trending topic, meaning its editors chose to make her their equivalent of front-page news.

Social media, and the media in general, is becoming more and more like a witch trial every day. Point at someone, yell “Racist” and watch them get burned at the stake. If they deny it, they’re privileged. If they issue some groveling apology for something they didn’t do, they’re canceled.

I don't think the NYPost likes someone from "high society" getting called out. I wonder if the journalist perhaps has connections with Kemper or their past contains similar "high society" bullshit that they're getting defensive about...

The irony is the NY Post "broke" the story originally....More Murdoch bullshit.

[quote] The KKK doesn't have the corner market on racism. This group looks equally bad.

[italic]Equally[/italic] bad??

What an incredibly stupid thing to say.

[quote] The KKK doesn't have the corner market on racism. This group looks equally bad.

Once you can provide proof of this group burning, lynching, and murdering thousands of people across the country we can talk about them being "equally bad."

If ANY of this shit bothers you, GO...FUCK...YOUR..WORTHLESS...SELF...

[quote]Anybody who comes from a generational upper-middle-class background is almost certain to have personal experiences with clubs and schools and social institutions that have unambiguously racist and anti-Semitic histories.

My city has an old-money WASP country club, a new-money WASP/other Xtians country club, and a Jewish country club founded in response to discrimination.

So she didn’t actually DO anything to anybody or SAY anything bad. She went to a club dance when she was a teenager.

R96 Exactly! Fuck these cancel culture shits!

Andy Cohen is from St. Louis.

He probably made a great Queen of Love and Beauty.

R96, exactly. Most people were far from concerned about researching these things when they were 19 years old or even younger (which she may have been.) It's something her parents were involved in and she got sucked into it.

This could have all been fixed by her saying, "Wow, I read about the history now. I didn't know when I was a teenager." (It comes up almost EVERY time her name is brought.)

But I'm sure her family still has ties to the group and she probably doesn't want to get involved at all.

At least then whenever it comes up people would have something to shut people down with .

Yeah, it's pretty likely Kemper's family is still involved with Veiled Prophet. Her brother is the CEO of the bank her family owns.

Can’t imagine being dragged for racism and not responding to set the record straight.

[quote]Yeah, it's pretty likely Kemper's family is still involved with Veiled Prophet. Her brother is the CEO of the bank her family owns.

Pretty sure her Uncle Edmund is busy with other things these days like laundry service, kitchen duty, fashioning license plates....

I have no idea what this thread is about.

R101, she probably knows it’s useless to get dragged into an argument with these idiots. Least said, soonest mended.

That NY Post article is full of lies, of course. The Atlantic wrote about this in 2014. People knew about it for years. The lady on Twitter brought it up and linked to the article on the Atlantic, but the Post wants you to think some "excitable woman" just made it all up.

The crux of their article seems to be that people on Twitter were saying "KKK princess" in response, almost none of them seriously meaning that, but the right wingers immediately got up in arms and decided this was a case of leftist SJW cancel culture Millennials literally saying an innocent white woman was lynching blacks. The Post is pandering to that.

It's a racist organization. Just because a handful of people who say it's basically the KKK are wrong doesn't mean it's not a racist organization.

If Kemper doesn't want to address the issue that's fine but people are going to remember that she couldn't even be bothered to say "I made a mistake when I was a kid and I'm sorry," which is probably the easiest of celebrity statements to make. She was a kid, she probably didn't know any better, so people are going to wonder why she can't just say that out loud.

R105, she didn’t make a “mistake” when she was a kid. Unless you consider being born white and wealthy an act of malice. (Who are we kidding? Of course you do.)

Those addicted to condemnation and outrage are going to make a wealthy white woman wrong, no matter what she does.

Honestly, the idiocy of online "activists" never ceases to amaze me. Why the hell aren't they looking at current members and whether they're supporting racist or fascist candidates, instead of picking on some actress who had minimal involvement with them when she was a teenager?

The twitter idiots never fail to pick the easy or totally inapproriate targets, while totally ignoring the real enemies of all decent people - like fascist politicians and industrialists who are changing the climate. Who's worthier of abuse - Michael Flynn or Ellie Kemper?

[quote]Who's worthier of abuse - Michael Flynn or Ellie Kemper?

Her Uncle Edmund always went with the woman by default.

[quote] Can’t imagine being dragged for racism and not responding to set the record straight.

Guess your petty little bullying tactics aren't working, huh?

Too bad, so sad.

[quote] I have no idea what this thread is about.

There's an old organization in the city of St. Louis among the wealthiest families that puts on a big ball every year, and they have one young woman from those families act as "The Queen of Love and Beauty" at the ball. Ellie Kemper, the star of "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," had that position when she was 19 years old because she is from one of the wealthiest and most famous families in Missouri.

The organization had a racist & ajti-Semitic past and excluded blacks and Jews for years, although in 1977 (a full twenty years before Kemper srved as the Queen at the ball), they reversed that policy.

SJW trolls on the Internet (including some here) are trying to cancel her for being involved in the ball because they're trying to argue that somehow she is tied to the racist and anti-Semitic policies of the organization that existed and were changed before she was even born. They know deep down this is ridiculous bullshit, but they enjoy bullying famous people online.

That's it in a nutshell.

[quote] Guess your petty little bullying tactics aren't working, huh?

I'm not surprised Ellie is winning.. Females are strong as hell. Unbreakable.. She alive dammit.. It's a miracle.

This was all started by some troll on twitter who claims to be a Marxist @hannastasia no doubt pissed off she got snubbed by St. Louis High Society.

R105, Thank you for this assessment. It's the best one of the entire situation. The person who called her "KKK Princess" was making a joke because of the hoods people were wearing in photos of the organization and her being crowned the queen of it. The original poster that brought up all of this clearly linked to the article written years before. People who live there and have dealt with the organization even chimed in and have agreed that yes, the organization has racist roots but she probably just thought she was going to a ball. Either way, she hasn't responded to it, ever, over the past few years.

[quote]Who's worthier of abuse - Michael Flynn or Ellie Kemper?

Ma'am, Twitter has gone after both of them. They've gone in on every politician who has ever blinked wrong. They've gone in on the people you're saying they haven't BUT the news never covers that. That doesn't excite the public apparently.

[quote]This was all started by some troll on twitter

Once again, no, the article about Kemper and the Veiled Prophet Ball was years ago in The Atlantic, and that "troll" you're talking about linked to it. I really don't know why people keep saying that linking to a well-sourced article from a legitimate news source is trolling because it's not.

[quote]This has come up before and she always ignores it. She'll probably ignore it again

Bullies hate it when you ignore their cruelties. It takes away the power they think that they have over you, sucking the oxygen right out of their lungs. Making people cower in fear gives them life. I once had a landlord who was a raging alcoholic narcissist in a corrupt city that wouldn't do anything about my predicament after I reported her abuse to the cops. Since I was legally considered a lodger renting a bedroom in her house, I had very few rights. She would drunkenly scream abuse at me for hours throughout the night, which would lead to the inevitable conversation the next morning in which she would claim that she didn't remember doing any of that and how dare I record without her consent?! She would sue me for that if she wasn't such a good person! Now erase that evidence immediately and pay me your rent, she told me. One day, I read about something called the grey rock method and tried it out on her. Instead of opening the door and pleading with her to let me sleep, I ignored her for weeks. She was PISSED! She even went so far as to bang on my door and windows while screaming abuse at me. Then, one night, as she was literally dying for my attention, she screamed, "HOW DARE YOU ACT LIKE YOU DON'T EXIST IN MY HOUSE!?!!?!" Point taken. I got the fuck out of there a few weeks later after I found a great apartment with no narcissistic landlords.

What a fascinating story that has absolutely nothing to do with anything on this thread whatsoever, r115.

[quote] but that's inconvenient for one race's pursuit for complete domination of Western civilization.

Just to be clear, you're talking about white deplorable-types, right? Like a stupid bitch from GA who tries to start the "Anglo-Saxon" party, meanwhile, she couldn't be trashier.

It couldn't have been all that elite if they allowed Catholics

R117 It wasn't a party but a caucus. But here is the thing, people should not be surprised that if you force race consciousness on white people some of them are going to respond by creating white racial groups that advocates for the white race, etc. That is what race consciousness breeds. Once we make race the most important thing about people it is natural for people to then focus on preserving and supporting their race.

This current obsession with race consciousness from the extreme left leads to reaction from the extreme right and threatens to erase all the racial progress we have made in the past 50-60 years.

She's a whore! They're all whores! Sluts, the lot of them!

More witch hunting while using Soviet-style terms like "whataboutism" implying that life is completely black and white that justice can only go one way because the wokists have the moral high ground and can never be wrong, ever. Sounds like severe mental illness to me.

R115 I had a narcissistic mother and this so true. Ignoring them is like throwing water on a witch, they just melt. Narcissism in our culture is so extreme now because of social media so it makes sense that this would work really well on the wokists who use social media more than anyone else.

R116 I understood it perfectly. The anecdote is about taking away power from bullies by ignoring them. Still confused? You may need to brush up on your reading comprehension skills. Are you one of the bullies that R115 is referring to?

R119? Millions of people are only finding out now about what happened in Tulsa - and it wasn't the only place where it happened. That you think in such simplistic terms as to how the white race systemically and systematically persecuted the black race from their every breath and every movement and so easily dismiss it and blame an "extreme" left for all of it coming out now as if we should just pretend it has nothing to do with what we see today and that we get a god damned do-over now, is why you're the one who is in need of introspection.

What an insanely selfish and ignorant person you must be. Jesus Christ. Pathetic.

And BTW, R119, this part is particularly sickening from you.

[quote]leads to reaction from the extreme right

They're REACTING to *democracy* and they hate it. The extreme rights reaction is based in hating an even playing field - that you so easily dismiss this fact and try to blame on some "extreme left" is nauseating.

They literally attempted to try and kill people because they didn't like the outcome of democracy. No one fucking destroyed their country or stole their homes or built settlements or killed their loved one. Had those savages been Muslim or simply non-white, you wouldn't so easily excuse their behavior or blame it on others.

R122 & R123 You are completely lost. I have NO PROBLEM, with learning about history. Though, I've known about Tulsa for years(late 1990s). The people just learning about it are intellectually lazy and don't seem to know anything until it is spoonfed to them. Anyone just now realizing that black people were oppressed in this country, has to have brain damage. It has been a major part not only of history classes for decades, but also popular culture. What is really sickening is people acting as though NO progress has been made. We should study history but not act as though things are as bad now as then. 2021 is NOT 1921, and we should acknowledge and celebrate how far we have come and continue to work toward the goal of being one people.

Also, I never mentioned the Jan 6 Capital riot, which is what I guess you are alluding to in R123.

R124, do you understand that the riot was a direct result of the right seeing their *racial* privilege threatened? You can't possibly believe that's not the whole point of their existence in this country. It's the only reason Trump has the support that he does. That clown was nothing but a sounding board for the white racists in this country.

He tapped into their resentment at the prospects of actually having to *compete* or to see former injustice be addressed.

And no one is saying 2021 is as bad as 1921. The issue is people dismissing that 1921 is why 2021 still has issues. We're talking about an unjust racial infrastructure built over hundreds of years. We have to address the past to change the future for the better.

Bullies hate being ignored.

That’s why *someone* here is incensed that Ellie Kemper hasn’t addressed this SCANDAL.

R126, I hope you're not talking about me since I'm only addressing a particularly mindset - that of R119's. I actually don't even know who she is and couldn't care less if she says anything or not, but the fact that R119 got several likes for a post like that (and no doubt more coming just to "own" me), says everything about how myopic so many DLer are.

[quote] More witch hunting while using Soviet-style terms like "whataboutism"

That's not a Soviet-style term at all! That was a term that was used by CRITICS of the Soviets to criticize THEM before 1989, because if anyone would ever criticize their living conditions or their human rights abuses, they would always respond, "What about the history of slavery in the US? What about Jim Crow laws in the US? What about this, what about that?"

Here's from the wikipedia entry on whatboutism:

[quote] According to Russian writer, chess grandmaster and political activist Garry Kasparov, "whataboutism" is a word that was coined to describe the frequent use of a rhetorical diversion by Soviet apologists and dictators, who would counter charges of their oppression, "massacres, gulags, and forced deportations" by invoking American slavery, racism, lynchings, etc.Whataboutism has been used by other politicians and countries as well.

You're giving the term the exact [italic]opposite[/italic] of its actual history and origins.

I’m more concerned with how old she looks for being born in 1980. Yikes!

This is from that Wikipedia entry you just linked:

[quote]Whataboutism is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.

This sentence is right after "Whataboutism has been used by other politicians and countries as well" in that quote you just posted.

Are you always this dishonest and in bad faith when you have discussions with people online or are you just really stupid? Both?

R129 She looks like has sun damaged skin. She probably didn't use sunscreen as a teen or 20 something.

[quote] Whataboutism is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda.

Which means it's a term used to [italic]characterize[/italic] Soviet and Russian propaganda. It's the Soviets and Russians who always have said "But what about X? What about Y?"

I love this idea that Russian intelligence agents would for some unfathomable reason be interested in spreading disinformation in order to protect the reputation of an American sitcom comic actress!

She's a ginger. Difficult skin tone.

This whole thing is why Twitter is stupid.

Is the St. Louis Veiled Prophet ball/parade elitist, racist (maybe not so much now because they allow African-Americans and Jews), and outdated? YES, ABSOLUTELY. Is Ellie Kemper some sort of KKK Queen because she did some debutant ball thing when she was a teenager? NO

There is nuance and context to every situation. Knee jerk losers on Twitter (and the bots that amplify and spread this crap) don't seem to get that.

[quote] Catholic elites

I can’t believe that still makes me giggle, R23, even with a Catholic president in office and the Catholics on the Supreme Court.

If certain people in our culture spent half as much time working on improving their position in life as they do investigating the teenaged activities of others, they’d all be billionaires by now, for fuck’s sake

Looks like some stupid debutante thing her parents made her do to impress their friends.

I don't get it.

She won't discuss her uncle Edmund and all teh shit he pulled either.

[quote]If certain people in our culture spent half as much time working on improving their position in life as they do investigating the teenaged activities of others, they’d all be billionaires by now, for fuck’s sake

But at least it's Twitter nonsense. It's not like they were white failures in our "culture" who couldn't accept a democratic outcome so they've come up with conspiracies about pedorings and "their" country and "culture" being stolen, so they literally went to try and kill people over it. And for who? An absolute lowlife.

But yeah, verbal sniping is clearly much worse.

WHO is keeping this dead thread alive??

Do you know what a "dead thread" is?

It would be a thread that was suddenly resurrected after years or months, not one that is being posted on every day since it was started. Posting on a thread after hours, doesn't constitute posting on a "dead thread"

Point is R142 that if only one or two people reply in an entire DAY, the thread is in its death throes. Is that better? How about death rattle?

[quote] I don't get it.

Oh, well!

R122, the "white race" did not murder blacks in Tulsa. That's an excellent of example of the problem I have with the rhetoric from the Left. It uses a completely racist framework to discuss history and assigns blame for the actions of individuals to a race as a whole. It's just a mirror of the right wings blaming All Blacks for the crimes committed by a small percentage of them.

You judge and classify people by the color of their skin and insist others do the same. Your knowledge of history is poor--inequality, discrimination, scapegoating, slavery--none of these things are unique to America. Or Europe. There are still open slave markets in Libya as well as de facto slavery in countries like Dubait and the Phillipines. The indigenous peoples of the New World had slaves well before Columbus arrived.

Only a small portion of the slave trade went to the American colonies, by the way, around 5 percent, the lion's share went to Brazil. And the biggest profiteers from the slave trade were Africans. The Kingdom of Mali was, at one point, the richest country in the world, but there's not a ton of talk about this successful sub-Saharan society because its wealth was based on, yes, you guessed it, the slave trade.

History isn't simple and there's a great deal of moral ambiguity. Tulsa was awful as was much of the Jim Crow era, but holding all white people guilty for it is problematic. It ignores the importance of personal responsibility and passes a moral judgment on people based on the levels of melanin in their skin.

And if that's not what you mean to say, then take a good, hard look at the words you use and how you use them.

R145, spare me. No one is blaming the entire white race for Tulsa. No one has come and taken the white race's property over Tulsa. Don't act like anything is being taken from the white race except their belief that they should be prioritized in this country - and that's precisely why they stormed the god damned Capitol on behalf of a complete imbecile whose only qualification was his white supremacist horseshit.

And pointing to the history of slavery is such a ridiculous way to essentially absolve white people of what was done throughout the history of America. Are you even aware of the treatment of black servicemen and the GI bill vs their white counterparts? Men who served this country being treated like shit when they wanted to actually build a life for themselves.

Pointing to Mali or giving a little history lesson on "How the N*ggers were way worse on Slavery" is a ridiculous way to lessen what was done HERE over the course of hundreds of years.

R146, if that's what you think then why are you using terms that do, indeed, group all pale-skinned people in one clump and ascribe group responses and actions to them?

You think about people in the same way racists do. Even when I point it out to you, you fall right back into the same trap. You're that conditioned.

Race is a term that roughly divides people by their hereditary adaptations to environment.

Ellie Kemper on Debutante Ball With “Racist, Sexist” Past: “Ignorance is No Excuse”:

And requisite groveling done. Woke mobs can now go find some other celeb to attack for their dopamine fix. They really are outrage addicts.

This brouhaha may be peak meaningless.

[quote] And requisite groveling done. Woke mobs can now go find some other celeb to attack

Maybe, maybe not. Frequently the goveling apology is rejected as insufficient or insincere. Apologies to these people is like throwing blood in the water to sharks.

Ellie Kemper donated exclusively to Democratic politicians.

The Temptations performed at the now-infamous party.

So what does this mean for her entire St Louis family? Do they all pull out?

R150, I don't disagree. I think she should have ignored it, but everyone is jumpy in Hollywood. I preferred the old days when stars groveled for drunkenly yelling at cops. You know, stuff they actually did.

Eh, It's not the first time the pic has come up, but it is the loudest. Better to say it once and let it die.

why does she look so rough in the pic at R148? lol

Why did this explode in the MSM and not David O. Russell getting dragged for getting a free pass for his garbage?

R156 White women are seen as easier targets than white men. This, the nonstop Karen stories, while there's no equivalent surge of Chad stories.

This was 20 years ago. She was 19 years old. Do these cockroaches have nothing better to do? She did nothing wrong. Unfortunately, she caved in and bowed to the woke mob. You could tell her apology was written by a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant. The apology had all the woke sayings: white privilege, class system that discriminates, etc.

Now she needs to apologize publicly to me for being thin at times when I struggled every day with my body image! Until then she cannot be forgiven!

[quote]Unfortunately, she caved in and bowed to the woke mob.

Because she likes money. She likes working. She wanted to say something once and be done with it which she should have done years ago. It bugged her enough and it was loud enough that she couldn't ignore it.

She covered the main points: yes she knows they have a racist past now, she is not racist, she is against it, she didn't know when she was 19 but she should have done the research, and had she known she wouldn't have been involved.

The rest of it was a bit much but it's hard to argue with anything she said and that's what her PR and her speechwriter get paid for.

[quote]This, the nonstop Karen stories, while there's no equivalent surge of Chad stories.

Or a simpler explanation could be that there are more straight white women who are Karens than there are Chads.

I don't consider David O. Russell to be a Chad. Karens aren't in charge. They try to manipulate authority. He's just a scatterbrained asshole in general even when he's the one in charge.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was canceled because she started looking too fucking old to be believable as the character.

In 1979, the roof of Kemper Arena in Kansas City—the sports stadium named for Ellie Kemper's family—collapsed during a storm.

Luckily, the arena was vacant that night. If it had been full, there would have been massive casualties.

[quote]In 1979, the roof of Kemper Arena in Kansas City—the sports stadium named for Ellie Kemper's family—collapsed during a storm.

[quote]Luckily, the arena was vacant that night. If it had been full, there would have been massive casualties.

Also in 1979: Ellie Kemper was conceived. Coincidence??

R160 Given the gender gap when it comes to Trump voters, no that's not simple. White men are Trump's base, were the majority of 6,/1 rioters and benefit the most from the old white patriarchal order.

The apology was another round in pointless public shaming. She did nothing wrong and, this, should have under no pressure to apologize, let alone parrot that crap that reminds me of the apologies people used to have to make in the old Soviet Union.

Your misogyny is obvious here in the way you bitch about Karen's while giving the notoriously abusive Russell a pass.

[quote] White men are Trump's base, were the majority of 6,/1 rioters and benefit the most from the old white patriarchal order.

And white women voted en masse for Trump? What's your point? Also the idea of "Karens" existed long before Trump became President. Why you're just noticing this now, I don't know.

[quote]She did nothing wrong and, this, should have under no pressure to apologize.

And yet she was because the majority of people who might hire her don't agree with you and they are the ones who are more important to her existence than YOU. It's okay to admit that she didn't know and that she should have done more research because people in general don't want to be affiliated with anything thought of as possibly racist even if they weren't at the time they were dealing with them.

Also jumping to, "That sounds like something Hitler might say" this early in the non-argument? Silly. Stupid. So 2001 Internet.

[quote]Your misogyny is obvious here in the way you bitch about Karen's while giving the notoriously abusive Russell a pass.

Reading comprehension, dear.

Karens and Chads have a clear definition.

I said he is a scatterbrained asshole and it's worse because he's in charge of people and you responded with, "You're giving him a pass!"

Please make some sense, girl! You're just reaching for random arguments! It's so weird!

Comrade Kemper has now successfully completed her struggle session, and she has finally admitted her full complicity as a racist and capitalist running dog! Now she can undergo full rehabilitation and serve the will of Chairman Mao and the Revolution!

HONOR THE ETERNAL GLORY OF THE PEOPLE! ALL HAIL THE RED GUARD!

The best I can tell there was no recent David O. Russell thing. When everything about Russell blew up, it was back when people with some power and influence generally got away with being monsters. Some Taylor Swift fans have asked her to not work with him recently and I see some film websites have written about it, but no one seems to have really paid attention.

I can't tell you why people don't remember that he groped his 19-year-old niece and admitted to it, saying it was fine because she came on to him. If it comes back up in any meaningful way it'll kill his career, but who knows what catches the public's attention and what doesn't.

R145/R147 is correct. The left no longer rejects the group condemnation used by bigots on the right. It is just like the right, only condemning different groups.

Actress Ellie Kemper In Hot Water Again After Photos Emerge Of Her Using Aunt Jemima Syrup

r168, the incident was way weirder than that - his 'niece' was his nephew who had "transitioned" - I saw a director's roundtable O Russell was a part of and every time he appeared onscreen I was thinking, how is this not getting brought up?!

Obviously the only answer is total elimination of all institutions which have even a remote connection to racism even if they have attempted to reform themselves since 1960s and 1970s. Burn it all down and start over from Year One. Any families associated with such institutions should be, at the most merciful, sent to re-education camps in the countryside, and in most cases, simply eliminated.

Signed Pol Pot

[quote] Obviously the only answer is total elimination of all institutions which have even a remote connection to racism

The Guardian agrees, opening with an attack on Apple Pie.

Apples were first domesticated in central Asia, making the journey along the Silk Road to the Mediterranean four thousand years ago. Apples traveled to the western hemisphere with Spanish colonists in the 1500s in what used to be called the Columbian Exchange, but is now better understood as a vast and ongoing genocide of Indigenous people.

At this point Kemper should either just crawl over broken glass or troll everyone and start appearing on social media in Al Jolson styled blackface.

Couldn't be any worse than what her uncle Edmund ever did.

Stephen Colbert always fawns over Ellie Kemper.