‘Southern Charm’ Star Apologizes After Sending Monkey Emoji to Black Radio Host

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“Southern Charm” star Kathryn Dennis has issued an apology after she sent a monkey emoji to Tamika Gadsden, a black radio host in South Carolina.

Sunday on Twitter, Gadsden called out Katie Shields – the owner of Mylk Bar, a nail salon in Mount Pleasant – for organizing a Donald Trump event urging attendees to wear “Keep America Great” merchandise.

“In Charleston you learn, fairly quickly, that the face of White Supremacy resembles that of the boutique-owning, gatekeeping glitterati,” Gadsden wrote on her page.

Gadsden then had a heated Instagram exchange with Dennis, who follows Shields’s nail salon on Instagram. During their argument, Dennis types the monkey emoji after telling Gadsden to “grow a pair.”

“This is what happens when a Black woman in #Charleston speaks up against white supremacy in the form of MAGA rallies. My comments re: Mylk Bar prompted this @BravoTV ‘actor’ @KathrynDennis to taunt me with monkey emojis in my DMs. Along with a whole host of other names,” Gadsden wrote alongside screenshots of their conversation.

Additionally, after Gadsden wrote an IG Story asking “white people” to “challenge the explicit and subtle white supremacy you see everyday” by supporting businesses owned by people of color, Dennis said Gadsden’s use of “white people” was “so racist.”

On Monday, Dennis issued an apology, saying her use of the monkey emoji against Gadsden “was offensive.”

“Although the context was not my intention, there are no ‘if ands or buts’ that excuse me,” Dennis wrote on Twitter. “I did not give it thought, and it was and is wrong.”

However, Gadsden refuses to accept Dennis’s mea culpa.

On Tuesday, Gadsden further explained that the issue is not about the emoji, but about “challenging ‘powerful’ white women who uphold white supremacy.”

According to a study about “negative racial stereotypes” from Ferris State University, African Americans have been wrongly compared to animals throughout history in order to denigrate them as “savage” and a “perceived threat.”