Mom From The Blind Side Profiles Black Kids In Her Store, Takes To Facebook To Pat Herself On The Back For It

Remember the movie The Blind Side? Sandra Bullock plays a white mother who “rescues” a homeless black teen from a life of poverty and desperation. He’s literally sitting at a bus stop in the rain when Bullock’s character rides up ~~on her big white horse~~ in her Range Rover and summons him into her car, thus starting a relationship that culminates with her adopting the kid and turning him into a football star.

Bullock won an Oscar for her portrayal of the mother the movie was based on, Leigh Ann Tuohy. Tuohy posted this photo to her Facebook page this week:

With this caption:

We see what we want! It’s the gospel truth! These two were literally huddled over in a corner table nose to nose and the person with me said “I bet they are up to no good” well you know me… I walked over, told them to scoot over. After 10 seconds of dead silence I said so whats happening at this table? I get nothing.. I then explained it was my store and they should spill it… They showed me their phones and they were texting friends trying to scrape up $3.00 each for the high school basketball game! Well they left with smiles, money for popcorn and bus fare. We gave to STOP judging people and assuming and pigeon holing people! Don’t judge a book by its cover or however you’d like to express the sentiment! Accept others and stoping seeing what you want to see!!!#LeighAnnesSundaySermon #BelieveInOthers

Okay, so let’s recap. Her racist friend looks at two black kids and assumes because of the color of their skin, they must be “up to no good.” Tuohy goes up to them, invades their space, sits next to them, and accuses them of having something to confess to. They were simply texting their friends, as teenagers do. She then looks at their phones. Huh?

So she profiles these kids, pats herself on the back for giving them a little money, and then tells us all that we shouldn’t “judge a book by its cover.” What in the actual fuck? Anne Theriault breaks down how problematic Tuohy’s choice of words are on her blog, The Belle Jar:

Also, can we talk about how problematic using the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover” is when it comes to talking about race? First of all, it begins with the assumption that the “cover” (or in this case, skin) tells you something unappealing about the contents of the book or person. It also infers that there is something unattractive or bad about the “cover” (or, again, skin). I can’t believe that I have to say this, but: there is nothing wrong or bad about Black skin. Black skin is not unpleasant or ugly, and to imply that dark skin might devalue someone is really, really fucked up.

The grossest part about this whole interaction is that Tuohy posted it to her Facebook page and it got almost 215,000 likes and 20,000 shares. Then she posted it to her Instagram page for a few more thousand likes.

The internet is an amazing place. It seems one of the kids found her Instagram page and left a couple comments on the photo that have been deleted. Here they are – thanks to Tinypic: