MONDO EXTRAS

Okay, I'm going to get this all off my chest about "pot" and "kettle" and "n-word" and all that rot, and then I am never talking about it again. In the clip that was shown on TV, Assorama insults Ereka, and Ereka says, "That is like calling the kettle black." And Assorama says, in the exact calm tone of voice people use when they're trying to condescend to you just to get under your skin, "See, there you go with your racist terms. What was that you said about black people? Try to contain your prejudice, okay?" Now, when this aired, the reaction of most people I talked to was that Assorama was either (1) totally overreacting, because even if you think "pot/kettle" has the tinge of unfortunate etymology, you can hardly ring up anyone who uses it as a racist; or (2) an obnoxious ass who was just trying to start something and one-up whomever she was arguing with, which I personally feel is more likely. I don't think she ever thought it was genuinely racist. I think she was trying to upset and irritate Ereka, because Ereka is a fun (and not very bright) target who lacks the sense to just ignore people who are trying to upset and irritate her.

Anyway, as you probably know, no sooner was Assorama off the show than she started telling everyone who would listen that "the person" with whom she had the pot/kettle discussion had previously called her a nasty racial slur, which she later revealed was the famous "n-word." After NBC and Mark Burnett and Trump all came out and said they had absolutely no evidence that this had ever occurred (not to mention Ereka vehemently denying that she ever did or ever would say such a thing), Assorama implied repeatedly that it had happened off-camera, and this was why they were unaware of it. However, when confronted with the fact that this still didn't really explain her reaction to the pot/kettle remark, Assorama revealed -- several times, but most recently in the People magazine I was reading at the doctor's office the other day -- that in fact she had never reacted to pot/kettle at all. She stated that she's an educated woman, knows what that expression (pot/kettle) means, and never would have reacted to it the way it appears that she did. She claimed that her reaction that you saw on TV -- her "there you go with your racist terms, try to contain your prejudice" thing, apparently -- was a response to the "n-word" being tossed at her, not to pot/kettle, which she is smart enough to know is not a slur.