In case you’ve been living under a rock and missed the giant pile the ladies of The View stepped in, I’ll give you a short recap.
Miss Colorado, Kelley Johnson, performed an original monologue chronicling her job as a nurse at the Miss USA pageant. She stood onstage wearing her scrubs and stethoscope. It was moving and touching, different and out of the box for a beauty pageant. Even if you didn’t like it or didn’t think it was a “talent,” she was unique and worthy of respect.
The panel on The View decided not only to criticize and belittle Johnson, but all nurses. Michelle Collins said, “She came out in a nurse’s uniform and basically read her emails out loud… it was hilarious.”
It was pretty offensive and sparked a backlash. Now they are trying — and failing — to apologize. On Wednesday morning, Collins addressed the criticism, saying, “I want to say, we love nurses. If you’re watching, we adore you, respect you. Clap for nurses.” It wasn’t patronizing at all [read: sarcasm].
Collins tried to explain that her words were “misconstrued.”
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Joy Behar, who wondered aloud why Miss Colorado was wearing a “doctor’s stethoscope” said, “I was just not paying attention. I was looking at a Miss America tape and there’s a woman wearing an outfit with a stethoscope, and I’m thinking, ‘Is she in a costume?’ I didn’t know she was a nurse. It’s not like I was trying to be funny. It was just stupid and inattentive. I didn’t know what the hell I was thinking about.”
Of all the ladies, Behar gets the closest to an apology. Which is a lot better than what fellow cohosts Whoopi Goldberg and Raven-Symoné had to say. Both basically blamed nurses and the audience for “not listening” or not understanding what was said.
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Hey, ladies, side note: It’s probably not a good idea to double down and call the people you just offended stupid on top of it.
And the Internet is not letting the panelists off the hook for their would-be apology, either. #NursesUnite is still trending and quickly growing legs.
.@michcoll, @joyvbehar, @ravensymone, @whoopigoldberg,& @theview that wasn't an apology. Keep digging. #nursesunitepic.twitter.com/K80sHaJVXx
— Carissa M. – 👩🏻⚕️ (@cdm7rn) September 16, 2015
Blerg. What a terrible "apology" – I feel like Whoopi just scolded me for not listening. Too bad I was. Intently. #NursesUnite
— FreshRN (@Kati_Kleber) September 16, 2015
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There are 10 nurses for every three physicians in the U.S., so if something (heaven forbid) should happen to one of you, guess who will most likely be pulling out his or her stethoscope to check you out: a nurse. And as the sister of a nurse practitioner, I can tell you firsthand they are still pissed about the hurtful things that were said; it’s not just keyboard quarterbacks jumping on a hashtag bandwagon.
This is one hornets’ nest that is not even close to calming down after being poked. It will be interesting to see if The View addresses #NursesUnite as it turns into a fully fledged movement online.
Fun fact: Doctors don’t usually have a stethoscope with them… they tend to borrow the nurse’s.
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