https://www.facebook.com/mccluretwins/videos/vb.269750119779936/2164697867100442/?type=2&theater
The parents of Youtube’s famous McClure Twins are speaking out after several racist and stereotypical tweets penned by father Justin McClure surfaced on social media last week, sparking outrage.
In a video posted to Facebook on Friday, the interracial couple and their daughters sat down to address what was said and how they plan to move forward as a family.
“A public platform sometimes calls for a public address,” the McClures wrote. “The cutesy McClure’s aren’t perfect — never claimed to be. This week has caused a stir, not just for social media, but internally in our home. Watch and you’ll understand … the truth should come from the source, even if it is a hard truth to swallow.”
McClure, who is white, shares bi-racial twin girls with his Nigerian wife, Ami Dunn McClure, and together, the couple made a name for themselves by posting cute, whimsical videos of their daughters, Ava and Alexis, on YouTube. It wasn’t long before the twins shot to stardom, becoming an Internet sensation.
Things turned sour, however, when McClure was forced to explain himself after a series of derogatory tweets about Black and Latina women surfaced online. One post described Black women as “ghetto” and suggested small talk about “FUBU and piñatas” was all it took to attract them.
They're deleted, but I saw these online pic.twitter.com/i43r4Ge47Z
— you (@MissZindzi) July 8, 2018
Despite time stamps on the incriminating tweets, Ami Dunn McClure insisted she didn’t know her husband at the time, claiming they didn’t get together until 2014. Their twin daughters were born in 2013, however.
“…I was just as surprised and shocked by those tweets from previous days as [the public] was,” she says in the video, explaining the tweets were some of her husband’s old comedy jokes. “This is my first time seeing them as well … I did not know that man. The man that I met and married is the Justin I know today.”
Addressing her husband, Ami Dunn McClure emphasized that the offensive statements were the type often spewed by raving racists.
“I know I’m not a racist,” Justin McClure replied. “But I look at the things I said, and would a racist person say those things? They would … if I what I say is so offensive to someone else and it’s racist to them, then it’s racist.”
McClure, a former comedian, acknowledged his racially insensitive tweets and apologized for them. His wife insisted he was a changed man and chided the public for not accepting that people can change. In an attempt to downplay her husband’s transgressions, Ami Dunn revealed her own past bias against white people.
“I don’t know if you can call it racist … but I didn’t like white people,” she said. “Anybody who knows me knows that I did not like white people. And I had to sit to myself and say ‘why?'”
Watch more in the video above.
