If you’re not keeping up with the World Cup, you may have missed last night’s match between the U.S. and Ghana. In what could be described as a jaw-clenching match, the U.S. team avenged its 2006 and 2010 losses to Ghana, and pulled out a 2-1 victory over Ghana’s Black Stars.
During the game, and after the win, social media was on fire with praises for the U.S. team, and understandably so. But there were two accounts in particular that garnered raised brows and head shakes.
Talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres tweeted her way through the match, but either showed her ignorance about Ghana or her lack of comedic timing when she tweeted the following:
Of course people were quick to call DeGeneres out:
https://twitter.com/GuvnaB/status/478673154110672896https://twitter.com/SincerelyOghosa/status/478698019219845120https://twitter.com/MyxQuest/status/478686119035666432https://twitter.com/NuNuWako/status/478668701089415169https://twitter.com/Aramkianiz/status/478668762699563008
Although DeGeneres did not apologize, the tweet is nowhere to be found and seems to have been deleted from her account.
DeGeneres wasn’t the only person to tweet something absurd about Ghana. Delta Air Lines joined in on the-lack-of-knowledge-about-African-countries tweets. The Delta Twitter account tweeted out a congratulatory photo after the U.S. team won their match, but it’s the generalization Delta made about Ghana that caught everyone’s attention:
Sure, several African countries have wildlife, including giraffes; Ghana just isn’t one of them. As one local tourist company in Ghana pointed out, “There are no giraffes or zebras or leopards living anywhere in Ghana. Lions exist here, but you would never see one. However this lack of predators makes for a unique experience because you can safari on foot in Ghana!”
Unlike DeGeneres, Delta did offer apologies after it realized the tweet offended some:
So there you have it, folks, a talk show host doesn’t know where Ghana is located on a map, and Delta Air Lines thinks giraffes are everywhere in African countries. Way to go, ‘Murrica!
Yesha Callahan is editor of The Grapevine and a staff writer at The Root. Follow her on Twitter.
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