I imagine that, if you’ve never heard of Wendy Bell, you find her anointment as America’s Worst White Woman to be suspicious.
“Who is this mystery woman,” I picture you asking, “who somehow beat Ann Coulter, Abigail Fisher, and Toejam Lobotomy to be America’s worst white woman? How is she the LeBron of Karens?”
Well, years ago, when Wendy Bell was still an anchorwoman at WTAE-TV (Pittsburgh’s ABC affiliate), six people were killed in a horrific mass shooting in a predominately black Pittsburgh suburb. A week after the shooting, Bell went to her Facebook fan page and published what historians now refer to as the “Moby Dick of White Privilege.” (By “historians” I mean “I.”)
She began with some “thoughts” on how she hadn’t been able to walk or talk since the shooting, continued by effectively calling the mothers of the suspected shooters “broke black hoes,” described the shooting with Pulitzer-level black poverty porn imagery, and then ended with a pitch-perfect screed on how a recent family night at the Cheesecake Factory with a smiling and skipping black server gave her hope for us. (If you think I’m making this up, please—I beg of you—read what she wrote. And even if you don’t think I’m making this up, read it for your own entertainment.)
Bell was eventually fired from WTAE. She subsequently sued them for racial discrimination, and the case was settled.
I thought this would be the last of Wendy Bell; that maybe the only time I’d see or hear from her going forward would be in line at PetSmart. But Wendy Bell is the Jason Voorhees of white women: Just when you think she’s finally gone, she’s behind you with a podcast. She was hired in late 2018 by KDKA Radio, where she’s had carte blanche to be as Wendy as she can be.
This brings us to Sunday, where during a Facebook Live segment of her show, she admitted that she kinda, sorta wants to kill your grandparents for freedom. (Seriously, you need to watch this. Please, please, please, please, please, please watch this.)
Even for her, this is...a lot. The whiteboard, the gestures, the eyes, the sweater—this is Peak Wendy. And this is the same woman who said “He moved like a dancer with a satisfied smile on his face. And I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He’s going to Make It” in reference to a teenager at a restaurant who happened to be serving while black.
Social distancing has made me realize how much I took for granted, and how much of that I truly miss. The thought of shopping at Giant Eagle, for instance, induces nostalgia. And today, after seeing Wendy back in the news, I realized how much I’ve truly missed her unique brand of dangerous, triflin’, batshit crazy. Welcome back, old friend.