‘Pirates of the Carribean’ and ‘Shrek’ Screenwriter Terry Rossio Claims Calling Him an ‘Anti-Vaxxer’ Is the Same as the N-Word, Then Almost Apologizes

Hey, remember when Disney immediately fired James Gunn from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 because he made some off-color jokes ten years before they hired him, and then doubled down because they wanted to defend their image as a family brand? It turns out that what doesn’t get you instantly fired by Disney is saying that using the word “anti-vaxxer” to describe someone who thinks vaccines cause autism (they don’t) is the same as calling someone the n-word.

Terry Rossio said literally this, and though he deleted the tweet, people had the foresight to take screencaps of it.

Terry Rossio has always been an a total garbage fire of a human, but hoooooooly shiiiiiiiiiit wtf. pic.twitter.com/YinHGxouGa

— Brian Scully (@brianscully) November 23, 2018

Rossio also apologized for the tweet. Kind of.

(3 parts)
In a recent Twitter post, arguing against stereotyping and hate
speech, I referenced the 'n-word' (the actual word) as an example of what
not to do.

That was a mistake. I am sorry.

I now understand that the word has no place in any conversation, ever.

— Terry Rossio (@TerryRossio) November 25, 2018

You can't make a point against hate speech and reference actual words of hate speech. That was insensitive and ignorant.

I am immediately deleting the post to remove that toxic word from the
internet, where it should never appear in any context.

— Terry Rossio (@TerryRossio) November 25, 2018

As the mistake was mine alone, this apology is also mine alone. A deeply
felt apology to all.

I continue to stand against hate speech and dehuhmanizing lables in
any form.

— Terry Rossio (@TerryRossio) November 25, 2018

See, what Rossio thinks he did wrong was using the n-word. Which is not great. But what he actually did wrong was compare hundreds of years of oppression of black people to being the kind of idiot who shoves jade eggs in their vagina and thinks vaccines cause autism. They don’t. I can’t stress this enough. Before you go into the comment section and write a Unabomber manifesto about how polio is good, actually, understand that you are wrong and science is, in fact, right.

Now, I don’t want to see people get fired for saying dumb things on the internet. Ideally, we should be able to express our beliefs, no matter how stupid, without worrying about losing our jobs. But what should happen and what does happen are two very different things, and it’s very telling Disney considers offensive jokes a fireable offense but is seemingly fine with people saying the n-word.