The Good Place's Manny Jacinto and William Jackson Harper respond to Megan Amram's apology for her past offensive tweets

Bleeding Cool

Amram's tweets from the early 2000s contained racist jokes about Asian-Americans, Jewish people, and individuals with disabilities, for which the Emmy-nominated TV writer apologized Wednesday night. On Friday, Jacinto responded on Twitter, saying that while her jokes "are definitely inexcusable," "my personal relationship with Megan has always been loving, kind, and supportive. I have never felt any racial tension from her." He also pointed out that "the character of Jason Mendoza was created because we wanted to showcase an Asian character that drifted away from the model minority myth, I took immense pleasure in making him a big hearted dummy." Harper tweeted shortly after Jacinto, saying he's "been wrestling for a while with how to respond to Megan Amram’s tweets. And I effed up. Those tweets shocked the hell out of me. I wanted to give her a chance to respond and apologize, but as I waited I realized that silence was complicity, whether I meant for it to be or not. We can’t tolerate those sorts of things being said about our Asian brothers and sisters, and in this moment, it’s my duty to be actively anti-racist, and I didn’t do that. So to those hurt by my silence, I apologize. That wasn’t cool. No excuses. And to y’all hitting me with what I missed in the above apology. You’re right. Ableism is unacceptable. Anti-Semitism is unacceptable. In short, We gotta stop being a**holes. That includes me."