Hillary Clinton has found herself in hot water, after making a joke that was interpreted by some as racist. But this isn’t the first time that her turn of phrase has ended in scandal for the ex-presidential hopeful.
While speaking at a conference over the weekend, Clinton corrected her interviewer – who had confused Senator Cory Booker and former Attorney General Eric Holder – with a side-splitting “I know they all look alike.”
The joke was met with both gasps and laughter from the audience, with Clinton herself apparently much amused by her racially-tinged jest.
While the media has remained curiously silent about the questionable quip, social media responses have highlighted a troubling double-standard.
Still, others insisted that Clinton had simply made a sarcastic comment about a stereotype – a joke meant to belittle, not make light of, racial prejudice.
Whatever her intentions, the former presidential candidate has a long history of launching into jokes that fall flat.
It’s never ‘CP time’
It’s April 2016, and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has just had a rather unfortunate run-in with Black Lives Matter activists. So to show her solidarity with People of Color, Clinton's staff suggested staging a poorly-conceived skit making light of a racial stereotype.
You read that right: for whatever reason, Clinton performed in a skit with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, in which Hizzoner explained that he was behind schedule because he was “running on CP time” – short for the slang term “colored people time.”
Clinton responded: "Cautious politician time – I've been there."
The joke was not well received, with media outlets skewering her for the senseless remarks. The resulting scandal was particularly embarrassing because the “skit” had been entirely scripted beforehand – meaning that the bizarre exchange could not be dismissed as a regretful, spur-of-the-moment gaffe.
Racial undertones aside, the joke doesn’t even make sense: If you were a cautious politician, why would you be late to a meeting with Hillary Clinton?
Hillary Clinton knows how to wipe
Caught up in her private server scandal, in 2015 Clinton tried to shrug off the grisly details of the affair with a harmless joke.
When a reporter asked her bluntly if she had tried to “wipe” her private server, Clinton replied: “What, like with a cloth or something? … I don’t know how it works digitally at all.”
Her nonchalant response quickly reached meme-like notoriety, later spawning a file deletion software named in her honor: “Cloth or Something.” Apparently, it’s extremely effective.
Clinton’s email-deleting “cloth” is still widely discussed and mocked on social media, with Twitter users repeatedly citing the remarks as proof of her seediness.
A bad joke that briefly made Hillary Clinton self-aware
On one notable occasion, Hillary’s desire to appear jovial and fun to be around was so disastrous that she even felt the need to apologize.
During a fundraiser in 2004, Clinton joked that Mahatma Gandhi used to run a gas station. While many Indian immigrants in the US run convenience stores, their portrayal has been under fire as a crude racial stereotype.
Clinton, who was then a New York senator, later told the Associated Press that she deeply admired “the work and life of Mahatma Gandhi.”
''I truly regret if a lame attempt at humor suggested otherwise,” she added.
Hillary Clinton finally gets to be president
In a joke that is perhaps more heart-breaking than bad, the almost-first female president of the United States said last year that maybe she would dress up as “the president” for Halloween.
“What are you going to be for Halloween?” Clinton was asked during a promotional event for her book ‘What Happened.’
After unleashing her signature cackle, Clinton responded: “I think maybe I’ll come as the president.”
It’s not clear whether she meant as the real president – Donald Trump – or as the president of a fairy tale world where Clinton decided it would be a good idea to campaign in Wisconsin.
Social media tore the joke apart, noting that donning a Halloween costume is “the only way” Clinton would ever be president.
“Halloween is suppose[d] to be frightening. What could be more frighten than Hillary as president?” another Twitter user asked sarcastically.
Even Trump’s son got in on the roasting:
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