RHOD OPINION: Kameron Westcott’s reunion behavior was reprehensible

After a season of racist microaggressions, bullying, and gaslighting, the Real Housewives of Dallas reunion was an atrocious, dark trainwreck. And no one did anything to stop it. Having to sit through two full hours of Kameron Westcott antagonizing, belittling, speaking over, and gaslighting Tiffany Moon during the RHOD Season 5 reunion was hard to stomach.

And to make matters worse, not one other woman on the cast did anything to stop it, nor did host Andy Cohen. Interestingly, Andy had no problem taking Kenya Moore to task on her Native American costume, yet he did nothing to stop Kam’s targeted attacks at the reunion.

I don’t think Andy is equipped to handle these nuanced conversations, but he does have the capability to press people on difficult topics. He just chose not to in this case, which is quite telling.

Kameron Westcott doubled down on social media after the RHOD Season 5 reunion.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Kameron was still trying to manipulate and harass Tiffany on social media, she appeared to get her family members involved. An account claiming to be Court Westcott said, “‘anti-racism’ is racism” in response to one of Tiffany’s tweets, whatever that means.

Recording artist and author Simon Curtis has been tracking a lot of the drama on his Twitter feed, including some ugly comments allegedly from Kam’s brother-in-law Chart Westcott.

Kameron even asked Tiffany if a clown emoji she used was an example of “white face,” which I’m pretty sure isn’t a thing? (A tweet she has since deleted, funnily enough, after all her claims at the RHOD Season 5 reunion that “Twitter doesn’t lie, etc.”

I’ve also referred back to this piece by the Dallas Observer a few times lately, but they did an eloquent job of laying out the many problems with RHOD Season 5.  They mentioned the second episode when Moon invited the ladies over for Dim Sum, and the whole “chicken foot” debacle started. The main problem wasn’t that Kam didn’t want to eat chicken feet; it was that she couldn’t be bothered to be more courteous about a meal that is a part of Chinese culture.

"“That’s stereotyping your whole country right now,” Westcott, who is white and from California, told Moon. “Do you realize that?”Redmond laughed during a confessional about how stupid it is for two women to argue over chicken feet. But the argument isn’t stupid. Instead, it perfectly summed up this season of RHOD. A white woman explained to a woman of color what the woman of color’s culture was about."

When Tiffany throws another party later with some general ground rules (none of which were even abnormal), all the women complained that her party was terrible.

And when Tiffany took the ladies on a tour of her home and talked about her Toto toilet and designer handbags, Stephanie went into a confessional. She said, “Personally, I would never bring people into my closet and brag about all my stuff and try to show off.”

Kam also called it “tacky” during Watch What Happens Live.

Um, excuse me, this is the same Kam who has boasted about her $7 million dream mansion all season? I have to laugh.

As for Stephanie, she did the same thing Tiffany did on a home tour back in Season 3. I guess it’s okay when she does it, though? (Yes, she mentions the Toto toilets!).

Then there is the whole problem with Brandi, who victimized herself all season and dumped all of her guilt onto Tiffany as if it’s Tiffany’s fault Brandi made a racist video and was held accountable.

On that, the Dallas Observer writes:

"There were also several direct conversations about race. From the beginning, Moon’s entry to the show felt like a setup for Redmond to address her viral video, where Redmond mocked Asians and their eyes. Even after Moon accepted Redmond’s apology for the video, Redmond still confronted Moon later to say she felt like she couldn’t be herself around her."

Bravo needs to do better

The biggest problem here is that Bravo seems to think hiring one non-white housewife in each franchise is an instant fix for a decades-long problem. I can’t speak on Tiffany’s experience, but I imagine being the only Asian woman in a cast that has already had issues with racism in the past was disarming. And it’s a trend in other franchises, like Eboni joining RHONY, Crystal and Garcelle in RHOBH, etc.

It puts the onus on the newcomers to be a diversity spokesperson, making them take on the responsibility of “educating” their castmates, and it’s not their job or responsibility to do that!

The RHOD Season 5 reunion was a mess from beginning to end. Still, ironically, in the final moments of the episode, all of the women seemed to suddenly realize they’d alienated Tiffany all season long. Stephanie, Kary and D’Andra said they would make an effort to stand up for her and step in more often. Yet none of them have said anything on social media while all this stuff with Kam has gone down.

All D’Andra said was that Kam had blocked her, but that’s hardly an excuse to do nothing. It’s time to recast this show and reboot it or throw it in the trash altogether.