According to a piece in The Huffington Post, the latest episode of The Bachelor was “harrowing” because a black contestant “became the focus of an oddly virulent, racially charged mean-girl swarm.”

Whoa. “Harrowing” sounds pretty serious . . . so what could have possibly happened in the episode to deserve that label?

According to the article’s author, Claire Fallon, this: After the black contestant, Jubilee, received a one-on-one date and then a rose from the bachelor, “the remainder of episode was a parade of unmistakable dog-whistles . . . and racially charged insults.”

“She was termed aggressive, accused of flaunting her rose and of thinking she was queen bee,” Fallon wrote.

Um. What?

With all due respect to Fallon, I’m pretty sure that calling someone “queen bee” is not a “racially charged” insult. (I mean, isn’t that what they called Regina George in Mean Girls?)

Still, I didn’t want to discount Fallon’s point of view without knowing the whole story, so I decided to watch (read: endure) the episode for myself and find out if I was missing something.

Fallon was right about two things: 1. Jubilee is a black contestant and 2. The other girls were very mean to her.

But here’s the thing: These girls were, in general, very catty. In fact, the episode opened with two of them saying that they don’t like this other (white) girl named Olivia because — even though she seems nice — they can just tell that she is actually really mean because they “can, like, see it.”

(Note: The apparently unacceptable appearance of Olivia’s toes was also criticized in a later discussion.)

Now, Fallon was also correct in saying that the girls were even more cruel to Jubilee than the other contestants, even those who did get roses.

But it actually had nothing to do with race.

#share#See, unlike the other girls, Jubilee appeared to have a little bit of self-respect. When the bachelor, Ben, showed up 20 minutes late for their date, she called him out on it. When he picked her up in a helicopter, she had the confidence to say she hated heights and even to dare to make a joke about whether anyone wanted to go in her place.

Of course these women would freak out about someone having this kind of attitude. Believe me . . . it was vastly different from theirs — as if their entire lives depended on getting dates with Ben. I saw some girl named Caila violently sobbing on the bathroom floor over not getting to go out on a group date with him. I heard that same girl say that all that was “keeping [her going] was “the little glimpses” when she gets to “see him before he takes other women out on dates.” Other most-pathetic hits included one girl who “would die” to have Jubilee’s place on the helicopter.

If you are someone who considers it a life-or-death situation to be liked by some strange dude you barely know, of course you are going to get violently upset at a woman who is able to be a little more chill about it. To these women, Jubilee playing off the importance of the date must have felt like she was spitting in the faces — even insulting their religion.

Now, that’s not to say that Fallon was entirely wrong about saying the episode was racist. After all, she did describe one thing that was pretty disturbing:

During the cocktail party before the rose ceremony, Jubilee awkwardly attempted to join a group of girls and was immediately rebuffed by Jojo, who rudely stormed away muttering about lip gloss. Lauren H. cast it as Jubilee “separating” herself from the other girls.
Ah, the old “she’s the one who’s segregating separating herself” argument, always convincing.

Yes . . . a girl used the word “separating” to describe another girl leaving a room. Seeing as that other girl was a black woman, it obviously was code for “segregating,” and so basically Lauren H. said right there on national television that she wanted to return to the days of Jim Crow.

Sick.

– Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review.