General Hospital’s Tabyana Ali Shares the POV That Kept Her Sane Dealing With Antisocial Media
This summer, as inexcusable racist tweets showed up in Tabyana Ali’s X feed, she was moved to respond, she said during a recent visit to General Hospital castmate Maurice Benard’s State of Mind. After the Daytime Emmys, “I just kept seeing people talking about how I looked like a monkey in my dress. And it was just sitting on my feed. I kept seeing people reply to it or talk about it.
“So then I was like, ‘Well, I’m kind of tired of this now. Maybe I should say something, because not saying anything is way worse than just ignoring it,’” she continued. “So I put out a couple of tweets. And to be quite honest, I was kind of being a little sassy. Nobody took it as that, though. Everybody looked at that tweet and was like, ‘She’s so kind.’ I was trying to be mean!”
What really helped see Ali through all of the ugliness was her perspective on the situation. “You’ve got to understand that this really isn’t about you,” Trina’s portrayer said. “They win if you give them the same energy. They want you to come back and be angry, [show them] a little animosity.
“I sat back and realized, ‘You’re not saying this for me, you’re saying this for you and for whatever situation you’re going through… because you’re fighting some demons and battles inside of yourself,’” she added. “‘And I can only look at you as somebody that I feel sorry for. Like a genuine, I’m sorry that you even have to go through that.’”
Not sure we could be as generous of spirit if we were in Ali’s shoes. But kudos to her for managing to hold onto her empathy even in the face of such grossness. While you’re here, check out the below photo gallery of the latest General Hospital cast portraits.
