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"I will be convinced that America is not in decline only when … Marie Kondo learns to speak English"

US author Barbara Ehrenreich has come under fire for sending racist tweets about Marie Kondo.

SCMP reports that US author Barbara Ehrenreich is being criticized for racist tweets regarding Netflix star Marie Kondo.

Ehrenreich, who is a progressive political activist tweeted (now deleted) that Kondo is representative of America’s decline.

“I will be convinced that America is not in decline only when our de-cluttering guru Marie Kondo learns to speak English,” The 77-year-old tweeted at 11.05am on Monday.

Kondo, who is the star of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, speaks Japanese in the Netflix show. To read more about Kondo and further “racist” backlash towards her, be sure to read Eliza Romero’s Resonate feature article.

Ehrenreich is known for bestselling books including ‘Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America’, ‘Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream’ and ‘Natural Causes’.

People were quick to respond to Ehrenreich’s tweet, calling her out for racism. Asian American author Celeste Ng tweeted, “it says a LOT about our current moment when basically anyone could come out saying super racist shit and it seems plausible they’ve been thinking it all along.”

Another Twitter user wrote, “I assume Barbara Ehrenreich will delete this racist/xenophobic tweet but let’s not forget that even otherwise “progressive” white folks have a huge capacity for racism.”

“Barbara Ehrenreich IS Racist because of racist Tweets Criticizing Marie Kondo. “ another wrote.

Ehrenreich then deleted her tweet and posted a new one in which she tried to justify her remarks.

“I confess: I hate Marie Kondo because, aesthetically speaking, I’m on the side of clutter,” Ehrenreich tweeted. “As for her language: It’s OK with me that she doesn’t speak English to her huge American audience but it does suggest that America is in decline as a superpower.”

This resulted in even more criticism, including a tweet from writer Jeff Yang who wrote, “the casual and maybe involuntary xenophobia that seems to frame this tweet is painful to read.”

After receiving even more criticism, Ehrenreich tweeted, “sorry to anyone offended by my tweet about Marie Kondo! Sometimes my attempts at subtle humor just don’t work.”