The publisher of Brooklyn-based Fireside Magazine has been forced to apologize after releasing a bigoted recitation of a Black expert's essay about legendary rap group OutKast. 

Fireside has removed the recording from the internet but clips of it have floated around social media all day, sparking outrage and questions as to how the magazine could publish something so blatantly offensive. 

Dr. Regina Bradley wrote an essay titled "Da Art of Speculatin’," that breaks down "the afrofuturistic stylings of OutKast," which was published in Fireside Magazine's 85th issue. Each issue comes with audio readings of each story or essay.

But Bradley took to Twitter on Tuesday outraged at the person they chose to read her story and the awful accent he somehow felt the need to adopt to imitate her. 

The audio recording features voice actor Kevin Rineer apparently attempting to read Bradley's story by mimicking what he believes a Black woman from the South would sound like. 

Some people online thought it was a joke before realizing that Fireside Magazine had legitimately released the recording for people to actually listen to. 

Bradley wrote a lengthy Twitter thread about how appalled she was by the magazine's treatment of her story. 

"I've ran the entire gamut of emotions today. And the best I have to offer in terms of commentary is 'all the women in me – ancestral, present, and future – are tired.' Today has been exhausting. To have my truth taken from me and minstrelized is just….Jesus Devonte Christ," she wrote on Twitter. 

"I even questioned if my writing was not up to part like I thought: could the narrative be that mangled and wrecked that dude found room to so callously interpret my words. My truth. My power. I questioned every damn thing. My voice, my word choice, my accent," she wrote, adding that the situation made her think about the "countless other moments past and present where silence is the preferred and forced language for Black women."

"From Phillis Wheatley and Sojourner Truth to Fannie Lou Hamer, my great grandmother, Mary Jones Barkley, Mary Turner and Meg thee Stallion. I'm seething," Bradley wrote.

On top of the offensive manner in which the story was read, many online noted the stupidity of hiring a white man to read a story by a Black woman about Black people.

Fireside Magazine publisher Pablo Defendini wrote a Twitter thread and longer blog post apologizing for the audio recording. He called himself out for what happened and admitted that he does not listen to the audio recordings of the magazine's stories before he publishes them.

"This is an essay written by a Black woman, about Black musicians, and edited by a Black man. I hired a white man to record the audio for the essay. That was ridiculously careless, and frankly, racist — it’s blackface, it's violent, and it’s insulting. I apologize," Defendini wrote.

"The author deserves better, the editor deserves better, our readers deserve better. My carelessness resulted in an act of racist aggression. I’ve taken down the audio, and will have the essay re-recorded by a Black woman, as I should have done from the start," he added, apologizing to Bradley and saying it was "all absolutely my fault, no one else’s."

On the Fireside Fiction page, Defendini wrote a longer post explaining exactly what happened with the recording.  

He wrote that he routinely hires one voice actor to read out all of the stories in each issue because it makes it easier for him.

"I failed to keep proper tabs on this process, and fell down on several fronts: for starters, I chose a white man to narrate this issue — edited by a Black man and featuring multiple works by non-white authors. That was negligent of me. I wasn’t thinking of this piece in particular when I contracted out the entire issue. I should have been looking at it on a story-by-story basis, at the very least," Defendini wrote.

"I also failed to check each recording when I took delivery of them. I was pressed for time and trying to get work out the door, and I did not take the time to review the finished recordings. As many have correctly pointed out, it takes two seconds of listening to the recording to realize that this one was deeply, deeply problematic. I did not do so — I just moved the files along — and the result is that I allowed an extremely hurtful racist caricature to be published on Fireside’s website," he added.

Defendini went on to apologize again to Bradley and vowed to re-record the story with a Black woman voice actor. He is also pulling all of the other voice recordings by Rineer. From here on out, Defendini said he plans to send the final audio of each story to its author. 

"My personal neglect allowed racist violence to be perpetrated on a Black author, which makes me not just complicit in anti-Black racism, but racist as well," Defendini wrote. "I have to grapple with that, and make amends. I’m not sure exactly how, yet, but some kind of concrete reparation is absolutely called for. I’m speaking with various folks who have reached out (and who I’ve reached out to as well), in order to figure out what that looks like."

The voice actor at the center of the controversy, Rineer, released an apology on Twitter and on YouTube, but later deleted his accounts on both sites. 

The apologies did little to stop the groundswell of anger online from Black creators who were incandescent with rage. 

Bradley did not accept the apologies from Defendini and Rineer.

"I saw the apology. I don't care. I am angry. Seething from centuries of silenced Black women angry. The voice I speak with and write with is not my own. To have that taken away is unacceptable. Unforgivable. And to ask me to consider it is equally trifling and unforgivable," she wrote.

Fireside-MagazineKevin-RineerOutKastPablo-DefendiniRegina-Bradley