Last month, we made the poor decision to make a tweet about white people saying they age like bananas. In retrospect, we insensitively used the Olsen twins as an example, not knowing their prior health battles. As we gained notoriety for this tweet, we gained the attention of white nationalism Twitter. Yes, that Twitter. The Trump supporting, tar eating, mud slinging nationalism Twitter. The type to tell you to get out of America if you don’t agree with supporting racism. Our tweet was wrong for many reasons — it’s insensitive to bring women down who are battling issues stemming from society’s expectations. However, white nationalism Twitter was more offended by the fact that we state white people age like bananas, and black people age better. Aside from the bananas part, this statement is very much still true.
So for many days, we had alt-right members in our mentions and sending racist comments to all our of editors and writers alike. As young teens, we were reasonably scared. It got to the point that they found the personal information of one of our editors. The info included the phone numbers of his family members and even addresses of his parent’s workplace. So to put it nicely, we aren’t a fan of the alt-right and never been. Ironically, the alt-right supporters turned into the ‘triggered snowflakes’ they rave about when talking about social justice warriors. If you aren’t familiar with them, the alt-right nationalists believe in a nation solely for whites. What’s funny is they do not believe this is racist in the slightest. Yes, a land with no people of color is not racist in their eyes. During Trump’s campaign run, he helped normalize the alt-right by openly supporting their rhetoric. This gave white nationalism the fuel to be bold and racist as hell openly. The most notable white nationalists are Richard Spencer and Milo Yiwhateverhisnameis. Let’s not forget Milo led a whole Twitter crusade targeting hate towards black comedian Leslie Jones.
Recently, Donald Trump gave White House press passes to Infowars, a website dedicated to the alt-right, essentially a white nationalist conspiracy theorist wet dream. At the forefront of Infowars is Paul Joseph Watson, who serves as their editor-in-chief. Paul wrote an entire article condemning our tweet, focusing on the fact that it is ‘racist’. See, the issue is that sites like Infowars incites racism by generating reactions. The comments on the article he posted were — surprise — racist. There were even people saying that black people are apes. In the article, he states,”While in isolation, the tweet might be taken as a lame joke and being offended over it merely aping the behavior of the far left, Affinity has a history of anti-white casual racism.”
First off Joseph: being anti-white isn’t a thing, and if it was, it would be warranted considering black people and white people still aren’t equal in the eyes of the world. Until black people can wear their natural hair, or any hairstyle without being punished or when black people can apply for jobs and not be afraid they wouldn’t be hired on the basis of their name, then you can claim about others being ‘anti-white’. Casual racism is you writing articles telling Ariana to condemn ‘radical Islam’, reducing a religion to a small group who is radical. Your rhetoric is toxic and asinine. Our content may be radical to some, but it’s radical to you because you will never face the realities minorities face. So, of course, it is far-fetched to you. Your site is the reason why hate crimes have spiked because you normalize hate speech by inciting all your readers to leave disgusting hate comments. These comments turn into real things uttered to minorities in real life. Lastly, Joseph, you live in the UK and in no way should be inciting racism in our country. So please stay in your lane and focus on Brexit.
The comment sections of websites like Infowars and Daily Wire is the perfect hiding space for bigots and racism to voice their disgusting opinions without being held accountable. Hateful comments are encouraged on these sites. They’re not only racist but transphobic as well. Transphobia is the reason many trans women are regularly being murdered. They don’t promote equality or tolerance — they encourage a divide. Many will argue Affinity is encouraging a divide, but we just want equality and the best way to get that is to call out oppressive systems and institutional racism any way we can. The truth of the matter is that white people are the root of the many racial issues we have, and if you deny that you’re simply delusional. In response to calling out racism, white nationalists are gonna post tweets about me and possibly my personal information because they’re that bitter about hearing the truth.
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