”I never said anyone should vote any particular way.”
Huffington Post contributor Kimberley Johnson was widely mocked on social media Thursday after she said in a tweet that she was confused by seeing an “affluent black man” driving a BMW with bumper stickers expressing support for the Tea Party and the National Rifle Association.
Johnson, a spokesperson for the woman’s rights organization We Are Woman, deleted the tweet and defended herself against accusations of racism in a followup message posted to her Twitter account.
the ratio on this one is likely to get out of hand pic.twitter.com/owkNuthR4v
— Sonny Bunch (@SonnyBunch) July 5, 2018
“I deleted a tweet that questioned why African Americans would support the Tea Party, and people saw that as racist.” she wrote. “I do not see the GOP working in the best interests of people of color or women.”
1/ Okay. I deleted a tweet that questioned why African Americans would support the Tea Party, and people saw that as racist. I do not see the GOP working in the best interests of people of color or women. I never said anyone should vote any particular way. I said it confused me.
— Kimberley Johnson (@AuthorKimberley) July 5, 2018
Johnson was lambasted by many conservatives who viewed her tweet as emblematic of a patronizing and out of touch brand of liberalism.
“Beware of the Hand When It’s Coming from the Left”: The tensions between liberal uplift and liberal paternalism have a storied history in culture, literature, and politics.
Long before Public Enemy’s Chuck D rapped “beware of the hand when it’s coming from the left” on 1991’s classic “Can’t Truss It,” great black American writers — from Ellison to Wright to Baldwin — scrutinized the paternalistic aspects of white liberalism.
Earlier this year, such considerations were thrust into the mainstream national conversation, ignited by a single tweet from rapper, producer, entrepreneur Kanye West.
“I love the way Candace Owens thinks,” West wrote in an April 21 tweet, referencing a millennial, pro-Trump, conservative critic who is also a black woman.
What followed was a frenzied news cycle that saw West advocate for independent thought, came out as a supporter of President Donald Trump and sparked debates over whether he was shining a light on hegemonic media influence over political and cultural narratives or if he’d simply lost his mind.
Cultural critic Armond White characterized West’s outburst as “an appeal to reason that disconnects from the party line that keeps black Americans tied to the aims of leftist doom merchants who continue to manipulate them as disaster-prone unfortunates.”
In The Atlantic, Ta Nehisi Coates suggested West had chosen a “path of self destruction” disconnected from his black identity.
Throughout the praise and criticism, West continued to affirm he was attempting to break Americans free from staid patterns and narratives that preordained how certain groups are supposed to think.
There is at least some evidence that West was onto something. Coleman Hughes, writing about West for Quillette in April, cited several polls on issues such as race, affirmative action, and microaggressions that contradict the perception that blacks’ views “align with ‘progressive’ policies.”
This might help contextualize much of the frustration, expressed as mockery, directed toward Johnson for her tweet expressing confusion that a wealthy black man could support the NRA.
On the other hand: Some Republicans, and particularly populist conservative movements like the Tea Party and MAGA, have arguably done little in the way of distancing themselves from the worst elements, making it easy for Democrats to paint the whole movement as tolerant of bigotry.
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