Apparently the ability to tweet out racist, sexist and all-around inappropriate things isn’t only something that Donald Trump prides himself on, it’s a skill that he seeks in his appointees. After a search of various social media accounts, it appears that several of Trump’s hires at the Department of Education have used Facebook and Twitter to share their, what can only be described as uninformed and backward, opinions about blacks, gays and transgender people, among other things.
Teresa UnRue, a former field organizer for the Trump campaign, shared a video on Facebook of an African-American man eating fried chicken and wondering aloud why other African-Americans are mad about slavery when “Y'all weren't no damn slaves."
"Had me crack'n up!! Thank you!" UnRue wrote.
It would seem that antiquated stereotypes and ignorance about black people are hilarious to Teresa. But, since she’s got a “well-rounded” sense of humor, she also supports hostility toward Muslims.
Besides her comments about the fried chicken video, UnRue had shared a statement, “We need Islam control, not gun control." She also had linked to a website that alleged the U.S. government assassinated Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last year, The Associated Press first reported.
Wait—she actually thinks the government assassinated Scalia? Wow. That’s a new one. And yet there’s more.
Recent hire Kevin Eck tweeted this back in 2015 upon learning that NBC would be broadcasting a remake of The Wiz.
Besides the fact that someone needs to explain to Kevin that reverse racism isn’t actually a thing, it seems hard to believe that this tweet got almost 4,000 likes and no one in his network was able to point out to him that The Wiz (a soulful take on The Wizard of Oz) has always had an all-black cast and was written that way, ever since the play opened back in 1974. Had no one in this bunch seen the movie version with Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor and Lena Horne? If you were a black kid growing up in the US the 1980s, this was a movie that you likely saw at least ten times. The fact that there was probably not a single black person that he associates with that could stop him from making a complete ass of himself says a lot about the lack of diversity among this crowd.
When Kevin isn’t worried unnecessarily about white actors not getting their fair shot in all-black stage productions, he’s tweeting his feelings about transgender persons using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
“Women should have the right to use a public restroom w/o an adult w/ a penis also being in that restroom. This isn’t complicated,” he tweeted on March 27 last year.
And Derrick Bolen, another recent Education Department hire, is apparently also concerned about women. Not only has he tweeted a number of things about blacks and women that could be considered offensive, he also thinks women of a certain size need his sage fashion advice.
This group doesn’t need to be anywhere near our nation’s education system. After all, they seem far too busy tweeting and facebooking their thoughts about minorities to worry about important things like establishing educational policy or enforcing educational laws regarding privacy and civil rights.
And on a side note, since they have proven that they can’t say things that aren’t offensive and stupid, can we please take Twitter away from Trump and his friends once and for all?