If you’ve only paid a passing attention to white supremacist in chief Donald Trump’s Twitter outbursts of late you may have missed the sideshow where he said he should have left young Americans in prison in China because their families were not sufficiently stroking his ego.
LiAngelo is a college basketball player that was arrested in China over an alleged shoplifting issue. China released LiAngelo Ball and another player involved because it would have been a stupid thing not to do. Of course, Trump wants recognition for anything he may even be tangentially connected to, and LiAngelo’s father LaVar Ball was public in his distaste for Trump—something that did not change just because Trump didn’t completely fuck up the release of a high profile shoplifter to a country that we have serious ongoing trade negotiations with. Trump added this:
And then a few hours ago he added this deep thought:
Well, Trump’s fanbase is filled with “economically anxious” asshats unawares that the name LeVar and LaVar are simply first names and there are quite a few people with first names in our country. Many of them have decided to take out their racist anger issues on another high profile LeVar—LeVar Burton of Star Trek and Reading Rainbow fame.
There are many more idiotic things being thrown LeVar Burton’s way, that frankly, would be equally idiotic if they were being thrown at the actual subject of their vitriol LeVar Ball. Burton is no stranger to taking a stand against the racism and idiocy of this administration, and has been open in his criticism of Trump. Of course, he’s LeVar Burton, not LaVar Ball. Here’s a picture of the two men.
You can see the confusion. One is a black man with a mustache named LeVar Burton and the other is a black man with a mustache named LaVar Ball. They’re almost identical with the exception of their hair, skin color, size, weight, style of dress, and field of expertise. One of the great ironies in all of this is that LeVar Burton worked for many years as the host of a beloved children’s reading show called Reading Rainbow. And if any of these asshats had paid attention to his show they may have learned how to read.