After six years it has finally been done – President Obama has made a Twitter account. This Monday, Obama sent out his first tweet, reading:
“Hello, Twitter! It’s Barack. Really! Six years in, they’re finally giving me my own account.”
Many people were quick to welcome the president and jokingly asked him to follow them. However, the friendly welcome wagon was crashed by some not so friendly sentiments. Throughout this week, comments ranged from “the fact he’s black is the only reason he got in [to office]” to calling him a monkey and other racial slurs.
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The most disturbing post included a photoshopped version of the Obama Hope poster with Obama hanging from a noose. The man who posted this asked, “we still hang for treason don’t we?” However, I personally did not see a 17th century punishment for treason, I saw our president being lynched.
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These comments are downright disgusting. It’s absurd how many Americans like to point to our black president as an indication that progress has been made towards eradicating racism. From my point of view, until we can live in a world in which our president is solely criticized for his politics and not publicly attacked because of his race, we cannot begin to boast that we live in a post-racist society.
Luckily some of our peers rushed to support Obama by either fending off racists or urging him to ignore such hatred.
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So to all of you on Twitter, log in and show your support for @POTUS.
