Terry Crews, an African American actor best known for his roles in Deadpool 2 and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, has yet again become the subject of online criticism for posting tweets that warn about the supposed ideological dangers of the Black Lives Matter movement.
One of the tweets which started the outrage was posted on June 7th. In it, the actor writes that “Defeating White supremacy without White people creates Black supremacy. Equality is the truth.” He then added, “Like it or not, we are all in this together.”
Although the tweet amassed over 150 thousand likes, many activists have labelled its message inappropriate. Calling on the equality of all people, they hold, understates the political disenfranchisement which African Americans have suffered throughout history, and continue to suffer to this day.
Despite the criticism he received, Crew continues to stand by what he said. In a tweet posted on June 30th, the actor exclaimed that: “If you are a child of God, you are my brother and sister” before adding, “we must ensure #blacklivesmatter doesn’t morph into #blacklivesbetter.”
At first glance, it may seem a little paradoxical that Crew would be labelled unsympathetic for promoting universal equality. However, his argument holds a rather tenuous place in the history of the civil rights movement. For one, it echoes the ideas put forth by many right-wing intellectuals, including clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson, who criticizes the ‘cancel culture’ of the left for allegedly reflecting its inner insecurities onto the world at large.
The actor’s argument has also been rejected by revolutionary theorists, many of whom believe that kindness and empathy are lessons that the ruling class teaches its subordinates in order to prevent them from starting an uprising.
At the same time, Twitter users warn Terry Crews not to get too entangled in semantics, and kindly remind the actor of the fact that black people continue to be killed by systematic racism – an institution which, more and more people are coming to believe, cannot be resolved by unconditional kindness alone.
