A University of Roll Tide dean at the center of a controversy over a series of stunningly accurate tweets chose to resign from his position rather than succumb to the horrific fate of drowning in a sea of salty, pork rind-flavored hillbilly tears.
On Thursday, Jamie R. Riley, the University of Alabama’s assistant vice president and dean of students, handed in his resignation after less than seven months on the job, reports the university’s newspaper that also aptly describes the predominant hue of on-campus necks—the Crimson White. Riley’s departure comes after right-wing news outlets including Breitbart (no, I’m not linking to that bullshit) Dinesh D’Souza and Laura “I’m not a white nationalist, I just play one on TV” Ingraham, attacked the dean for old tweets dating back years that publicly accused white people of acting like...Well...White people.
The Crimson White reports:
Jackson Fuentes, press secretary for the UA Student Government Association, confirmed at 4:15 p.m. that Riley is no longer working at the University.
“For us right now, basically all I can tell you is that the University and Dr. Riley have mutually agreed to part ways,” Fuentes said. “So yeah, that’s true, and we do wish him the best.”
In an email at 5:03 p.m., assistant director of the Division of Strategic Communications Chris Bryant released an official statement on behalf of the University confirming Riley’s resignation.
“Dr. Jamie Riley has resigned his position at The University of Alabama by mutual agreement,” Bryant said in the email. “Neither party will have any further comments.”
Let’s examine the tweets.
A lie detector test determined Riley was telling the truth.
While white people love that star-spangled scrap of polyester, for most of the history of the flag, it has stood for the oppression of black people. It flew on the ships that stole us from Africa. It was draped on the porches of the plantations where we toiled for free. It was affixed to the sleeves of the men that cracked skulls on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It flies over the police department that employed the officer who killed Eric Garner and the jail where Sandra Bland was found dangling in a cell.
He’s right, it’s not that hard to see.
I’m going to be honest: He shouldn’t have tweeted this. It’s not that it’s racist. I just know every black person who read that tweet, no matter where they were, reflexively yelled: “Preach!”
I do agree with alt-right newspaper and the Nazi host that this tweet is somewhat inappropriate. I think Riley’s math credentials should be reevaluated because the people who were happy to move on the land owned by the slaughtered Native Americans; who didn’t own slaves but blithely drank mint juleps as the African holocaust happened just off their porches; who stood on the second-to-last row at the town square during public lynchings; who watched their classmates spit on the black kids integrating their schools; who wished that that Rosa Parks lady would just sit her ass down so they could get home; who turned the TV when they saw Eric Garner choking; who will weep over a mistreated puppy but aren’t outraged or incensed every goddamned time a black person in America is assumed to be a criminal and sacrificed to the God of “I Feared For My Life”...
Those motherfuckers get less than zero opinion.
Hmmm, while some may disagree, it’s an argument I’ve heard in barbershops, bars and any place where the black-to-white ratio is higher than the hot sauce-to-mayonnaise ratio. It’s part of a valid conversation because white people really think they know black history because they teared up watching 12 Years a Slave on HBO one Thursday night, while a lot of black people are tired of the “Yass Massa” movie of the week.
I’ll allow it.
I’m sure Ingraham and Breitbart say they had nothing to do with this, they were just sharing information. And, to be fair, they didn’t actually “attack” Riley as much as they rounded up their legion of racist attack minions and pointed them in Riley’s direction. They attacked him like Trump attacked Ilhan Omar by whipping up the rally crowd into a mouth-foaming racist frenzy and sat silently as the crowd chanted “Send her back!”
No, Bull Connor didn’t personally throw the Molotov cocktails at the Freedom Riders, Hitler wasn’t working the door at the internment camps, and Breitbart, D’Souza, and Ingraham didn’t do anything to Jamie Riley.
But we know how they do.
Before his position at the University of Alabama, Riley was the Executive Director of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. According to the university, he also served in “various student affairs and diversity and inclusion roles at Johns Hopkins University; the University of California, Berkeley; Longwood University; the University of Georgia; Morehouse College; and Western Kentucky University.”
As he walked out of the door, I sincerely hope he played this song those Bamas:
That would be ice cold.