(The Root) — Black Twitter is on the warpath after two people tweeted about a disturbing experience at a Regal Cinema in Silver Spring, Md., Saturday night.
This morning, moviegoers Tiffany and Alan tweeted their "utter disgust" after what they say happened during their viewing of Lee Daniels' The Butler. They tweeted of doubled security and an armed police present not only in the lobby, but inside the very theater in which they were seated.
Twitter user @MoreAndAgain collected Tiffany and Alan's tweets via Storify, and the link was soon widely circulated among black people on Twitter. In no time, enough outrage was expressed that the story reached local news and CNN, who are both planning to report on the incident.
A quick poll on Twitter revealed that this sort of treatment and behavior at this particular movie theater is rare. While it is not uncommon for police to occasionally make themselves seen at the theater, especially on nights with large, youthful crowds, regulars of the theater said that the extreme measures reported were unprecedented.
A Yelp review of the theater written on the same day that Tiffany and Alan saw Lee Daniels' The Butler reflects a similar incident in a viewing of the same movie. The reviewer comments that "one of Montgomery County's finest started yelling and screaming at the crowd … I thought police are around to protect and serve not threaten someone asking a question."
A patron in Livonia, Mich., a suburb of Detroit, also tweeted about a police presence during their screening of Lee Daniels' The Butler at an AMC Theater, something that person had never before encountered there before. So, was there a memo sent out warning theaters about the riotous, savage blacks out to see Lee Daniels' The Butler with rebellion on their minds? I'm sure we'll find out now that black Twitter is behind the wheel of the story.
Tracy Clayton is a writer, humorist and blogger from Louisville, Ky.