The Clapback Mailbag will often search through the emails, tweets, DMs and comments to find a common theme from our perturbed readers. Sometimes they are upset about one thing. Occasionally, we will receive a spate of responses that all have the same “whataboutism.”
But not this week.
This week’s letters feature a mishmash of all the things, including:
- Go back to Africa
- Every society had slaves
- What about Black Lives Matter?
- Not all white people
- You’re the real racist
In fact, this week’s Mailbag letters were so completely batshit insane, the only feasible way to realistically clap back at these wypipo maniacs was to do an academic-style annotated examination of their white nonsense.
Because we love you.
Our first letter is about Ishena Robinson’s inflammatory article that used facts to report on the news.
From: Tomás
To: Ishena RobinsonPeople are weary of your one trick pony. Anybody who doesn’t go along with your black agenda is a white supremacist. Well, Ishena, the United States was founded as a white country.[1] The mistake white people made was letting you stay after the American Civil War.[2] You should have been deported back to Africa, that paradise you were stolen from, you and Toby by evil whitey. That is the story isn’t it?.
If not for your ancestors being slaves in the USA, you would be sitting on the ground in Uganda,[3] eating mud pies and bushmeat with flies all over your face. Your own people enslaved you and sold you to Europeans. Slavery did not originate in the United States. White men from the North killed white men from the South to end slavery.[4] I have never heard one black person ever pay homage to Northern white soldiers for sacrificing their lives for your freedom.[5]
Nobody owes you anything. Cops kill white people at a faster rate than black people.[6] BLM is financed by wealthy white people to incite black people to vote out a Republican government which wanted to bring jobs back to the USA.[7] Just as there are millions of black people in the USA, there are also millions of Hispanics. We also want our reparations. We want Texas and California returned to Mexico. We don’t really want the rest. We have enough desert in Mexico.[8]
You running your whining complaining piehole all the time is why white people are only now starting to hate black people.[9] It didn’t used to be that way. It used to be black and white got along pretty well.[10] Not every white person is a racist, and not every white person is a supremacist. But I think you are both. You want white people to go away, to hide in their homes, to surrender their possessions to black people and to go pick cotton while you sit on the porch and sip lemonade. [11]You want to hear some old white spirituals[12] sung as the sun goes down.
People like you in the media are the ones stoking racism. You and those foreign born women our laws have permitted to infiltrate our government. You all work together to keep it spinning. You can;t let it lose momentum. You are almost there.. You have almost removed evil whitey from government.[13] You have almost taken over the country. That is what you want, isn’t it? That is what we want, too.
El Grio The Root and all are smut rags and you are the head smut peddler.[14]
Whitenotes:
[1] While the 2 to 5 million people who are actually called “Native Americans” might disagree with you, it actually depends on your definition of “founded.” Do you mean the 757,208 Black people who were in America when it actually became the United States? Or do you mean the 8,000 Black people who fought in the Revolutionary War and made the “United States of America” a thing?
You should read more books
[2] “Let us stay?”
This might come up later.
[3] Enslaved people didn’t really come from Uganda but I gotta admit, it almost sounds like a fact.
You should really read more books.
[4] There was this guy—you probably never heard of him—named Abraham Lincoln, who said: “If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
I got that from a book.
[5] Ibid
[6] I know you believe “Cops kill white people at a faster rate than Black people.” but in 2019:
- A Black person was three-and-a-half times more likely to be killed by cop than a white person
- A Hispanic person was one-and-a-half times more likely to be killed by a police officer than a white person
- An unarmed Black person was three times more likely to be killed by police than a white person with no weapon
- An unarmed Black person fleeing the scene was six times more likely than a white person to be killed by a police officer.
Books, dude.
[7] When Black Lives Matter was founded in 2013, there was a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate.
I’m serious about that book thing.
[8] Since it seemed like a perfectly reasonable solution just one paragraph ago, why don’t you just go back to Mexico? I have never heard one Mexican person thank Black people for letting y’all stay.
[9] I just want to point out that my favorite part of this entire email is the claim that white people are “just now starting to hate Black people.”
Jesus Hector Christ, I love this guy!
After all the stuff about discrimination, police brutality and white people having to shoot white people in the face to end slavery, he tries to claim that...
Wait. I think I understand now! White people don’t know what “hate” is!
Maybe he thinks the transatlantic slave was some kind of antebellum student exchange program! Perhaps all that racial terrorism during Reconstruction was an employee training initiative. And of course, Jim Crow was all about “giving us space”…
Until they crowded around little Black boys and girls integrating schools and spit on them.
That wasn’t about hate; those were free showers!
[10] White people and Black people used to get along?” When was this?
1618 perhaps?
[11] Writer’s tip: If you’re going to continue your racist theme, you should have said: “sip Kool-Aid”
[12] White people have spirituals? Like every other form of American music, they probably stole that from us, too. Does that mean that the Beatles are white “Mighty Clouds of Joy?” Maybe that is what Taylor Swift was doing this whole time. Perhaps she is the Caucasian Kirk Franklin.
[13] “Almost removed evil whitey from government?” In a country that is 62 percent white, 80 percent of the federal legislature is white. The president is white. The Supreme Court is 78 percent white.
We still have a ways to go.
[14] What? Are you suggesting that Ishena is trying to take my position as the “head smut peddler?”
Now that you mention it, I can see how she is trying to undermine me!
Just like Black people, Ishena goes to work, does her job, and only wishes to be left alone. Now I totally see that she is trying to remove evil Mikey from my position. I will not let this happen. White people killed other white people so I could have this job! If it wasn’t for me, she would be in Uganda sitting on her porch eating Moon Pies! Even though I had nothing to do with her being hired, not once have I heard her thank me for getting her this job.
I’m pretty offended. It used to be that me and Ishena got along well but now I am starting to hate her because she wants me to surrender my position, and pick cotton while she sits in her home sipping pineapple Faygo.
Thank you Tomás for opening my eyes!
Don’t forget about that “book” thing I mentioned.
This letter is from a “Stop the Steal” activist who read this article:
From: Jim B.
To: Michael HarriotI just read your article on Yahoo. You obviously didn’t do your homework. I have.
You should read before you write. Please read Jason Chavetz’s “Power Grab” and Lee Smith’s “The Plot Against the President” and David Shimer’s “Rigged”.
You introduced race and slavery where there was no racial issue.[a] Have you read the Constitution?[b] There is no provision for mail-in balloting. There is no provision for electronic voting. There is no provision for same day registration. There is no provision for ballot harvesting by the Dreamers. So, you could argue that since it isn’t elucidated in the Constitution then those issues are states’ issues; but that allowed each state to run its own election fraught with fraud.[c] Did you know that in the midterm elections 2.75 million people were registered to vote in more than one state?[d] Did you know that President Trump led in four of the six undecided states at the close of voting? Only after the “illegal” vote (those gathered by methodologies just mentioned) was manufactured and tabulated did Biden squeak out a lead. [e] What was up with that dumpster of shredded ballots?[f] What was that mail man doing when he crossed the Canadian border with 800 ballots for Trump?[g] Who busted the water pipe that forced the observers out of the room so the dems could unload 10,000 ballots for Biden?[h]
I’ve included my synopses for your review.[i]
You read like an intelligent black man; I write poetry, too, and have several poetry slams. You could advance the call for secure Constitutionally-provided voting which would be fair for ALL if you didn’t try to divide us with all that race talk.[j] Identity politics is so lame it will forever be a hindrance to any effort for social justice. Tell black people to stop referring to themselves as African-Americans and instead call yourselves just plain Americans like the Irish, Italians and French Canadians; they’ve all assimilated. You should, too. Speak out against H.R.1 and educate people about its provisions.
Please don’t reciprocate and lecture me to read your history. I’m a native, farmer, veteran, and school teacher and have probably experienced more discrimination than you. The liberals in Vermont disdain the natives and aggressively lobbied to deny our tribal recognition until we produced the records of 4000 of us involuntarily sterilized. They shit on the very farmers who feed them and absolutely hate the military. Ageism in employment is alive and destroying seniors like me but I prevailed and finally earned my Master’s degree so I could teach at the university level; not bad for a poor migrant farm worker. There’s no reason why others couldn’t do the same. Just assimilate and get along.[k]
Whitenotes:
[a] Jim, the entire point of the article was to explain the issue to people who believe “there is no racial issue.”
[b] Wow, Jim! Tell me about this wonderful document named—what did you call it again?—the “Constitution?”
[c] Actually Jim, I just went and read that “Constitution” stuff you mentioned and, you’re right! There is no mention of voting machines or Dreamers. But you know what else isn’t mentioned?
Voting for president.
In fact, Article II of that Constitution thingy says the state legislators get to appoint the electors and the electors vote for president. There is nary a mention of citizens getting to vote for president or that our votes would even count.
[d] There is a legal concept (I admit it’s not in that Constitution you keep talking about” called “proof.” Proof is different from “belief.” You believe that there was widespread election fraud, and to point it out, you have offered false proof. I don’t believe that there was widespread election fraud, but I am willing to play along with your contention.
So, let’s look at your complaints:
Did you know that in the midterm elections 2.75 million people were registered to vote in more than one state? Yes, Jim, I do. I may be one of them. I have lived in four different states and registered to vote in each one of them. But in South Carolina, the last state I lived in, there is no process to deregister. I actually submitted a change of address form and it was returned to me with the explanation that it was only for people who moved within the state. When I asked about deregistering, I was told that there was no form and I would be removed after not participating in elections for a period of time. I am literally the only person that I know who has ever done this. So, what you’re telling me is that 2.75 million people (the actual number is 7 million, according to a 2014 report) registered to vote and then moved to other states.
[e] Did you know that President Trump led in four of the six undecided states at the close of voting? Yes, Jim, I knew this. Literally every journalist, pundit and election expert in America knew this and said it would happen.
That’s because, as we repeatedly explained, only a handful of states allow officials to begin tallying their early votes before Election Day, according to data from the National Council of State Legislatures. Furthermore, many of the states that allow extensive early voting and absentee options—including the states whose outcomes are crucial to the presidential election—aren’t allowed to start counting the ballots until after polls close. Most states count in-person votes before they count early voting, mail-in ballots and absentee ballots. And, because most MAGAmuffins listened to Trump’s idiotic warnings not to vote early or by mail, the absentee ballots (you know, the ones that were counted last) were heavily Democratic.
The only way someone could have planned this was to hypnotize Trump and make him say those dumb-ass words!
[f] What was up with that dumpster of shredded ballots? I know you get your facts from Facebook, but no ballots were ever found shredded. Those were old, empty ballot envelopes. Read it for yourself. Here you go.
[g] What was that mailman doing when he crossed the Canadian border with 800 ballots for Trump? Biden won by 7 million votes. So you’re telling me that the geniuses who rigged a national election did it, in part by getting someone to smuggle 0.0001 of the votes to Canada? Where are the 10,000 other mail trucks required to pull this off?
I’m beginning to think you’re dumb, Jim
[h] Who busted the water pipe that forced the observers out of the room so the dems could unload 10,000 ballots for Biden? You’re starting to sound really dumb, Jim. Also, the bump to Biden’s votes and the pipe incident happened on two different days. No ballots were damaged and no one left the room. But, again, let’s say there were 10,000 votes uploaded for Biden. Trump lost Fulton County (where the incident happened) by 250,000 votes. You think the secret vote riggers cheated by giving Biden a 51-point lead instead of a 50-point lead over Trump? Also, there’s the fact that there was a recount. And a hand recount. And a GBI investigation into voter fraud. But Reddit, though.
[i] Now that was funny. I’m gonna upload it here so everyone can have a laugh “know the truth.”
[j] Jim, you’re right. I probably should “advance the call for secure Constitutionally provided voting that would be fair for ALL.” If only I was smart enough to do that, as I have done here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and… “I’m tired of typing “here,” Jim.
That was the entire point of my article, Jimmy.
No one wants secure and fair elections more than Black people. But Jim, you don’t just get to decide that you want things fair for white people and ignore the verifiably proven history of suppression and cheating that white people have done for the entire history of America.
Well, I guess you do.
[k] Nah, I’m good.