Racism in America isn’t new. It is the very foundation that this country was built upon. Open displays of racism aren’t new, either. They have been around just as long as this country has. The bolder and more brazen racists who walk among us have never been afraid to let you know where they stand—and they have even used violence to do so.
More recently, the election of Donald Trump and the prominence of social media in our daily lives have given voice to the cowardly types of racists. They have strong racist views, but they would never have the balls to say anything to anyone’s face. Instead, they become keyboard warriors and hide behind their monitors. They spew their hateful rhetoric in Facebook posts and tweets, and when they’re called out on it, the posts or tweets are suddenly deleted and the perpetrators don’t understand why everyone is picking on them all of a sudden. It is the internet equivalent of throwing a rock and hiding your hand. It’s a bitch-ass move, and you generally deserve whatever happens to you when you get outed for it.
The latest example of this type of behavior comes from a restaurant-and-bar owner in Chesterfield, Va., by the name of Judy Talley Maxie.
According to WWBT-TV, Maxie is the owner of Caddy’s restaurant, and she has a history of making controversial posts on social media. On Monday she made one directed at California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, accusing her of being racist, making disparaging comments about her lips and directing her to “go back to Africa.”
Maxie made her post presumably in response to Waters’ call for people to continue to confront Trump-administration officials and Cabinet members over the administration’s policy of separating children and parents at the border.
In the since-deleted post, Maxie wrote, “Maxine Waters shut your your [sic] big fat lips, no one wants to hear your rasium [sic] remarks..Go back to Africa where youre [sic] from.”
Maxie reportedly faced immediate criticism for her ignorant and misspelled post—so much so that she deleted her personal Facebook account and disabled her restaurant’s page.
Too bad screenshots live forever. This infamy will follow Maxie for a long time now. I guess she got that attention she was looking for in the first place.
Let it be said that making posts like this is never advisable. People will find out your job, your company and everything else about you in order to publicly flog you for making statements like this.
And to be fair, you should be shamed for things like this, especially when you are ignorant, misguided and dead wrong.
Calling for members of the Trump administration to be confronted is not racist. It is not inciting violence. It is simply a call to action for people to use their constitutional First Amendment right to speak out against what is wrong.
See, there are two ways to use your First Amendment right. You can speak out against injustice, call out racism when you see it and hold our government accountable when it is wrong.
Or you can be like Judy Talley Maxie and make ignorantly racist Facebook posts that you will eventually have to hide from because you never intended for anyone to know you were a racist punk in the first place.
Choose wisely.