"Hello N-gger": Why Twitter is the brain dump of choice for haters with low double-digit IQs

There are moments when I come thisclose to quitting Twitter. The amount of hatred squeezed into 140 characters or less by lunatics usually cloaked in anonymity is enough to make you question your support for the First Amendment and your faith in the decency of other people. To the uninitiated, the torrent of bigotry can leave you feeling violated. Even the most seasoned, battle-scarred, seen-it-all, can’t-nuthin’-shock-me individual will be left O-o by the filth in his or her Twitter feed…. The first racist tweet (from an account that has since been suspended) appears to have come in at 11:48 a.m. from a particularly nasty fellow who addresses the president as the N-word and advises him to “get cancer.” The racist affront is the equivalent of being called the N-word by a coward in a passing car as you’re walking down the street.

There are times when I find myself truly disheartened over the condition of our collective condition. It’s hard not to question our humanity when a sitting President is subject to the most virulent sort of racism simply because of who he is. After six years, I’ve grown accustomed to it, and The Black Guy in the White House © certainly has…but it shouldn’t have to be this way. Just when I begin to think we’re better, that we’ve risen about petty ignorance, hatred, and racism (I know; I can be SO naive sometimes), THIS happens. Twitter was invented for those who believe that 140 characters or less is more than adequate to demonstrate their commitment to jackassery (and I do believe I just invented a word).

For a President who’s had a pretty solid social media presence, Barack Obama had yet to join Twitter, an omission he remedied this week. That by itself is interesting news, because it’s one more means for The Black Guy in the White House © to connect with the American Sheeple. Unfortunately, there’s a disturbingly large segment of the Sheeple whose preferred connection would be the President and a noose.

That there are ignorant knuckle draggers among us is hardly newsworthy. The stupid and the reactionary have always had a place in America and likely will always be among us. Twitter merely provides a forum for these people (a term connoting a degree of humanity that may be stretching the truth) to display their epic ignorance and racist lunacy in 140 characters or less.

It’s a free country, which means one is guaranteed the right to broadcast their opinion (no matter how ugly, racist, or poorly informed) as they see fit. Twitter merely provides a forum, and it seems the maroons lack the intellectual candlepower to grasp how ignorant degrading they actually are. As a very wise person once told me, ‘tis better to be thought a fool than to go on Twitter, hit ENTER, and remove all doubt.

Beauty may be skin deep, but stupid goes straight to the bone….