Shaun King/Photo courtesy of CNN
This week, Shaun King is the gift that keeps on giving. A few days ago, he was trending again due to an Instagram post by Samaria Rice about his fundraising practices concerning her late son. As of yesterday, he continued to trend after allegations that he created a fake Twitter account to defend himself from social media criticisms.
In an exclusive, The Shade Room reported that Shaun denied the rumor that he had opened an alternate Twitter profile and responded to internet critiques as someone named “Nicole” is defending him.
“Nicole,” said that she is an activist in Columbus, Ohio, who had heard only positive things about the conversation between Shaun King and Samaria Rice. The account also claimed that she believed that Shaun was
“set up” by someone to look bad.The account, which used the avatar of a deceased Ohio rapper named Boog, mysteriously disappeared shortly after Shaun shared the multi-post tweet. He told The Shade Room that he does not know who the person behind the account is, and they are not a member of his team.
However, Shaun did say that the screenshot of the Zoom call with Rice is real, but nobody on his team recorded the conversation.
Nobody has proven either way that the Twitter account was fake. However, a Black Twitter investigator drew her own conclusions based on past behavior.
In the past, Shaun had used the picture of a deceased rapper to try to discredit DeRay McKesson.
Shaun initially shared “Nicole’s” post but later deleted it and set his Instagram page to “private,” Both embedding and link copying is deactivated.
However, on the post, Shaun wrote a long monologue that suggested great leaders like Dr. King and Malcolm X may not have survived social media.
“I’m beat. I often wonder what would’ve happened to Dr. King and Malcolm X if social media had been around when they were leading. I’m pretty sure that Malcolm X would’ve been banned from all of the platforms. Dr. King would’ve likely been “canceled.” He was pretty much canceled in the year before he was assassinated. Even the majority of Black folk said they no longer liked him,” Shaun wrote.
What makes this situation even more dreadful is that today, June 25, would have been Tamir Rice’s 19th birthday.
Shaun King’s desire to defend himself is understandable. We also have to defend the legacy of lost Black lives.