Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/01/28/good-tweet-from-tom-brokaws.html
…
This is why I stopped tweeting at or around 2011, 2012. I can’t remember and I can’t be arsed to look it up. But then again, I am a Gen X’er, and not a boomer.
I guess he deleted the offending tweets (I know I would), since I can only see the apologies, not the thing he’s apologising for.
4 Likes
I kind of wish there was more explanation of what is going on in this. I clicked through but all I can tell is that there’s one kind of odd tweet, but, like what happened to make this matter? I’m not being catty, I was just hoping to be able to understand that from one source rather than have to google the context.
Edit: See, ok now I read an article about his prior comments and I care even less about his weird tweet. WTF Tom? Senility or Shittiness: not sure if/why not both.
2 Likes
Yeah, kind of what I read here. It seems Mr. Brokaw wrote a tweet, it came out wrong–probably harsher or lacking critical nuance (in his eyes), some people took it the wrong way, and he tried to correct it right away. The free-form haiku seems to be “sorry this took so long, but my Twitter client app has a crappy UX and wasn’t doing what I needed it to do.”
Maybe there’s more, but I try to avoid Twitter nowadays.
EDITING TO ADD:
Twitter is shit, so if a shitstorm happens there I cannot get worked up about it.
2 Likes
Came out wrong? Saying Hispanics need to assimilate, and that he doesn’t want brown grandbabies was merely a poorly worded tweet? Nah, that’s something else entirely
16 Likes
He’s “sorry he offended”? Hm.
12 Likes
everyone always is…right?
2 Likes
“but a look at his timeline suggests that Brokaw is just at the perihelion of boomer twitter.”
So - this means that he’s 4 years away from being a boomer but you wanted to display your ageism anyway?
edit - 6 years - born 1940 - boomers beginning 1946
5 Likes
I don’t read Twitter but I was watching Face the Nation or Meet the Press (I forget which) and I’m pretty sure he said just as much this past weekend. Could be wrong but I’m pretty sure it was him but I had the TV playing in the background.
I wasn’t paying attention. I admit I got it wrong. Thanks to you and Digby for letting me see what I missed:
https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/somebody-needs-to-have-chat-with-tom.html
EDIT: I must also admit I never, ever see those Sunday morning talk shows, especially since as an expat they come out in the late afternoon my time. So there’s that facet that I missed as well. Oof. Is he only getting his man on the street impressions from old friends in western Iowa (AKA Steve King territory)?
2 Likes
Assimilate?
5 Likes
It’s not a problem, i do wish more details on what was said was posted in BB upfront rather than link to other articles while providing some minimal details.
The sad thing here though is that a lot of folks think this way. My parents say shit like this about other people, despite that they themselves are Hispanic immigrants and asylum seekers. I get where they’re coming from but still disappoints me to see that kind of distrust and lack of respect.
6 Likes
It’s possible he’s been learning syntax from the President.
“Brown grandchildren”.
If you ask me, the “unseasoned chicken” that makes up some of the white US could definitely benefit from some added spice.
7 Likes
I started reading what he said and got to the “brown grandbabies” part and I thought it sounds like he was calling the Republican base racist. But wow was my default charitable reading burnt through in a hurry. He did not suggest that it was racist to not want your grandchildren to have a different skin colour than you, but rather went into both-side-ism where on one hand you have racist white people who object to interracial marriage and on the other hand you have hispanic people who… want to have children?
I’m sure it would be very tough for a person who has been racist against hispanics all their life to try to reconcile that ingrained hatred with their immediate love of their own grandchild. But my empathy for them doesn’t come with one bit of sympathy. If you are going to have trouble loving your own grandchild because of the colour of their skin you ought to hurry up and die already to leave more air for your grandchild to breath.
10 Likes
I worked a short stint for a guy who had a biracial granddaughter, and he quickly showed me that even for NIMBY racists, there can be “exceptions”.
6 Likes
Of course there are.
I loved my Gram on my mom’s side dearly, and she loved us… but she was still prejudiced against Black people, especially Black men (as I later found out, once I started dating.)
6 Likes
He should stick to talking about Malala, lollipops, La-la-land and parallelograms.
I’m blessed to have some “added spice”
in my own family.
3 Likes
