Kyle J. Howard has mercifully, explicitly stated what he has so far in his social media journet only hinted at: that his critics are straight-up racist and white supremacists.
It could not be that his critics have legitimate grievances with some of the things he’s done or falsely professed to have done, such as:
Lying about being an ‘Ex-gang member who was part of the Crips and who carried a razor blade in his mouth, a .38 revolver on his hip, and drugs in his pocket, claiming to be a ‘professional rapper, doing rap battle tours of the underground circuit’ saying that he’s voting for a handsy pro-choice politician accused of sexual assault, and that voting for the Democrats isn’t a bad thing, excused super bowl performers acting whorishly because they’re ‘Latina’, was angry that a black family forgave a white woman, and that he was looking for a church that had less white folk than other races.
No. none of that would be legitimate reasons to critique him. Rather he believes that the criticism is not being done out of genuine concern for the truth, or even due to mixed, misguided motives on account of the things he’s saying, but rather due to ‘trollery.’ Howard says it is ‘abundantly clear’ the critics are ‘dwelling in racist echo chambers’ and are themselves racists and white supremacists.
The unvarnished declaration came after Pastor Tom Buck posted a now-deleted tweet, seen below, that asks everyone to use caution and due process as it pertains specifically to proclaiming the motives and intent of the men who fatally shot and killed Ahmaud Arbery.
Though Howard drags the ‘so-called pastor’ for the tweet and labels his actions and ostensibly him as the ‘evil and wicked’ work of white supremacy, it’s pretty clear that he completely failed to grasp what pastor Buck was saying. We know it doesn’t take much to get Howard to call people ‘racists’- he even called the Babylon Bee that a few weeks ago- but to call Tom that, for this? Nothing could be further from the truth.
As a result of this, pastor Buck deleted his tweet and followed it up with some clarifications and further elaboration. We don’t feel that he needed to, because the initial tweet was sufficiently perspicuous, but he may have felt it necessary given the questions coming his way. Tom clarifies:
The fact is that Howard and others are straight-up lying and misrepresenting the position of Tom Buck and when they call him racist, suggesting that he’s supporting the men who killed Arbery, hinting he’s excusing their actions or saying Buck must mean the killing was justifiable self-defence in some manner. Buck never said any of that. He said what he said, and any attempt to suggest he’s saying more than that ought to stop.
At the same time, the way that Howard dismisses his critics by demonizing them as xenophobic black-bludgeoning trolls is beyond the pale (No, Kyle, not that kind of pale). The callous and cavalier way that he so easily tosses around the r-bomb and lets that little reputation-wrecker explode on the heads of godly, thoughtful and gracious people is appalling. It is destructive and gross, and we pray his SBC cadre will call him out on it sooner rather than later. A month ago he said he was leaving Twitter for the sake of his mental health, only to unceremoniously.
We can only hope he considers that option again.
