Last week the Twitterverse produced a delightful response to a conspicuously colorblind list of smart women by Fast Company, with thousands of tweets coming out in support of SmartBlackWomenOfTwitter, SmartLatinaWomenOfTwitter, and SmartAAPIWomenOfTwitter.
Today an incredibly unsmart hashtag is trending, and some Twitter users are wrapped up in a contest to see who can be the most racist. #WhyDoBlackPeople started trending this morning, after being ignited by Hunter Moore with this prompt:
Lets play #WhyDoBlackPeople and #WhyDoWhitePeople
— Hunter Moore (@Huntermoore) September 4, 2013
And the hashtag seems to be giving people a platform to share their most racist curiosities.
@Huntermoore #whydoblackpeople try to steal my watermelons ???? pic.twitter.com/NpLQCD4tCN
— Avoree ? (@Avoree_Siler) September 4, 2013
"@AIaskaNebraska: #WhyDoBlackPeople Breathe"@Andrwsup
— Coach Serano (@HobiSayegh) September 4, 2013
#WhyDoBlackPeople smell bad? So the blind can hate them too
— daviddowneyjr (@davidnelephants) September 4, 2013
But it seems some twitter users are already reclaiming the topic, asking more provocative questions.
#WhyDoBlackPeople get 14% of PhDs yet make up less than 7% of full professorships? http://t.co/WSRFO0766a
— Jane Doe, MD (@DrJaneChi) September 4, 2013
#WhyDoBlackPeople perform the first successful open heart surgery? http://t.co/ZoZYQhkfQ8
— Juan (@juanyfbaby) September 4, 2013
What’s your take on this hashtag? Which posts are the best or worst you’ve seen?