Interesting development - Shaun King has deleted his Twitter account. He's been getting his butt....

[George II]

....kicked for weeks for pretending to be "Black".

He was following 13.5K people and was followed by 1.1M.

[milestogo]

1. Who is he?

[Baltimike]

2. brought down by Milo the pedophilo. Interesting. nt

[hlthe2b]

3. All this is news to me. "The Shaun King controversy explained" (VOX)

https://www.vox.com/2015/8/19/9180389/the-shaun-king-controversy-explained

Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King is currently at the center of a controversy that has nothing to do with a police shooting or brutality — it's, instead, about his personal life and racial identity.

Over the past several weeks, conservative media outlets have published multiple pieces disputing different claims King has made about his life over the years. And the latest accusations — which caused the story to trend on Twitter — have called into question whether King is biracial, forcing the activist to disclose personal details about his life in hopes of disproving the accusations.
King, who's a blogger on the liberal Daily Kos, has been a very prominent face of the Black Lives Matter movement since the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. So any accusations leveled against him are a big deal to the cause, which aims to end racial disparities in the criminal justice system and police use of force.

In the latest accusations, Milo Yiannopoulos on Wednesday wrote in Breitbart, a conservative website, that King is not black or biracial. King, who grew up in Versailles, Kentucky, previously said his mom was white, and suggested he's biracial. But the report cited a birth certificate obtained from the Kentucky Office of Vital Statistics that lists King's father as Jeffery Wayne King, who is purportedly also white, according to Breitbart (although Kentucky birth certificates don't always name the biological father).

After the accusations went viral, CNN's Don Lemon reported that a "family member" told CNN that King's parents are both white.

more at the link and we should probably read the whole thing because the story is complicated...

[hlthe2b]

7. The VOX article reports he maintains he is biracial--that his father was not that named on birth

certificate, but that he was a product of a biracial affair. He claims this was his understanding from childhood but he sought to protect his mother by not speaking out. so....

[Scrivener7]

9. But that's 6 years old.

[hlthe2b]

10. So, then why the scandal now? If he is a product of a biracial affair, then why did that not

shut this down. (I didn't realize the article was old).

[Scrivener7]

11. I don't know. Those are my questions too.

[SidDithers]

4. I've seen him called Talcum X on the twitter...

which seems even more appropriate now.



Sid

[George II]

5. Yeah. The KHive has been all over him, it's not just conservative media.

[hlthe2b]

12. On his side or deriding him?

[George II]

14. Deriding him.

[W_HAMILTON]

15. Deriding him.

King is seen as one of the more prolific grifters on the leftist-end of the spectrum and often anti-Democratic Party. I hadn't heard much about him in awhile, but back when I did, he was often being called out for his (apparently) many scams and grifts (in addition to the questions surrounding his race, which I personally don't involve myself in, but others certainly believe it's another scam of his).

[mrsv]

8. Shaun King

Is the male version of Rachel Dolezal

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. His race is not the issue. The grifts he ran and the harm he did to Black people are the issue.

ETA: I'll take it back, his race can certainly be an issue, as there is a long history of people co-opting marginalized struggles to their own ends. But it's bigger than just whether he's Black or white; it's about community, resources, harm, alliances, leadership, etc.

[brush]

16. What are some of the scams? As far as his race, his looks are...

certainly not unusual in the Black community. He looks like a light-skinned Black guy. Ones sees others who look llike that all the time.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

19. I think my favorite is the "7 Continents, 7 Mountains, 1 Broken Man" grift.

Link to tweet

[rogue emissary]

17. Once again black women are being ignored.

Contributing King's leaving Twitter to Milo and conservative media like a few posts have done oversimplify what's been happening on social media for years.

Multiple African American women have called King out on Twitter for raising money and that money never made it to families of police violence. Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice blasted King in an Instagram post accusing King used her dead son to raise funds last June.

The right-wing media is just the latest to go after this fraud.

[blogslug]

20. agree

[Treefrog]

18. Guess he decided that white privilege wasn't quite enough.

Fascinating.

[tenderfoot]

21. I always just thought he was a self-promoting douche.

An insincere one at that. Nor do I think he was ever taken seriously by anyone left of center.

Same goes with Van Jones.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

22. Also, it appears this was a planned hiatus.

[Deminpenn]

23. Always was something not quite right about King

Didn't follow or read his writings, but there was usually some controversy surrounding or following him.