Rubio confuses Black rights icons Cummings, Lewis, in tweet

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press


Updated 5:17 pm CDT, Saturday, July 18, 2020

MIAMI (AP) — Florida Sen. Marco Rubio mistakenly posted a photo of the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings in a social media post meant to honor the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis on Saturday.

The Republican senator quickly replaced the tweet with a new post in which he acknowledged the error and displayed a video of himself with Lewis, a Democratic lawmaker who died Friday at the age of 80.

"Earlier today I tweeted an incorrect photo," Rubio wrote in the updated post. “John Lewis was a genuine American hero. I was honored to appear together in Miami 3 years ago at an event captured in video below. May God grant him eternal rest.”

Lewis, a Democrat from Atlanta, was the last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He was best known for leading 600 protesters in the 1965 Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Lewis was knocked to the ground and beaten by state troopers. Televised images forced the country’s attention on racial oppression.

Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/article/Rubio-confuses-Black-rights-icons-Cummings-15418069.php

[ck4829]

1. God...

[George II]

2. Already getting heat on Twitter:

Link to tweet

[sandensea]

5. What a nice looking couple - er, I mean, family.

[generalbetrayus]

3. Meh, they all look alike.

https://comicbook.com/news/samuel-l-jackson-goes-off-on-news-anchor-who-mistakes-him-for-laurence-fishburne/

[H2O Man]

4. Pathetic.

[sandensea]

6. Innocent mistake

Although such a thing could never happen to Narco Rubio (don'tchaknow).

[keithbvadu2]

7. To Little Marco, 'they all look alike'.

To Little Marco, 'they all look alike'.

[Gothmog]

8. Here is another GOP Senator making the same "mistake"

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[tenderfoot]

9. It was no mistake - it was plain and simple disrespect.

eom

[NBachers]

10. When he was talking to Elijah Cummings, did he address him as Congressman Lewis?

and vice versa?

[Judi Lynn]

11. Great tweet from Paulette Feeney:

Link to tweet

[Collimator]

12. Cummings and Lewis were indeed

of a similar physical type. Confusing two people who share some basic visual similarities in not racist, per se, if you don't know them very well.

Celebrities are often mistaken for other celebrities. Nathan Fillion jokes that people regularly mistake him for Jason Bateman. Zoe Saldana mentioned that people confuse her with Kerry Washington. I don't think that second example is racist because I confuse De Niro with Pacino all the time. (And I'm Italian.)

Confusing Saldana with Queen Latifah would be pretty racist, in my opinion, because other than being black, they have very few physical commonalities. Heck, confusing Latifah with Leslie Jones seems racist to me, because while they are both tall, black women, they have very different features and complexions.

What's offensive about Rubio's mix up is that he probably met each of the two fellow elected officials on more than one occasion and he claims to have worked closely with Lewis. And it is stupid and insensitive of Rubio (or his staff) to forgo the extra effort to make certain that they got the picture right.

Oh, and speaking of physical types, I can imagine how many people have mixed up Patrick Swayze and David Keith. Now, mixing up David Keith and Keith David is a different kind of mistake which I personally would like to see happen just for the fun of it. (But then again, I have a twisted sense of humor.)

[CTyankee]

13. I keep trying

but no one confuses me with Meryl Streep and I don't know why...

[Collimator]

14. I have actually

met two women who reminded me very much of Meryl Streep.

And touching on my original point, I would not be shocked to learn that some people have confused Streep with Glenn Close. The two women are very much alike and casting them as sisters would make sense.