Sam Smith Accused Of ‘Whitesplaining’ Racism
Yikes.
Sam Smith has sparked a whole lot of backlash after taking to his Twitter account to ‘whitesplain’ racism to his four million dedicated followers.
In case you didn’t know what ‘whitesplaining’ is, it is the term for a white person who takes it upon themselves to explain racism in a rather patronising way.
Now that we have that cleared up, it all kicked off last night when the Oscar-nominated and Grammy-winning musician was left horrified after he witnessed a racist attack on his friends.
The tweets start of innocent enough, with the understandably upset singer writing: “Just experienced my friend getting verbally abused racially in London. I am absolutely SPEECHLESS.
“I never ever ever ever thought that would happen here.”
However, Sam’s later tweets have rubbed his followers up the wrong way, with the 23-year-old continuing: “Absolutely speechless and hurt. I feel like I have to shine some sort of light on it.
“The police were so unhelpful in the situation and its deeply shocked me.
“Humans are HUMANS I feel like I have to say something. I’m just so upset. So UPSET.”
Critics took to their own social media accounts to chastise Sam for making the racist issue into something about himself, not his friend who was the actual victim of racism.
Sam was also accused of having a hero complex as he took it upon himself to “raise awareness” on the issue of racism, as though he is the first person to do so:
Sam Smith must be living one hell of a white privilege to just discover that racism is a ‘thing’.
— Anthony (@geminidragon) January 20, 2016
sam smith annoys me because he “can’t believe there’s racism in 2016”, but of course he can’t believe it, he comes from white privilege.
— carlos (@b0redinbucks) January 20, 2016
‘Not only is Sam Smith whitesplaining, but he’s somehow made the racial abuse all about him’ Yep.
— Stephen 2.0 (@visforvain) January 20, 2016
Sam Smith, the discoverer of racism… Here to 'shine a light’ on this new & emerging trend. #whitesplaining pic.twitter.com/7NhyiBvvUB
— ELLE (@elleljudge) January 20, 2016
I want to thank Sam Smith for finally validating racism. It now officially a real issue, we weren’t just being oversensitive.
— Cathryn Elizabeth (@cathrynliza) January 20, 2016
Sam Smith making his friend experiencing racism, all about him
— Sean (@_boooosh) January 20, 2016
Sam Smith has lived somewhat of a sheltered life it seems.
— ⠀ (@ahmxdh) January 20, 2016
Sam is yet to acknowledge the backlash.
