The other day whilst scrolling through my favorite app, I decided to check what was trending. As I often do, I clicked over to the "Trends For You" tab and began to scroll through and click on the top hashtags and keywords of the day just to see what was up. As usual, I was in for a surprise. I'd only ever heard the name Dinesh D'Souza on the news and truthfully, I had no idea who he is (turns out he's a political commentator). But you don't really need to know who someone is to know a bad tweet coming from a verified account.
A Buzzfeed article was posted with the headline:
"AP Photo of school shooting survivors watching Florida lawmakers vote down a bill to ban assault weapons"
In the photo is a group of about 4 students looking very upset, one of them even crying. Our good friend Dinesh 'quoted' the tweet saying that this was the "worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs."
Dinesh... Do better.
Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican and whether you are for gun control or not, I'm sure we can all agree that everyone could've lived without this tweet. It's insensitive and doesn't, nor will it ever help anybody. And truthfully, this is exactly the reason we can't have nice things.
Of course, a group of students who just had to listen to the gunshots that killed their classmates, friends, and teachers are going to want those weapons out of the hands of anyone that could hurt them further. You're supposed to be safe at school, not running out of its doors for your life. At a time like this, these kids don't need snarky comments from political commentators, they need comfort, they need time to heal.
These kids are angry, as we all would be if bullets were ever aimed in our direction. All they know right now is that they can't stand the thought of any other school-aged child having to go through what they went through. Anyone can understand that. In the face of tragedy, how could we take to Twitter of all things to anger one another?
While I do my best to refrain from tweeting politically if you're going to engage in political conversation, why not do it honestly and with good intention? Especially someone like Dinesh D'Souza ( who I remind you, is a political commentator!) who after that tweet, should have his Wikipedia page updated to say "troll."
I do think that politicians, political commentators, and member of all media should be on social media. In fact, I want them there. But I don't care who you are or which way you lean, there's a difference between stating an opinion and delivering a punch line.
