Snowfall in January is a pretty easy thing to understand. As it does every year, the Earth has once again spun far enough from our warmth-giving sun, allowing for the necessary meteorological conditions to freeze atmospheric moisture into unique crystals that fall from the sky and onto our tongues and windshields and sidewalks. See? Nothing too complicated about that.
What is complicated, however, is this tweet from far-right conservative journalist and Donald Trump apologist David Brody, which looks at the extremely unremarkable phenomenon of a winter snowstorm, and dares ask, “But what about Black people, huh???”
Confused? So am I.
To be clear, the snowstorm currently pummeling the mid-Atlantic region of the East Coast is nothing to sneeze at (sneeze in, perhaps). Air travel around Washington, D.C. is completely f’d, the roads are a total horror show, and power is out for hundreds of thousands of people between Maryland and Georgia. So, yeah, it’s pretty bad out there.
Having said all that, please go back and re-read Brody’s tweet so you can help me understand, uh ... what on Earth he’s talking about. Oh, but wait, before you do that, keep in mind that it’s probably a bad idea to be snapping pics on your iPhone while you’re driving in a winter storm with your wipers off, right?
Okay, now go back and read that tweet again and then ask yourself what point a man who once explained away Trump’s noxious obsession with his own last name as simply honoring the fifth commandment is trying to make here. Is he accusing the District of Columbia of prioritizing the lives of social justice protesters over the lives of ... people driving in the snow? Where, exactly, does he make that connection? What sort of galaxy brain sees a few flakes come twinkling down in January and immediately gets just so dang furious at Black people?
Please, I’m begging you, explain this tweet to me. It confounds me. It haunts me. It tortures me. But before you do that, remember, if you’re out there driving this winter: Stay safe.
