Chris Pratt Called an ‘Alt-Right Racist’ for Wearing a Patriotic T-Shirt
Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt was the target of manufactured internet outrage this week, after donning a t-shirt with historic and patriotic significance.
The controversy began after a picture of Pratt wearing a shirt with a variation of the Gadsden Flag on it was posted on Twitter. The shirt featured a coiled snake against an American flag with the words “Don’t Tread On Me.”
The Gadsden flag, which was created during the American Revolution, has come to characterize and embody American defiance against oppression.
Here is the picture of Pratt wearing the shirt.
Yahoo entertainment reporter Hanna Flint took the picture and wrote a story titled “Chris Pratt criticised for ‘white supremacist’ T-shirt.” It originally ran on Yahoo UK but was also carried on Yahoo news feeds in America.
Flint then tied the Tea Party’s use of the flag to bring in charges of white supremacy for those who wear it. Sarah Rumpf of RedState pointed out that “Hanna Flint’s argument starts with smearing the tea party as ‘Far Right’ and Second Amendment supporters as ‘gun-toting.’
The article then claims the Gadsden flag is “sometimes interpreted to convey racially-tinged messages in some contexts.” That is a common accusation by far-left activist groups like Antifa, but Flint offers no proof to back this narrative.
Although Yahoo’s Flint attempted to portray the outrage as widespread, the backlash was largely manufactured. The angry tweets Flint posted were only isolated opinions in the grand scale, created by users with only a few hundred followers, combined.
A few tweets labeled Pratt as “racist” and embracing symbols of white supremacy, while others called him a member of the “alt-right.” Most of those tweets, however, were later deleted after receiving criticism.
Some, however remain available to see.
More angry tweets can easily be found.
There was this tweet, from a Twitter user with five followers.
While most people saw the shirt as a non-issue, media outlets and news sites jumped on the story, reprinting the narrative without questioning it.
The story, however, sparked outrage it did not expect – from people defending Pratt and the flag.
Yahoo tried to walk back the controversy, changing the title of the story to “Chris Pratt criticised for t-shirt choice.” It added a disclaimer noting the changes and removal of the “white supremacy” reference.
The response to the story has also appeared to spark an interest in the shirt Pratt wore, with others wanting to buy it for themselves.
Pratt has not directly addressed the controversy, but continues to tweet as if it never happened, cracking jokes and posting Bible verses.
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