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R&B singer and actor Tyrese Gibson made headlines this week for a new role he seems to have taken on: spreader of political misinformation.
Gibson, often referred to simply as Tyrese, delivered a tirade aimed at President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris last week during a livestream on Instagram with civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump. The "Sweet Lady" singer's remarks featured disinformation I’ve seen deployed by influencers in the extremely online, conservative-friendly American Descendants of Slavery movement, known as ADOS, as they've sought to turn Black people against the Biden administration over bogus claims that Democrats have disadvantaged African Americans to benefit immigrants and other ethnic groups in the United States.
In essence, Gibson — who stars in the newly released thriller film "1992" — claimed Biden signed an “Asian hate crime bill" but is unwilling to pass a similar bill to protect Black people.
Gibson said:
It is a crime bill that was signed into law that protects Asians at all costs. Where is that same f---ing law to be signed into ... law when it comes to Black and brown people? Because what you’re doing is — President Biden and Kamala Harris — what you’re doing is, you’re saying that Black and brown people will continue to be disposable.
He used the phrase “Asian hate crime bill” multiple times in his rant but, reader, there is no such thing. Perhaps, Gibson merely read headlines of news articles describing the real bill in shorthand as an Asian hate crime bill. But in reality, Congress reacted to the raft of anti-Asian attacks in 2021, during the Covid pandemic, with the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act. As NPR noted, this bill simply instructed and provided tools for the Justice Department to expedite the review of Covid-related hate crimes — not merely those committed against Asian people, but all Covid-related hate crimes. The word “Asian” appears only in the opening paragraphs of the law to explain the impetus behind the legislation.
And that’s before we address the blatantly false suggestion that hate crime legislation crafted for Black people doesn’t already exist. It does. The Civil Rights Act of 1968, the Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996, and the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 were all authorized in response to anti-Black hate crimes. (The 2009 act was named after Shepard, a white gay college student murdered by two men in 1998, and Byrd, a Texas Black man who was murdered by white supremacists the same year). And in 2022, Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law. Till’s cousin, Wheeler Parker, stood beside Biden as he signed the bill, and he spoke with me last year about the hard work required of him and his family over the years to get such a bill passed.
Of course, all of this can be discovered through a quick Google search, which is why Gibson is getting the same side eyes as other Black celebrities known to spread right-wing propaganda. It’s so cringeworthy hearing those who seem to comport themselves as followers of Black culture indignantly denying aspects of Black history — including very recent Black history — that could easily be verified.
I’ll note here that Gibson has a history of eyebrow-raising outbursts online, so he’s probably not the one to consult when you’re looking for historical or political facts. (Gibson said earlier this week that he's "retiring" from social media, but that didn't seem to stick as he's posted on Instagram several times since then.)
Gibson's false claim is just one data point in a wave of anti-Harris misinformation targeting Black people this election cycle.