A tweet from Barack Obama drew 2.8 million “likes” in three days as the former US president offered a message condemning racism following a deadly clash on Saturday at a white supremacist rally at Charlottesville, Virginia.
“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion,” Obama said in the tweet, quoting the late South African leader Nelson Mandela.
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“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion…” pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017
Obama’s tweet, the most popular of all time, according to the Twitter-tracking site Favstar. The message was retweeted 1.182 million times with 46,000 replies including both positive and negative comments.
Obama’s tweet struck a chord after the death of a 32-year-old woman hit by a car driven into a crowd by a suspected white supremacist.
The former US president followed the tolerance tweet with more from Mandela’s autobiographical Long Walk to Freedom: “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.
“For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”
Each has had more than a million likes, and hundreds of thousands of retweets.
“…For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.” – Nelson Mandela
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017
Each has had more than a million likes, and hundreds of thousands of retweets.
At the same time, President Donald Trump drew fire for a tepid initial response to the violence, in which he blamed violence “on many sides” and insisted that some of those at the Unite the Right rally were “very fine people”.
On Monday he comes up with a stronger condemnation of “those who spread violence in the name of bigotry.”
On Tuesday he declared a new combative and insistent message: “there is blame on both sides”, appearing to once again equate the actions of white supremacist groups and those protesting them. He showed sympathy for the efforts to preserve Confederate monuments. Trump’s remarks were welcomed by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who tweeted, “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth.”
Many responds on social media pointed out the difference in approach between the two US presidents.
The most-liked tweet of all time was from singer Ariana Grande after a deadly attack at her Manchester concert saying: “from the bottom of my heart, i am so so sorry” — after
That tweet dethroned the popular photo tweet from the 2014 Oscars ceremony by actress Ellen DeGeneres.
