When rapper 21 Savage was arrested over the weekend for living in the U.S. illegally, fans were shocked to learn the hip-hop king of Atlanta was actually from the United Kingdom. The revelation launched a thousand memes, including some that made Demi Lovato laugh.
The Internet, however, was not amused.
The singer tweeted, “So far 21 Savage memes have been my favorite part of the Super Bowl.” People responded to her tweet by reminding her of her history of drug abuse, calling her a crackhead and an addict.
The bullying and abuse went from 0 to 100 fast, causing Lovato to delete her Twitter account.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the controversial government agency responsible for 21 Savage’s arrest, is an easy target. So is a singer who has been remarkably honest about her struggles with drug addiction and mental stability. It’s not fair to direct the nation’s vitriol toward ICE at a 26-year-old who, like the rest of us, was bored by the Super Bowl.
Before deleting her Twitter, Lovato said, “If you’re gonna come at me for making a joke, try coming at me for something original and not involving drugs.”
You can say her tweet wasn’t in good taste, but you can’t say, as one Twitter user did, “she does crack why she laughing.” She wasn’t making fun of the rapper for facing deportation. She was reacting, as many other fans did, with shock and amusement that the rapper wasn’t what he’d made himself out to be. (For the record, the offending meme showed a hand holding a quill pen with the caption, “This how 21 Savage be writing his verses.”)
Since last summer, when the nation became aware of the deplorable conditions of children at ICE detention facilities and “Abolish ICE” became a rallying cry among the Democratic Party, many Americans have seen ICE as synonymous with malevolence. But surely, there’s some way to express distrust for the immigration system without resorting to personal attacks and cyberbullying.
