Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Republicans in disarray!

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

This fight is for everything.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

We still have time to mess this up!

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Everybody saw this coming.

No one could have predicted…

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Late Night PSA Open Thread: One Does Not, In Fact, ‘Have to Hand It’ to Shaun King

Late Night PSA Open Thread: One Does Not, In Fact, ‘Have to Hand It’ to Shaun King

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There was a time when ‘political activist’ Shaun King could be dismissed as a well-intentioned optimist getting in over his head, but that time was at least a decade and multiple scandals ago. From his Wikipedia page:

… King has repeatedly faced accusations of fiscal mismanagement and of raising money from donors which does not reach its intended recipients. In addition, the Grassroots Law Project has been questioned for the high compensation paid to King and his associates, and its lack of progress on its main initiative…

I was genuinely surprised to see him ‘advocating’, after his fashion, in the Israel / Hamas conflict… except that there’s a whole world of new marks for him there. And from what I see of Black Twitter, he seems to have pretty well exhausted his credibility among those he calls skinfolk…


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57Comments

  2. 2.

    sab

    He grifted off Tamir Rice’s family’s grief. Who could do that? Coroner held the kid’s body for nearly a year. Shaun King did a fundraising to help them, then kept all the funds. Who does stuff like that?

  5. 5.

    sab

    @Burnspbesq:  Because he is out there grifting.

    Also too, Adam Silverman dared to criticize him and some deranged or trollish jackal came in and accused Adam of racism, which pissed Adam off and then we had a scare.

  6. 6.

    Maxim

    @sab: I never knew that about the coroner. That’s hideous.

    Shaun King is some kind of ghoul with a broken soul. That list of names for him is hilarious, though.

  7. 7.

    mrmoshpotato

    Didn’t we know he was a pile of shit years ago?  I remember hearing he was a grifter.

    ETA – It’s good to be told of his latest bullshit scams, but him being a scam artist isn’t breaking news.

  8. 8.

    Shalimar

    @mrmoshpotato: The news is that he still has so many followers despite being such an obvious grifter/liar.  Unlike Trump, this asshole is mostly stealing from people on the left.  The more negative publicity he gets, the better.

  10. 10.

    Brachiator

    I am unclear who this guy is and what the controversy is. I gather from the Twitter clips that he may be some kind of fraud, but I am not going to do a deep dive into any of the threads to learn about someone who seems to be a marginal, unsavory con man.

    One of the downsides of Twitter is that it sometimes makes a celebrity, here maybe notorious, of people who previously would be rightfully relegated to obscurity.

    Or maybe I’m wrong and it is important to do something about this guy.

    Shrugs.

  11. 11.

    Aussie Sheila

    The trouble with there being no organised and serious left is that grifters and obvious bull shit artists like this get a ‘name’ or a following. Nothing beats a serious, partisan and well organised left. I know this is apparently impossible in the US, but until it is,  this is what happens. What a complete arsehole. And what a shambles.

    A serious left often gets beaten politically, but a serious left never gets mistaken for such idiocy.

  13. 13.

    Joey Maloney

    There is a serious, partisan, and well organized right in the USA, and it has by far the lion’s share of the grifters. Sean King stands out, whereas on the other side someone playing his game is just, eh, Tuesday.

    So I’m not sure that lack of organization, partisanship, or seriousness are the key reasons for the existence of people like this guy.

    Some people just suck.

  14. 14.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Joey Maloney:

    Yes you are right about the US Right. But I’m sorry, while US liberalism is necessary ballast, it is completely unable on its own, without a well organised, serious, partisan left, to counter the most serious threat to democracy in the world, the U.S. Republican Party. I am old. I have seen the US centre right devolve over my lifetime into fascism adjacent behaviour. To date, despite the heroic efforts of US partisan democrats and Democrats, I have yet to see a serious, forceful pushback against the most dangerous political force in the world. The Republican Party.

  16. 16.

    Nukular Biskits

    I may be thinking of someone else but is Shaun King a white guy married (?) to a woman of color and who was/is (?) allegedly an advocate of and for women of color?

    IIRC, did he not used to post frequently on DailyKos years ago?

    If all this is true, WTF happened?

  17. 17.

    bjacques

    @Aussie Sheila: with respect, I hope you are paying closer attention to the Biden team and the current generation of Democrats. They’re playing offense, even chivvying them to places like Truth Social. And the progressive wing, at least as represented by The Squad, are putting their oar in as well (sorry about that metaphor smoothie.. ).

    Shaun King, Medea Benjamin, et al are grifters who’ve found they can farm the wallets of the online left and the “Do Something!!1!” crowd more profitably by going after Democrats than Republicans.

    But King has extra form by profiting off suffering and playing the White(ish) Savior.

     

    EDIT: No offense, but fall your praises of the Aussie organized left and mandatory voting, your track record in electing governments doesn’t seem much better than ours.

  18. 18.

    satby

    @Aussie Sheila: It’s possible that from your vantage point half a world away you don’t see everything. But it’s nice that you parachute into the overnight threads to tell us all how we’re doing it wrong. Appreciate!

  21. 21.

    Nukular Biskits

    @bjacques:

    But King has extra form by profiting off suffering and playing the White(ish) Savior.

    With reference to my questions above, King “sacrifices” himself to “carry the white man’s burden”, eh?

    Again, if this is the same person (and I haven’t seen that name in a while), WTF happened to him? It’s been years since I recall seeing much if anything about him.

  22. 22.

    satby

    Patrick Skinner @SkinnerPm

    11h

    Home. Was called out at 0130 this morning. Because what the hell did you think was gonna happen with guns literally everywhere. What did you think was gonna happen. Guns aren’t your freedom. They’re the death of my neighbors.

  23. 23.

    Shalimar

    @Nukular Biskits: Shaun King is a guy with 2 white parents who poses as black (he claims his real dad was black, but presents no evidence like a DNA test) and was big in the Black Lives Matter movement a decade ago.  I am sure he was prominent on Daily Kos at the time though I don’t remember if he was ever a front-pager there.  He also grifts at places like Young Turks in addition to his YouTube and Twitter presence.

  24. 24.

    Shalimar

    @Nukular Biskits: As sab mentioned earlier, King was exposed as a fraud long ago when he fundraised off of Tamir Rice’s death, supposedly raising money for the family, but never notified them or gave them the money.  Even when a court ordered him to turn the money over, it went to Rice’s estate instead of directly to his mother.

  25. 25.

    Aussie Sheila

    @bjacques:

    Hi there, I’ll take your comment and reply to you and others that have commented on my post.

    First to you, I have commented a number of times here that I believe that the Biden/Harris administration is the best I have seen in the US in my political lifetime.

    Its performance has been a model of good political management both domestically and foreign policy wise I have ever seen in the last 50 years that Inhave been paying attention to US politics.

    Secondly, with respect to the failure of the recent Australian referendum on Constitutional recognition of indigenous rights, perhaps folks here don’t know, but  we are waiting for Indigenous leaders to have their say, before the rest of us weigh in. I have my views about what happened, but be assured, I won’t be airing them here till it has been hashed out by people who are directly and viscerally affected.
    Thirdly, with respect to the butt hurt about a ‘foreigner’ commenting on US politics, be aware, Australia and Australians generally no matter their politics, are keenly aware of what goes on in your country, because if we aren’t we are likely to be even more effed over than we already are and have been by successive US administrations.

    Despite the domestic propaganda here, the sacking of the Whitlam government here in 1975 owed far more to the CIA  than it did to the UK Monarchy.  Your government, (not anyone here it probably has to be said), did a soft ‘Chile’ on us and a lot of us remember.

    I repeat, and I don’t care that most people here think differently. A well organised and partisan left, not based in online nutters, is a prerequisite for the survival of liberal democracy.

  26. 26.

    satby

    @Nukular Biskits: He’s active on Instagram with millions of followers. An entire, younger generation to propagandize and con. And that’s the thing, this blog skews very old now. Anne Laurie is trying to keep her readers a bit current with events that pass under the radar of people reading the NYT or WaPo, or watching MSNBC. Because that’s not where younger generations are getting their information, for millions following the likes of Shawn King it’s him. And though you all may think it’s a silly distraction, the Biden administration sees the potential danger and is in the game, so they at least take it seriously.

  28. 28.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Aussie Sheila:

    And before I forget my last point, it is true we have had a lot of Comservative federal governments in the last 25 years. But no Australian government, State or Federal, could try the stunts that your Republican State and Federal governments regularly try and get away with, in a thousand years.

  29. 29.

    satby

    @Aussie Sheila: Very much not butthurt, cupcake. Amused. You’ve posted the same repetitive takes about the US left for quite a long time now. But we believe in free speech here, so keep telling us your same spiel, it’s cool.

  31. 31.

    Doc H

    A repurposed Naomi* rhyme/mnemonic via @acekatana.bsky.social on bluesky:

    If Shaun be White, you’re snowboarding all right
    If Shaun be King, buddy it’s a whole fucking thing

    *Klein vs Wolf

  32. 32.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Aussie Sheila:

    And the state of your HoRs proves my point. What an anti democratic shit show. Your governance standards are outrageous. A people without an effective government, whatever its ideological provenance, is a people at the mercy of the worst and most unaccountable forces, made more so by the fact of their ‘private’ and secretive nature. Get a grip.

  33. 33.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Aussie Sheila:

    I have yet to see a serious, forceful pushback against the most dangerous political force in the world. The Republican Party.

    What kind of pushback do you think is necessary but not being done?  I can’t think of much that is legal in the US that Democrats aren’t doing already.  Our far left is certainly worse than useless, it’s co-opted by people whose goal is to sabotage Democrats and nothing else.  As such, the Democrats include the entire Left from center to Marxists who know that they’re not getting that and are ready to aim for what actually can be done.

  34. 34.

    BellyCat

    @satby: It’s a good thing nobody else here post’s repetitive takes/warnings about other countries in which they are interested but do not currently reside. //

    I, for one, appreciate the “outsider” perspective as it often offers clarity that can not be gained from within.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    @satby:

    He’s active on Instagram with millions of followers. An entire, younger generation to propagandize and con.

    I don’t do Instagram, Tik Tok, Whatsapp or even much of Twitter, nor do I spend a lot of time with the NYT, WaPo or MSNBC. But I assumed there was still enough media overlap that I would at least have heard about this guy. Apparently, he doesn’t much register for my 20 something politically active niece.

    But I accept that I may have reached an age where I am no longer in tune with what moves the needle for a much younger generation.

    And though you all may think it’s a silly distraction, the Biden administration sees the potential danger and is in the game, so they at least take it seriously.

    This is good, and reasonable. From reading a little more about King, I can see that the political strategists in the Biden Administration would be aware of his influence.

  36. 36.

    BellyCat

    Speaking of The Youngs ™, I (an old) am informed by a few in this sometimes mysterious species that there are a number of young white people (usually male) with white parents who wish to be identified more with black popular culture (music, sports, and slang) than white popular culture. They refer to themselves as “Wiggers”.

    Make of this what you will. 🤷‍♂️

  37. 37.

    Princess

    @Aussie Sheila: There is indeed a serious, organized, effective left in the United States. It’s Black. Interesting that you can’t see it but I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that’s because you don’t live in the US and have only a distant caricature in mind of how things really are there.

  38. 38.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Agree with you about your ‘far left’. They are as useful as tits on a bull. The ‘first past the post’ structure of your elections is a major problem, because those Aholes never really have to pony up to an actual election, except to run against a Democratic candidate in a Presidential year, thereby handing it to the Right. Like that ineffable narcissist Nader in 2000. I couldn’t believe the idiocy of that at the time, and looking back that decision actually cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

  40. 40.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Princess:

    You are mistaken if you think I don’t see it. I worked with the US trade union  movement for a long time in my career. That means I worked with many great and talented Black comrades. But remind me again the proportion of the US electorate that Black Usains constitute, and remind me again about their voting rights, particularly in the Southern States that return  fascist adjacent representatives.

    I won’t  resile from my original point.
    The US Republican Party is  the most dangerous political formation in the democratic world, US liberalism is not up to the task of defeating them, and the US left is either batshit, or else ineffectual and unable to prevent outrageous affronts to democratic norms, such as an attempted coup against your own government which still has to be dealt with effectively.

    The constant struggle to enable people to be able to vote easily and without hindrance is simply unacceptable in any democratic polity. I’m not talking compulsory voting as we have. I mean being able to walk in and vote, and being sure your vote is counted honestly and properly. I know nobody here defends such outrages, but across the world, where people watch and argue the toss, such political shenanigans are well known, understood and being stored away for when the US lectures yet another poor country about its democratic ‘deficits’.

  43. 43.

    Yarrow

    Excellent post, AL! This guy is such a grifter and fraud, feeding off people’s pain and loss. All around horrible person. I literally laughed out loud at the list of names Black Twitter has for him.

    I agree with the tweet saying he only gets away with it because people giving him lack basic discernment. Who would give his dumbass money? Looks like his wife is in on the grift too. What a pair.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Talcum X, Thurgood Partial, Pale Revere, Tupac
    Sugar, Alexander Scamilton, Chaka Con, Snow J. Simpson, W.E.B. Defraud, Hueless P. Newton, Crooker T. Washington, Martin Luther Cream, Cream Abdul Jabbar, Lames Baldwin, Chalkus Garvey, Martin Luther Scheme. Calvin Crime, Fraudrick Douglass, Mayo Angelou, Stevia Wonder, Honkey Kong, Scamuel L. Jackson, Richard Dolezal, Whack Panther, Ghost Malone,
    Stevie Wonderbread, Neil DeGrasse
    Youwhiteson, Busta Crimes

    Awesome.

  45. 45.

    Nelle

    @satby: i am glad to hear what US politics look like from across the ocean.  (Confession, though.  I’m a dual citizen, US and New Zealand.)  It was a a 15 y.o. boy in New Zealand who said to me, “Trump is going to win” shortly after he came down the escalator and when Huff Post tried to relegate him to the entertainment section.  I snorted.

    After T took office, I asked my student what he’d based his prediction on.  “Miss [all female teachers are “Miss”], Americans are in love with myths and fantasies .  They are ripe for being conned.”

    We don’t have to agree with every observation, but the US is watched very carefully around the world as even our footsteps ripple and reverberate globally.  It’s good to listen.

    I really miss hearing news that isn’t centered on the US.

  46. 46.

    Ben Cisco

    Painfully late to the thread, but I am not about to pass up a chance to dunk on Bell Biv DeFaux, grifter extreme.

    Christ, what an asshole!

  47. 47.

    PBK

    @Nelle: Agree completely.  Also want to tell you how much I admire you for your efforts reaching out to younger people.  You clearly have the skills for it and I’ve enjoyed reading about your encounters.

  49. 49.

    MisterDancer

    @Ben Cisco: Bell Biv DeFaux, grifter extreme.

    fuckin’ same, here. If you don’t know, that’s fine, but he’s done real harm to a whole-assed generation — and because he mostly floats in PoC spaces, a lot of y’all here don’t know him, or of him.

    But like the discussions about Cornell West, Shaun King also matters. This article, already linked in what AL posted, is the information some of y’all said you didn’t see — who he is, and why he matters.

  50. 50.

    MrSnrub

    I followed Shawn King early in my twitter years, but eventually I was able to figure out who he really was.  I’m glad I never sent money.

  51. 51.

    SixStringFanatic

    @satby: It’s been around for at least 40 years.  I heard that term when I was a kid in the 80’s, back when hip hop was still new and a lot of white kids were fascinated by it.

  56. 56.

    cope

    Deleted my post because I uncharacteristically made it before reading all the previous posts. Sorry for wasting so many bits.

  57. 57.

    Marc

    @sab:  Also too, Adam Silverman dared to criticize him and some deranged or trollish jackal came in and accused Adam of racism, which pissed Adam off and then we had a scare.

    Very late to this thread, but so be it. I’m just an ordinary black person, but the tweets Adam originally posted (then deleted) made me feel uncomfortable.  I don’t much appreciate it when anyone tries to deny whatever identity (racial, gender, you pick it) someone has chosen for themselves, particularly when part of an effort (right or wrong) to discredit or mock that person.  The fact that this Shaun asshole might have two apparently “white” parents doesn’t necessarily mean he isn’t black, particularly in a place like Kentucky.  Who knows? None of us do, nor, for that matter, does “Black” Twitter.  I, too, must be a deranged “jackal”.  That is all.

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