Journalist attacked and maced for being MAGA — Frank Scales speaks out



Conservative journalist and co-founder of Surge Media Frank Scales was attacked and maced by a radical leftist on the bus — who justified her actions by claiming that he was a racist and a fascist who harasses people.

In a video of the attack, the woman continues to get in Scales' face while he’s sitting down in his bus seat, before pulling out the mace.

He was able to dodge the mace, which got the back of his head, and when he pressed her on why she believed he was a racist, she said she has seen what he posts on the internet.

“You talk s**t about Islamic people, you talk s**t about black people, you talk s**t about Mexicans, and you post it on the internet,” she screamed, completely unhinged.


“I was looking out of the window, enjoying my ride on the bus, and this lady behind me started screaming at me. She essentially said, ‘You’re a fascist, you’re a racist, I seen you on the internet.’” And I said, ‘I disagree with that characterization you’re making about my work, but I hope you have a good day,’” Scales tells BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”

“And when she saw she couldn’t bait me into an argument, she got more aggressive, and I immediately started recording. I’m very grateful that I started recording pretty quickly and captured the whole interaction on my phone, and we posted it. But it was out of nowhere,” he continues.

“What shocks me is how fast she went from trying to bait me to getting violent with me. It was very unnerving,” he adds.

“That seems to be the typical, Democrat, liberal MO is to bait you. … When that doesn’t work, they get very angry and they get very violent, as it turns out,” Gonzales says.

The even more interesting part of the attack is that Scales knew his attacker.

“You guys attended school together at the Community College of Philadelphia, and so you knew each other. You had a seemingly good relationship. She was interviewing you about being student body president. So what happened, Frank?” Gonzales asks.

“First, I was investigated for saying that the founding fathers of this country were good people. And then I endorsed President Trump, and I got impeached and removed from my position as student government president. At that point, everybody turned on me,” he explains.

“I think she actually wrote a hit piece on me,” he says of his attacker.

“I think the Community College of Philadelphia needs to come out and they need to denounce political violence for my own safety,” he adds.

Want more from Sara Gonzales?

To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

ANOTHER Black Lives Matter scam exposed: Oklahoma leader accused of blowing funds on trips, real estate, shopping sprees



The leftist identitarian organization Black Lives Matter has long been attractive to bad actors keen to manufacture outrage and cash in on liberal guilt. While some BLM activists have already been exposed as criminals, it appears the rot goes far deeper.

The Justice Department announced on Thursday that a federal grand jury has indicted the executive director of Black Lives Matter Oklahoma City, Tashella Sheri Amore Dickerson, on charges of wire fraud and money laundering.

'It is not about me at all.'

Dickerson, a 52-year-old pro-abortion and pro-Palestinian activist, is accused of embezzling millions of dollars and blowing various funds on recreational travel, shopping, real estate, and even a new vehicle.

Although not itself a registered tax-exempt organization, BLMOKC was apparently able to accept charitable donations through its affiliation with the Open Society Foundations-supported leftist organization Alliance for Global Justice — its fiscal sponsor — on the conditions that it use its funds only as permitted by Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and account for the disbursement of all funds received upon request.

The indictment alleges that the BLMOKC under Dickerson began hitting people and organizations up for cash in a big way around the time of the deadly 2020 BLM riots, ultimately raking in over $5.6 million.

Dickerson told the Oklahoman in July 2020, "It is very humbling to be able to serve my community and help people in this manner. But I also understand it is not about me at all. That it is all about being community."

The DOJ indicated that BLMOKC was supposed to use grant money from national bail funds to post pretrial bail for race rioters, though it was sometimes permitted to keep some or all of the bail money when returned for the purposes of establishing a revolving bail fund or in service of its supposed "social justice mission."

It turns out Dickerson had other ideas.

RELATED: University of Minnesota faces backlash over project that seeks to cure the 'Whiteness Pandemic'

Photo by Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images

According to the indictment, from June 2020 through at least October 2025, Dickerson allegedly embezzled funds from the BLM chapter's coffers, depositing at least $3.15 million in returned bail checks into her personal accounts.

Rather than use the funds for so-called social justice or to spring thugs from jail, Dickerson allegedly blew the money on trips to Jamaica and the Dominican Republic; on costly retail shopping sprees; on a personal vehicle registered in her name; and on six real estate properties either deeded in her name or in the name of an entity she alone controlled.

Dickerson, who apparently had access to the group's bank, Paypal, and CashApp accounts since its inception in 2016, also allegedly spent at least $50,000 on food deliveries for herself and her kids.

The indictment alleged further that Dickerson, adding insult to injury, repeatedly submitted false annual reports to Alliance for Global Justice, claiming that she had used the BLM chapter's funds only for tax-exempt purposes.

"We seek to combat and counter acts of violence, create space for black sustainability and creativity, advocate for non-racist, non-oppressive policies, demand justice, and develop black power," states the website for Dickerson's BLM chapter.

The website's donation page was still up at the time of publication.

Dickerson has been charged with 20 counts of wire fraud and five counts of money laundering. For each wire fraud charge, the BLM activist faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000. For each of the money laundering charges, she faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Dickerson indicated in a Facebook video on Thursday she was not in custody and that she was "fine." While she suggested she could not make an "official comment" about the indictment, she said, "A lot of times when people come at you with these types of things … it's evidence that you are doing the work. That is what I'm standing on."

The indictment in Oklahoma comes just months after Massachusetts-based BLM activist Monica Cannon-Grant pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud conspiracy, 10 counts of wire fraud, one count of mail fraud, and two counts each of filing false tax returns and failing to file tax returns.

The race hustler, whose Violence in Boston organization partnered with BLM, duped people into thinking she was helping reduce violence and promoting social awareness, when in fact, she was using their donations to enrich herself. She also defrauded the Boston COVID-19 relief fund, the Boston Office of Housing Stability, and other institutions.

Last year, BLM activist Tyree Conyers-Page of Ohio was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors indicated that Conyers-Page defrauded donors of more than $450,000 that they collectively gave to his "Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta" organization, which he falsely claimed was a nonprofit.

WPDE-TV reported in May 2023 that federal tax filings from 2020 to 2022 revealed only $30 million of the $90 million BLM raised went to other charitable organizations; $22 million went to expenses; $1.6 million went to BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors' father for security service; and $2.1 million went to BLM board member Shalomyah Bowers for consulting.

While activists sued the organization in the wake of reports that BLM co-founders Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Melina Abdullah treated themselves to a $6 million mansion in Southern California with donation money, their suit was dismissed in June 2023 by a judge who concluded their "complaint fails to sufficiently allege the how, when, where, to whom, and by what means" misrepresentations were tendered.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Georgetown prof starts running after realizing he's talking to James O'Keefe — and his racial 'slurs' are on camera



Jonathan Franklin, a former race and identity correspondent for National Public Radio who now apparently serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, recently went into panic-mode after realizing he had made a series of damning remarks to investigative journalist James O'Keefe on hidden camera.

In the footage published on Wednesday by the O'Keefe Media Group, Franklin — whose personal website is now password-protected, Instagram profile has been set to private, and page on the Georgetown University was largely scrubbed — appears to call various black conservatives a "coon," including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Candace Owens, and U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas Herschel Walker.

'Well, the thing is that I actually am James O'Keefe.'

When pressed by O'Keefe on why he hasn't shared such views publicly, Franklin, who is set to teach a journalism course on sourcing and interviews, appears to say, "I'd have to stop being a journalist for me to say what I really want to say."

At one point in his conversation with O'Keefe — whom he evidently did not recognize on account of a pair of glasses — Franklin appears to say, "I work with a bunch of stupid white people."

Franklin declined to comment on the situation involving the video published by O'Keefe, a representative told Blaze News.

RELATED: University of Minnesota faces backlash over project that seeks to cure the 'Whiteness Pandemic'

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Georgetown University did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

After hearing enough racially charged rhetoric, O'Keefe asks Franklin in the video what he thinks about James O'Keefe.

Franklin answers, "I've heard from people he's an a**h**e."

"Well, he does, like, the undercover stuff and, like, exposes people, you know?" says O'Keefe. "He exposes people, you know, telling people, like, what they really think."

"There's a way to do that sort of watchdog, gotcha, ambush journalism but doing in a way that doesn't disrespect the person that you're trying to catch or yourself as a reporter," says Franklin.

O'Keefe then takes off his glasses, points to the hidden camera, and announces to Franklin, "Well, the thing is that I actually am James O'Keefe."

"No, you're not," responds Franklin.

Upon realizing the man he'd been talking to is in fact James O'Keefe, Franklin gets up and begins to run away. Outside the building, Franklin can be seen falling to the ground. After asking whether the adjunct was all right, O'Keefe tries asking him clarifying questions about his apparent "coon" comments, to which Franklin responds, "I will sue."

O'Keefe and his team subsequently took Franklin to a pharmacy to get him Band-Aids for the cuts he sustained in his tumble. After cooling off, Franklin appeared to confirm to O'Keefe on camera that while he did work for NPR, he had lied during their earlier conversation about working for CBS News.

When later discussing the encounter, O'Keefe questioned whether an individual who allegedly harbors racist views and would share them with a stranger should be teaching journalism classes at an institution like Georgetown University.

"That type of racism is not just his personal opinion," said O'Keefe. "It is a bias about a group of people that directly affects fairness, credibility and judgment. Why? Because he's a professor who is using these slurs. He is revealing a framework that shapes how he interprets information."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

VIRAL VIDEO: Cinnabon worker yells racist slurs at customers, and the internet crowns her a hero



A video has gone mega-viral after a Wisconsin Cinnabon worker, Crystal Wilsey, was recorded shouting racist slurs, including the N-word, at a Somalian husband and wife.

The video showed Wilsey cursing at the customers, at one point even saying, “I am racist and I’ll say it to the whole entire world. Don’t be disrespectful.” However, in an unedited version of the video, the husband can first be heard asking Wilsey if "sexualizing your body makes you a better person."

When Wilsey asks if she is being recorded, the wife responds, "I'm going to record you, yes."

There are then cuts in the video, before it escalates to the woman calling the couple the N-word. While many viewers were angry that she used the slur, the response online has been divided.

But BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere knows where he stands.

“Not the best moment anyone’s ever had in a Cinnabon,” Burguiere tells CBN’s Dan Andros on “Stu Does America.”


Despite the Somalian couple being accused of starting the altercation, Burguiere believes there's "never an excuse to lose control of yourself."

"What I’m kind of interested in here, more than anything else, is the reaction of some online who are basically saying it’s wrong that she was fired from this job, which obviously she was immediately,” he says.

“It’s ‘wrong’ because that’s basically cancel culture in action. Is this cancel culture, Dan?” he asks.

“There’s cancel culture and then there’s play stupid games, win stupid prizes. And what happened here is the latter. Like, let’s just think about your job here. You are making delicious cinnamon rolls that smell yummy … and it’s like, this is your job,” Andros says.

“Your job is to give someone a little taste of Cinnabon happiness. You know, cinnamon roll goodness and deliciousness and with a smile on your face. … Isn’t it that the customer’s always right? They might be jerks, they might be saying rude things, they might be in a hurry, they might complain,” he continues.

“Just smile. You’re getting paid,” he adds.

However, not everyone feels the same way as Burguiere and Andros, as Crystal has raised over $100,000 on GiveSendGo after her firing.

“She’s a representative of a company, in the same way that if I went into, you know, a Sbarro, and they were like, ‘By the way, can’t stand those Jews,’ I would say that person should lose their job,” Burguiere explains.

“Not because I love cancel culture,” he continues, adding, “because they’re representing your business."

"They have an absolute right to fire you,” Andros chimes in.

Want more from Stu?

To enjoy more of Stu's lethal wit, wisdom, and mockery, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Throwback: 15 utterly UNHINGED things libs labeled ‘racist’



“Every facet of the coffee industry, in fact, is rooted in racism. From the moment the whites viciously stole coffee from black and brown people to the present-day Karen sipping her morning cup of white supremacy, whites have been able to drink the fruits of our labor and our culture with impunity.”

What you just read is an actual quote from an article published in 2023 — back when literally everything was labeled racist by the woke mafia.

In this throwback Allie Beth Stuckey piece, we remember some of the most ridiculous things the critical race theory-obsessed left has used to label white people racists over the years. And sadly, coffee isn’t even close to the most absurd one on the list.

Picnics

A 2020 article from the Philadelphia Inquirer posited that “picnics” were racist because there was once a time when “Southern white people made lynchings a regular occurrence at picnics.”

If you are going to continue using the word “picnic,” then you need to make sure “that history is being talked about,” author Elizabeth Wellington wrote.

“That's not what people think of when they're thinking of going out to a park, laying a blanket down, and eating some sandwiches,” scoffed Allie.

Brain pairings (like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches)

Speaking of sandwiches, PB&Js are apparently the perfect metaphor for “implicit bias” against black males in America, according to a video released by the New York Times in 2016.

Social psychologist and management professor at the New York University Stern School of Business Dolly Chugh argued, “I somehow know that if you say peanut butter, I’m gonna say jelly. That’s an association that’s been ingrained in me. ... In many forms of media, there’s an overrepresentation of black men and violent crime being paired together.”

Dairy

In 2022, a KFF Health News article reported that 28 civil rights and child advocacy groups — including one led by Al Sharpton — sent a letter to the USDA accusing the National School Lunch Program of "dietary racism."

Their reasoning? Offering only cow’s milk, ignoring non-dairy alternatives, was racist because children of color apparently have higher rates of lactose intolerance.

Bicycling

A 2021 article from the Washington Post argued that American cycling is racist because a really long time ago, black people were excluded from bicycling clubs.

And then, of course, there’s the issue of racist white cops. “For black Southerners, the cost, dangers and white policing of cycling mobility combined with the weakening of its middle‑class status, meant that the popularity of the bicycle declined within the black community,” author Nathan Cardon wrote.

Equestrianism

If a piece of equipment doesn’t fit you properly, the designers are obviously racist against you. At least that’s the position the New York Times took in a front-page article from 2023 titled “Black equestrians want to be safe. But they can’t find helmets.”

In it, author McKenna Oxenden condemned racist manufacturers of equestrian equipment for not making helmets that accommodate certain black hairstyles, like dreadlocks.

“Is a helmet going to be safe if it's like six inches off of your skull? No, it's not. I don't think it has anything to do with you being black,” Allie retorted.

Recreational running

In 2020, Medium published an article titled “Running is too white. It doesn’t need to be,” in which author Ryan Fan complained that America’s recreational running community is “too white.”

There was only one possible explanation for that, said Fan: systemic inaccessibility and exclusion. All those white runners just make people of color feel unsafe and unwelcome.

“We can do better. We have to,” he pleaded.

“Agree. I don’t like running, so running is too white. And it is because I am an ally that I choose not to,” Allie joked.

National parks

In 2020, ABC published a melodramatic article titled “America’s national parks face existential crisis over race.” In it, authors Stephanie Ebbs and Devin Dwyer reported that national park visitors were “overwhelmingly white” — 77% compared to 23% of non-whites.

The piece quoted then-Associate Director of the Sierra Club Joel Pannell, who fretted that this racial disparity in park visitors spelled doom for the country’s national parks (many of which have been going strong for over a century).

“If we don’t address this ... then we’re going to risk losing everything,” he lamented.

“Not enough black people are going outside, so that’s the problem,” Allie mocked.

STD names

In 2022, NPR published an article titled “Critics say ‘monkeypox’ is a racist name. But it’s not going away anytime soon.” In the piece, author Bill Chappell quoted several critics upset about the name monkeypox, as it apparently stigmatizes the black and LGBTQ+ communities.

“There is a long history of referring to blacks as monkeys. Therefore, ‘monkeypox’ is racist and stigmatizes black people,” said global health advocate Ifeanyi Nsofor, ignoring the fact that the virus’ name was coined after it was originally discovered in lab monkeys in 1958.

Energy

Yes, energy — the stuff that powers the world — is “inherently racist,” suggested a 2022 article from Utility Dive.

Author Robert Walton reported that environmental justice advocates were up in arms because the U.S. energy sector is supposedly structurally racist due to historical policies like redlining and discriminatory infrastructure, which have disproportionately burdened low-income and communities of color with high costs and pollution.

Highways

In 2021, the Washington Times published a piece titled “When highways are racist,” in which author Cheryl Chumley lambasted Biden’s Department of Transportation for weaponizing civil rights laws to block a Houston highway project under the absurd pretext that infrastructure can be racist.

Ballet

A 2021 article from Marie Claire bemoaned the art of ballet as structurally white supremacist. Author Chloe Angyal argued that ballet — its aesthetics, history, and culture — is inherently racist because it reinforces a narrow, European ideal that marginalizes dancers of color.

“Ballet is not just white. It is white on purpose,” Angyal complained.

“There's just not enough black people going up on their tiptoes,” Allie jeered.

Camping

Pitching a tent and roasting some marshmallows under the stars isn’t as innocent as it sounds, said Fast Company writer Elizabath Segran in a 2021 article called “The unbearable whiteness of camping.”

The monopoly white people apparently have on the outdoors all goes back to our colonial roots when colonizers took Indigenous land and turned it into “wilderness” for white recreation, she argued. Those mean ol’ white settlers romanticized themselves as “pioneers” while condemning Native people as “savages” for living out in nature, only to turn around and make nature an element of white culture.

Fast-forward a few hundred years and that same stigma still keeps non-whites from venturing outdoors. Patagonia jackets are too expensive; REI ads are too pale; and black people are apparently disproportionally targeted when they brave the elements.

Philosophy

Much of the genius that came from some of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment and German Idealist philosophy has bias baked into it, argued Aeon writer Avram Alpert in a 2021 piece titled “Philosophy’s systemic racism.” Ideas from the likes of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel must be “decolonized,” meaning we must expose how their core logic secretly ranks non-Europeans as irrational “savages” who need white reason to evolve, then flip the script to affirm that people of color already have their own internal progress — no European “uplift” required.

Organized pantries

Those little spice jars with the labels and the matching containers for your pasta and rice? Yeah well, they’re racist, said Associate Professor of Marketing at Loyola University Jenna Drenten.

Dubbing the trend of having aesthetically pleasing cupboards “pantry porn,” Drenten wrote, “Cleanliness has historically been used as a cultural gatekeeping mechanism to reinforce status distinctions based on a vague understanding of ‘niceness’: nice people, with nice yards, in nice houses, make for nice neighbors. What lies beneath the surface of this anti-messiness, pro-niceness stance is a history of classist, racist, and sexist social structures.”

“So you hear that black people? This professor doesn't think that you can organize your pantry; you need to make it messy in order to really be pro-black and anti-racist,” laughed Allie.

This throwback to the peak-woke era — when coffee was cultural theft and PB&J pairings were microaggressions — proves one thing: The fever has broken, but the receipts still make us laugh.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Woke lecturer cries 'white supremacy' after MAGA-racist smear doesn't go as planned



A nose-ringed Indiana University lecturer is accusing the university of racism for investigating her in-class smear of MAGA as racist.

During a press conference held on Friday by the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors, IU School of Social Work lecturer Jessica Adams claimed that she was barred last month from teaching a "Diversity, Human Rights, and Social Justice" master's class and from contacting her students after a student filed a complaint over her use of a graphic that suggested "Make America Great Again" is a form of "covert white supremacy."

'I feel like white supremacy is actually on full display in the way that my case has been handled.'

According to the graphic Adams provided to the Indianapolis Star, "Make America Great Again" is a form of "socially acceptable" and "covert" white supremacy.

The following are also listed as forms of "covert white supremacy" on Adams' pyramid:

  • "Bootstrap Theory," the idea that individuals can achieve success through their own efforts;
  • anti-immigration policies;
  • paternalism;
  • "Euro-centric Curriculum";
  • "English-only Initiatives";
  • police killing non-whites;
  • "Denial of White Privilege";
  • "Denial of Racism";
  • celebrating Columbus Day;
  • "Fearing People of Color";
  • "Expecting POC to Teach White People";
  • colorblindness; and
  • the assertion that "we're just one human family."

The placement of the different forms of "white supremacy" in the critical race theory pyramid is intended to signal their severity. "Make America Great Again" is located just below the line that separates "covert white supremacy" from "overt white supremacy" — a category that includes neo-Nazis, cross burnings, lynchings, and the KKK.

RELATED: Coddled Harvard students cry after dean exposes grade inflation, 'relaxed' standards

Trump supporter at a rally in Evansville, Indiana. Photo by Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images.

Adams claimed that while a student had initially complained about the leftist propaganda to Indiana Republican Sen. Jim Banks' office, the formal complaint was ultimately filed by her dean, Kalea Benner, who allegedly accused Adams of presenting "biased information as fact."

Evidencing her ideological blinders and apparent antipathy for the school's administration, Adams, who appears to be white, suggested that the dean of the IU School of Social Work was a racist for questioning the factual nature of the pyramid, stating, "I feel that the assumption that it is not evidence based is rooted in white supremacist ideology. I feel like it's very much rooted in the assumption that the experiences and the voices of minoritized populations, individuals, communities are not valid. And so I feel like white supremacy is actually on full display in the way that my case has been handled."

Adams suggested further the critical race theory pyramid was credible since it is used by leftist organizations such as the National Education Association "as a tool for anti-racist and anti-oppressive education."

A letter from IU administrators indicated the woke lecturer potentially violated Indiana's intellectual diversity law, reported the Star.

Indiana Republicans passed legislation last year aimed at cultivating intellectual diversity on campuses and in classrooms.

Under Senate Enrolled Act 202, professors and other faculty members at state educational institutions are expected not only to foster a culture of free inquiry and free expression inside the classroom but to refrain from subjecting students "to political or ideological views and opinions that are unrelated to the faculty member's academic discipline or assigned course of instruction."

Adams has suggested, however, that she was teaching within her discipline and the scope of the course.

"I was asked to teach on structural racism, and as you teach on structural racism in the United States, you cannot not discuss white supremacy," Adams said during Friday's press conference. "It is the ideology that emboldens racist behavior."

While reportedly removed from the one class, Adams continues to teach three other courses at the university.

Under the IU code, a faculty member could face various disciplinary sanctions, including a written reprimand, a probationary period, a temporary suspension without pay, termination of employment, and/or immediate dismissal.

Banks' office did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

IU spokesman Mark Bode told WFIU Public Radio that the university does not comment on personnel matters.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Serena Williams disgusted over cotton plant inside hotel — then it quickly backfires



Tennis legend Serena Williams recently asked her social media followers their opinions on some decor she found inside a New York City hotel.

Williams was in town for an event put on by apparel companies SKIMS and Nike, which included a walk on a red carpet with Kim Kardashian. On Thursday, Williams made a temporary Instagram story post from inside an unknown hotel room where she made a discovery.

'She has a thing against cotton??'

In a point-of-view video, Williams walks up to a cotton plant sitting on a table in a hallway and asks her audience, "All right, everyone. How do we feel about cotton as decoration?"

"Personally for me, it doesn't feel great," Williams stated.

In another post immediately after, Williams is shown wearing a one-piece gray suit with one leather glove on, while holding a piece of cotton in her hand.

"Feels like nail polish remover cotton," she noted. Williams then touched it to her fingernail before visibly cringing and walking out of frame.

Although there was no opportunity for viewers to leave comments on Williams' choice of video format, on other pages that reposted the clip, she did not garner any of the support she may have been looking for.

RELATED: Serena Williams and ‘The View' DEFINE ‘crip walking’ as black culture

On the page TheShadeRoom, black viewers overwhelmingly disagreed with Williams taking issue with the plant.

"I don't feel nothing about it!! It’s cute. She has a thing against cotton??" asked Gee Gee.

"I actually think it's beautiful [art] decoration," said a woman named Constance.

"They weren't out there for her to see it as an offensive gesture. ... It's decor," a man named Jay commented.

"It's a plant! We aren't picking it, giving free labor anymore! It's a beautiful plant," remarked Kiesha.

A few viewers inferred from Williams' video that she saw the decoration as racist, with a woman named Charlandra claiming, "Seeing raw cotton can evoke racial trauma, recalling the forced labor our ancestors endured while picking raw cotton! Some of these hotels do have racial undertones! It’s a weird looking plant."

At the same time though, kiky808 said, "Victim card race baiting bs while wearing a blonde wig."

RELATED: Coco Gauff: ‘I’m proud to represent the Americans that LOOK like me’

Serena Williams and Kim Kardashian attend the NikeSKIMS Launch Event at Nike House of Innovation on September 24, 2025, in New York City. Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for SKIMS

But viewers on that page were not alone. Over on TMZ Sports, the vast majority of black commenters also saw no problem with the plant.

For example, Aurora commented, "It's a plant. They didn't ask you to pick it."

Another comment read, "Black woman here, I have cotton plant decorations all over my place, they're beautiful. Wrap this up."

Cathy, who listed Milan, Italy, as her residence, asked, "Do people in America not wear cotton clothes?"

A woman named Jamie asked an interesting question when she wrote, "I'm Asian ... should I be offended when people throw rice at weddings[?]"

While Williams did not explicitly say she felt the plant was a racist dog whistle, the overwhelming interpretation of her video and remarks indicated that she was, indeed, implying it.

In the past, Williams has received public support from the media surrounding allegedly racist cartoons and alleged sexism on the tennis court. Now that she's retired and not as frequently in the public eye, her support for these plights may be drying up.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The Left Accuses The Right Of Hate To Avoid Debate And Silence Opposition

Conservatives' views on marriage, transgenderism, abortion, race, and more are based on reason, science, economics, and the Bible — not hate.

Vanity Fair smears Charlie Kirk — but race-hustling author just ends up attacking common sense



Ta-Nehisi Coates, the race obsessive who suggested in 2020 that rioting was a "natural reaction" among black Americans, has joined David Corn of Mother Jones and other radicals in smearing Charlie Kirk after his assassination, allegedly by a leftist homosexual.

In his desperation to demonize Kirk, Coates — who penned hagiographies for Breonna Taylor and Michael Brown — provided the public with a reminder both of his own radicalism and the left's intolerance of common sense.

The critical race theorist was apparently prickled when some of his fellow travelers — namely Ezra Klein of the New York Times, Sally Jenkins of the Atlantic, and California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom — dared to say nice things about Charlie Kirk.

Coates evidently decided to compensate for his liberal peers' relatively decent remarks by penning an anti-Kirk polemic for Vanity Fair, thereby contributing further to the genre of conservative demonization that appears to have helped set the stage for the Turning Point USA founder's slaying.

In his Sept. 16 article, Coates, a Vanity Fair contributing editor, argued that Klein, Jenkins, Newsom, and other members of the "political class" were "sanitizing" Kirk's legacy by focusing on his numerous good-spirited campus engagements with people from different walks of life, instead of complaining about the murdered patriot's politics, which Coates claims "amounted to little more than a loathing of those whose mere existence provoked his ire."

Coates, who wrote in one of his books that the firefighters and police who died in the process of saving lives on 9/11 "were not human to me" but rather "menaces of nature," noted:

It is not just, for instance, that Kirk held disagreeable views — that he was pro-life, that he believed in public executions, or that he rejected the separation of church and state. It’s that Kirk reveled in open bigotry. Indeed, claims of Kirk’s "civility" are tough to square with his penchant for demeaning members of the LGBTQ+ community as "freaks" and referring to trans people with the slur "tranny."

Coates was clearly upset by Kirk's use of the term "freaks"; however, in context, it's clear that the TPUSA founder was being charitable, as more damning words may have been more appropriate.

RELATED: Explosive alleged text messages between suspected Kirk killer and his transgender roommate obliterate liberal narrative

Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images

Kirk stated on a Dec. 9, 2022, episode of "The Charlie Kirk Show" that the Biden administration was "being run by freaks. That's not an exaggeration; that's not hyperbole. At the highest stakes imaginable, people that have very deep-seated mental problems are running some of the most consequential government programs conceivable."

Kirk specifically referred to Demetre Daskalakis and Samuel Brinton, a pair of individuals who fit the bill.

Daskalakis is the sex-obsessed homosexual "activist physician" who until recently served as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and previously served as Joe Biden's monkeypox adviser.

'I want to be able to get married, buy a home, have kids, allow them to ride their bike till the sun goes down, send them to a good school, have a low-crime neighborhood, not to have my kid be taught the lesbian, gay, transgender garbage in their school.'

Blaze News previously reported that Daskalakis, an LGBT activist with a track record of pushing drugs to facilitate promiscuous sexual behavior among homosexuals, had a history of denigrating straight Americans, sharing satanic imagery on social media, and showing up in public in bondage gear.

Brinton, a mustachioed nuclear engineer who ran a "Physics of Kink" class and made a habit of dressing in women's clothing, served as deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy at the Energy Department. He pleaded guilty last year to petit larceny for stealing women's luggage.

Brinton's profile on CLAW Corp.'s website reportedly stated that he has "been active in the kink world since 2013, [hosted] monthly kink parties in their dungeon in Washington, DC, and estimate they have spanked over 2,000 cute butts."

In addition to suggesting Kirk was bigoted for calling sexual deviants "freaks," for criticizing racially motivated black-on-white crime, for expressing concern over Haiti's infestation by "demonic voodoo," and for suggesting the southern border was transformed under the previous administration into the "dumping ground of the planet," Coates faulted Kirk for another common-sense assertion, namely:

The American way of life is very simple. I want to be able to get married, buy a home, have kids, allow them to ride their bike till the sun goes down, send them to a good school, have a low-crime neighborhood, not to have my kid be taught the lesbian, gay, transgender garbage in their school while also not having them have to hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day.

Just in case advocacy for homeownership and marriage didn't strike readers as bigoted, Coates — who reportedly likened the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks against Israel to the Nat Turner slave uprising in 1831 — insinuated that Kirk was anti-Semitic, even though days earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the fallen patriot was a "lion-hearted friend of Israel" who "fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization."

RELATED: Jimmy Kimmel claims Charlie Kirk shooter is 'MAGA' during wildly unfunny monologue

Photo by MELISSA MAJCHRZAK/AFP via Getty Images

After rattling off numerous mainstream American views Kirk espoused, Coates stated, "Kirk subscribed to some of the most disreputable and harmful beliefs that this country has ever known."

Coates, who is the Sterling Brown chair in the English department of the federally funded Howard University, continued his bitter rant, insinuating that Kirk got a taste of his own medicine — writing that "Kirk endorsed hurting people to advance his preferred policy outcomes" — calling Kirk an "unreconstructed white supremacist," and suggesting that his public life was cancerous.

The Vanity Fair piece concludes by hinting that Kirk, a man who worked diligently to improve his country and promote civic engagement among American youth, was like the "men who sought to raise an empire of slavery."

Blaze News has reached out to Vanity Fair for comment.

While Coates appears to have moved on from writing comic books, his hateful article demonstrates that he's not finished writing fiction.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Tennis player labeled 'racist' for scolding black opponent after match: 'I was NEVER racist'



Tennis player Jelena Ostapenko was labeled "racist" by fans after she insulted opponent Taylor Townsend following a match at the 2025 U.S. Open.

Townsend hammered Ostapenko, winning in straight sets — 7-5, 6-1 — before the two shook hands at the end of play. Immediately after, and with Townsend saying "good match," the opponents got into an argument about tennis etiquette.

Etiquette, however, was not the actual problem. Rather, it was Ostapenko's alleged insults toward Townsend that some viewers believed were "racist."

'People get upset when they lose, and some people say bad things.'

"You have to say sorry," No. 26-ranked Ostapenko is heard saying on video. The rest of her rant toward 139-ranked Townsend remained a mystery until a subsequent on-court interview.

"Can you fill us in on the conversation you were having with Jelena," an ESPN reporter asked Townsend.

"Yeah, I mean, you know, it's competition. People get upset when they lose, and some people say bad things," the American began. "She told me I have no class. I have no education and to see what happens when we get outside the U.S."

Ostapenko is Latvian.

Townsend continued, strangely stating, "I'm looking forward to it. I mean, I beat her in Canada, outside the U.S. I beat her in New York, outside the U.S. So let's see what else she has to say."

Later at a press conference, Townsend was asked directly if she felt the Latvian's remarks had racial undertones.

RELATED: Tennis star stops match to make absurd demand about a baby in the crowd

"That's something that you're going to have to ask her," Townsend replied.

The 29-year-old then admitted that she did not feel the remarks were actually racist.

"I didn't take it in that way. But also, you know, that has been a stigma in our community of, you know, being non-educated and all the things when it's the furthest thing from the truth. And the thing that I'm the most proud of is that I let my racket talk," she said.

As reported by the Daily Mail, Ostapenko said on her social media account that she felt it was "very disrespectful" of Townsend when she "had a net ball in a very deciding momen[t] and didn't say sorry, but her answer was that she doesn’t have to say sorry at all."

"It was first time ever that this happened to me on tour ... if she plays in her homeland it doesn't mean that she can behave and do whatever she wants," the 28-year-old Latvian stated.

Ostapenko's social media has been flooded with claims that her on-court remarks were racist, with comments appearing on her Instagram page, such as: "Not only is your racism showing but so was your lack of class. You don't like the calls take it up with the ref."

Another user wrote, "I pray you learn how to take your losses and get rid of your racist thoughts and behavior. It's not a good look."

The athlete later responded to the claims on her page.

RELATED: Coco Gauff: ‘I’m proud to represent the Americans that LOOK like me’

Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia (L) argues with Taylor Townsend of the United States (R) following their Women's Singles Second Round match on Day Four of the 2025 US Open at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on August 27, 2025, in New York City. Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images

"Wow how many messages I received that I am a racist," Ostapenko wrote on Instagram. "I was NEVER racist in my life and I respect all nations of people in the world, for me it doesn't matter where you come from."

"There are some rules in tennis and unfortunately when the crowd is with you you can't use it in disrespectful way to your opponent," she continued.

"Unfortunately for me coming from such a small country I don't have that huge support and a chance to play in homeland," she added. "I always loved to play in the US and US OPEN, but this is the first time someone is approaching the match this disrespectful way."

Despite Townsend remarking that Ostapenko was not being racist at the time, she felt it necessary to declare she is representing black people when competing.

"Whether it had racial undertones or not, that's something she can speak on," the Illinois native stated.

"[I'm] very proud as a black woman being out here representing myself and representing us and our culture," she said. "I make sure that I do everything that I can to be the best representation possible every time that I step on the court and even off the court."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!