'Anne Frank had white privilege' was a trending topic on Twitter, the outlandish claim was immediately torn apart: 'It's time to shut the internet down. Completely.'
A trending topic on Twitter was that Anne Frank had white privilege. Yes, that Anne Frank. The Anne Frank who was forced to go into hiding at age 13 because the Nazis were hunting Jews and she later died in a concentration camp at 15 years old.
On Saturday, one of the top-trending topics on Twitter was "Anne Frank." The reason that the famous diary author was trending was because leftists claimed that Anne Frank had white privilege.
\u201cBoth of these screenshots were taken today (Anne Frank, to save you the click, went viral for people saying she benefitted from white privilege). It\u2019s getting harder and harder to say with confidence that Jews have a safe and secure future in this country. Anyway, Shabbat shalom.\u201d— Melissa Weiss (@Melissa Weiss) 1657394886
The original tweet that ignited the outlandish debate was allegedly started by Twitter user @Ka1zoku_Qu0d. The user's bio reads: "Marxist-Humanist" and "Hedonist-Utilitarian." The bio also uses anarchist slogans: "I want to eat the rich" and "ACAB" (All Cops Are Bastards).
"Hold on I want to make sure I say this carefully. Yeah Anne Frank had white privilege. Bad things happen to people with white privilege also but don’t tell the whites that," the Twitter user wrote on July 8.
The tweet has since been deleted.
Another user added, "Yes, all white people are safe. No one is saying the Nazis didn't target white people, just that white people can hide behind their whiteness, whereas in Nazi USA black people can't. Go tell black people the whites got it hard."
\u201cBabe wake up they\u2019re calling Anne Frank a colonizer on Twitter again.\u201d— Celebrimbor (Niche Internet MicroCELebrity) (@Celebrimbor (Niche Internet MicroCELebrity)) 1657324545
\u201cIt\u2019s time for our bi-annual garbage Holocaust take featuring Anne Frank and Jews as \u2018white people\u2019.\u201d— Claire (@Claire) 1657381637
The inflammatory tweets ignited a whirlwind of controversy and Twitter reactions tore apart the shocking assumption.
BlazeTV personality Steven Crowder: "I can't believe there are actually people saying Anne Frank had white privilege. Morons."
Writer Katherine Brodsky: "Somehow a discussion broke out on Twitter today about how Anne Frank, of all people, had 'white privilege.' A girl literally murdered for being Jewish, what was considered--at best--by Nazis as a inferior race. How delusional does this identity politics discourse get?"
Conservative commentator Matt Walsh: "According to the Left's doctrine of white privilege, yes Anne Frank had it. If that makes the concept of 'white privilege' sound insane, well right exactly."
Writer Ashton Pittman: "If you think 'Anne Frank had white privilege,' you don't know what 'white' means. Race isn't real. It's made up. What makes you 'white' is relative to your society's ideas. In Nazi Germany, she wasn't 'white:' the Nazis saw her as part of a 'Jewish race' & murdered her for it. If Anne Frank could've been transported into 21st century America, we'd consider her 'white.' But in Nazi Germany, she wasn't 'white;' she was Jewish and considered part of a separate race. That's why anti-Semitism is a form of racism even though most Jews appear 'white.'"
Columnist Eric Michael Garcia: "A lot of the discourse about Anne Frank and 'white privilege' shows a gross misunderstanding of the history of racism and whiteness has been historically defined. Europe (and America's) definition of 'white' in the first half of the 20th Century is VERY different from now."
Real estate investor Adam Milstein: "Twitter goes full antisemite as tweets about Anne Frank go viral accusing her of having 'white privilege.' Heartbreaking indeed to see such antisemitism in 2022."
Singer Clay Aiken: "I think it's time to shut the internet down. Completely."
Novelist Stephen Marche: "This has to be the low point of our discourse, right? I mean it can't get stupider than this, right?"
Writer Jordan Weissmann: "'Anne Frank had white privilege' feels like a nail in the coffin for a certain kind of discourse. But also, an immediate contender for all-time worst tweet.
Congressional candidate Robby Starbuck: "The woke left is legitimately so insane that they’ve reached the point where they even accuse ANNE FRANK of having white privilege. This is just one of many reasons normal Americans will elect a massive red wave of Republicans in November. We’ve ALL had enough of this nonsense!"
Socialist Asher Wolf: "Trying to posthumously cancel Anne Frank for ‘white privilege’ in 2022."
Even far-left journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones dismissed the preposterous notion, "Anne Frank did not have white privileged in Nazi Germany. Literally wasn't considered part of the white race."
The Jerusalem Post reported, "The debate about Anne Frank allegedly spawned out of a series of convoluted unrelated arguments on Twitter over the course of months, according to one Twitter user starting with sexual stereotypes about white women. This reportedly devolved into accusations of racism, and discussions on racial identity."
In 2020, Time magazine claimed that disability rights advocate Hellen Keller was "just another privileged white person."