When Rob Schneider heard of the dispute between President-elect Donald Trump and Georgia Representative John Lewis, he seemed to understand that it was his duty as a noted film thespian to weigh in — unfortunately, everyone else seemed to disagree with that conclusion. Over the weekend leading up to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Lewis, a noted civil-rights activist who marched beside Dr. King in Selma, Alabama, told the press that he would not go to the upcoming inauguration and saw Trump’s electoral win as “illegitimate†in light of Russian hacking. Trump, of course, fired back, calling the former Freedom Rider, who was brutally beaten by police for his peaceful activism, “all talk.â€
Schneider, an artist perhaps best known as American luminary Adam Sandler’s second-best movie friend, went ahead and gave his advice to Lewis by calling on King’s memory in a tweet: “Rep. Lewis. You are a great person. But Dr. King didn’t give in to his anger or his hurt. That is how he accomplished & won Civil Rights.†The internet was quick to counter, with many accusing Schneider of “whitesplaining†MLK, while others piled on about Schneider’s reputation for sticking to offensive stereotypes when playing characters of other ethnicities. Read the tweets below.