Rapper Talib Kweli tried to attack President Trump’s border wall plans by comparing them to the building of the Berlin Wall, who he falsely claimed was built by Nazis.
After Kweli’s tweet was called out as false by other Twitter users, he started to tell all those seeking to correct him that they were Nazis and racists, in a seemingly unending stream of tweets.
Kweli has already deleted the original tweet, but The Western Journal published a screen capture: “So, you’re unaware of the fact that nazi Germany had a wall called the Berlin Wall that was torn down in 1991 in order to foster humanity and diversity? Walls didn’t work for Nazis so why build them here? Build bridges not walls Nazi lover.”
As of writing this, the discussions and Kweli’s rapid-fire responses to critics are still ongoing on his Twitter page.
The Nazis were not in Germany by the time the Berlin Wall was built. Only after the Nazis were defeated by the Allies in World War II was wall built, after Germany was divided into a free society in the west and a communist east.
The city of Berlin was, likewise, divided by the Berlin Wall, built in 1961, around 16 years after the Nazis were defeated. Germany reunified in 1990, and that is when the wall came down, along with East Germany’s communist regime.
But none of this appeared to matter to Kweli.
“The correct tweet is ‘I said something really dumb because I don’t understand this chapter of history. I’m sorry.’ Not this hot garbage,” journalist Jonah Goldberg told Kweli, via Twitter. “East Germans were trying to keep East German citizens from escaping. You should be ashamed b/c you clearly googled it and still lied.”
The Berlin Wall was built to keep people in who wanted to flee the terror of the communist regime in East Germany. The planned wall along the southern border of the United States is designed to keep people seeking to enter the country illegally, along with drugs and crime, out.
But Kweli accused almost every person challenging the questionable tweet as having a Nazi agenda, and then dragged conservatives into the Twitter spat.
“I can take the mocking. I welcome all challengers. Bring it on. I wrote a poorly worded tweet being facetious. What a crime. Conservatives however march with Nazis and KKK. Every single Nazi candidate runs as conservative. How do you sleep at night knowing Nazis love you? Explain,” wrote Kweli in the midst of an onslaught of criticism on Twitter.
But in a March 28 tweet Kweli referenced East Germany, also during a Twitter fight, which is peculiar in light of the current controversy.
Kweli seemed to recognize, at least in March, what the Berlin Wall was built for. Kweli made the tweet in reply to someone asking why he hasn’t moved abroad if he dislikes America.
“Nope, I definitely didn’t tell you to go back. I said that if you’re unhappy no one’s keeping you here; this isn’t East Germany,” he said in part of the tweet.