The power of Twitter is real, but the power of Black Twitter is simply something from another realm of realness. Many have learned that you DON’T come for black women on social media; no exceptions. Charleston, S.C.’s very own, Woody McClain is still learning this the hard way. Woody McClain became popular from a series of “Wood The Great” videos on social media. The success of these videos put McClain on a national platform that launched him all the way to BET.
We all watched the BET biopic and we all agree; it was awesome! McClain played Bobby Brown, and killed the performance and the dance moves. Face it, Woody McClain channeled Bobby Brown while Brown is still living and mastered this performance. However, in the tradition of the internet, with fame comes curiosity; and with curiosity comes exposure.
Some sleuth on the internet decided to go back into time and look through Woody McClain’s tweets – all the back to 2011 (who has time, right?). What they found however, sent Black Twitter into a tizzy. Some of the tweets said things like, “when i’m famous, i’m dating white women only” and “if it ain’t white, it ain’t right”. Check out some of the tweets below:
Now that these tweets have come to back to bite McClain, he has been on a mission to explain that they were merely jokes. He has even gone as far as to tweet pictures of his black girlfriend, who he says he has been dating for the past ten years. In a recent interview with Essence Magazine, here is more of what McClain had to say regarding those tweets.
“Listen, before New Edition came out. I do comedy. Woody does comedy. So it was a tweet that was taken out content what I said—the tweet that I wrote was ‘If it ain’t white it ain’t right.’ Me growing up through comedy, that’s a comedy reference. ‘Once you go Black, you never go back.’ That’s a comedy reference. So I feel like somebody took that tweet, added more Tweets, photoshopped it, undefeated. You will not beat Photoshop. And they’re adding more to my tweets, I love Black women. I always push for Black women. When I shoot my videos—go to follow me @woody_thegreat, you will see all my content. I promote Black love. If I was going to switch up, I would have did it three years ago when I started social media. You feel me? So there is no switching up for it. My mother is Black. My sister is Black. I love my Black queens. I push for positivity every time I do my comedy videos. I’m doing it to put us in a positive light. So I’m not even mad that this happened. I’m actually happy. So I want my little African-American brothers, listen Y’all gotta understand this is not a joke. It’s not sensitive, it’s not funny no more.”
Again the power of Black Twitter and social media as a whole is split on the sincerity of McClain’s explanations. Many say having a black girl friend doesn’t automatically mean you have respect for black women; it’s no different from racists who claim to have black friends. Others say the tweets were drafted almost five years ago and it doesn’t matter.
One thing that can be said from McClain’s comments is that although he claims the tweets were jokes, the tweets were Photoshopped, he was hurt by the backlash, and the tweets were taken out of context; he never actually apologizes for tweeting these things. He said in his statement to Essence that he is happy all of this has happened. These are confusing statements coming from someone who also says that all of this ‘isn’t funny anymore‘.
Of course, being the sweet, nice, southern people we are down here in Charleston, S.C. where McClain was born, we are all bout forgiveness and redemption – right? However, our research team has scoured the internet for an actual apology from Woody McClain for the disparaging tweets…and we couldn’t find an actual apology.
Syllabus Magazine, the Carolina’s source for Music, Culture and Fashion
