YouTuber Cole LaBrant is facing backlash for posting (and then deleting) a video of his Black cousin acting as a stool for a little white girl to stand on.
LaBrant tweeted the video on Thursday and deleted it on Friday. It can still be seen on Twitter after others saved it.
https://twitter.com/Tsunami_Cisse/status/1129386956968718337
In the video, his adopted cousin, whose real name is Truman LaBrant but who is called “Peanut,” can be seen getting on his hands and knees underneath a swing. A girl then uses him as a stool by stepping on his back to get on the swing. Someone can be heard saying, “Oh my goodness, sweet boy” in the video.
“This is my adopted cousin, Peanut, helping girls get off and back on swings. We all need to be more like Peanut,” LaBrant wrote in the tweet.
People were quick to call the YouTuber out for racism, including the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr.
“When many of us see your video, we are reminded of the dehumanization of our ancestors depicted in this photo. This dehumanization of Black people still exists in many forms today,” Bernice King, an activist and the daughter of MLK., wrote on Twitter. “The video you shared isn’t cute to us. It’s not cute for a Black boy to be a stool.”
Others agreed with King.
https://twitter.com/JoeyGee876/status/1129274195010105344
Why did they even name him PEANUT … pet name tf
— Maya Fornaro (@mayapapaya_x) May 17, 2019
https://twitter.com/rysebe/status/1129399026871341056
This is one of the reasons why African Americans are uncomfortable with whites adopting black kids. @Thesupercole family said “Peanut” was adopted & is being used here as a footstool for a white girl. How are you that culturally ignorant? Yes, they are evangelicals. #FreePeanut https://t.co/tYHWPzrc05
— Anthony Bradley (@drantbradley) May 18, 2019
Apparently the furniture is Peanut pic.twitter.com/4lxOxZDyoG
— LodyDody 💭 (@lodydody1021) May 18, 2019
https://twitter.com/c3yric/status/1129388851276001282
Fuck is you doing Peanut? pic.twitter.com/viLdvw7BH3
— Black Samurai 🗡️ (@dakiddjerry) May 17, 2019
I don’t know if you know any better or not but get that young black man off the floor. That’s not cool. While we at it, change his damn nickname too Peanut isn’t a name we use. pic.twitter.com/XY4ma2PgrB
— Toni Childs (@goodgarmentclub) May 17, 2019
Peanut in the sunken place now pic.twitter.com/SMp28YgB7g
— Obinna (@0xObinna) May 17, 2019
Bro how they gon name him peanut like he’s some pet pic.twitter.com/3kLG7VuQCE
— Tumi (@beatsbyplexus) May 17, 2019
https://twitter.com/hesedgal/status/1129338937611313152
LaBrant and his family have a YouTube channel with more than 9 million subscribers. This is not their first brush with controversy.
On April 1, LaBrant, along with his wife Savannah told their 6-year-old daughter that they were giving her puppy away as an April Fools Day joke. They were also accused of fake evacuating the California wildfires in 2018.
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H/T BuzzFeed
