MARTINSVILLE, VA — For one night, Rob Timmins thought he was in deep trouble. He was facing the loss of his job. He was afraid he would be ostracized by his peers and loved ones.
“It was a simple misunderstanding,” Timmins said. “It may seem unbelievable, but for one deeply uncomfortable evening, people mistakenly thought I was a racist.”
The trouble began, Timmins said, when he made a post on Facebook.
“I had ventured to the parlor for the evening where I planned to enjoy a small snifter of Louis XIII and a reread of Alexander Pope’s ‘An Essay on Criticism,’” Timmins said. “Suddenly, I was taken by the impulse to share a few of my thoughts on social media, specifically regarding The Woke Mind Virus and those lying liberals.”
Timmins shared the post and immediately retired to his bedchamber. The next morning, he awakened to chaos.
“My post had gone viral and my page was flooded with hateful rhetoric,” Timmins said. “All this, just because I had referred to Congressman Hakeem Jeffries as a ‘monkey.’”
While many would consider describing a black man as a monkey to be not just racist, but old-school Ku Klux Klan-style racist, there was just one problem:
Rob Timmins isn’t racist.
“It’s true,” Timmins said. “I’m not racist. In fact, I don’t have a racist bone in my body. The doctors say they’ve never seen anything like it.”
Timmins’ friends were relieved to hear the news.
“I’ve known Rob for more than 20 years now,” said Kevin Dupree, a former classmate of Timmins. “Our kids play soccer together. When I saw that he had said a whole bunch of really racist things, I was horrified. I thought, ‘Is this how he thinks of me and my family? Has he ever made any racist comments to my son?’ So you can just imagine my relief to get personal assurance from Rob that he isn’t actually a racist.”
“In fact,” added Dupree, “Rob said that he’s ‘colorblind’ and he doesn’t care if someone is black, white, or purple. Now, I’m pretty open-minded, but I’d probably do a double-take if I saw a purple guy walking down the street. I guess I have a lot to learn from Rob.”
Local activist Breanna Shaw said that she felt she owed Timmins an apology.
“I’ll admit, when I saw his post on Facebook, I shared it,” Shaw said. “I pointed out that I had more than 100 mutual friends with this guy who was obviously screamingly racist, many of whom had liked his post. But then Rob Timmins said he wasn’t racist at all. In fact, he said that he was probably the LEAST racist person on Earth!”
“It’s just remarkable,” Shaw added. “A few years back at a book signing, I met Ibram X. Kendi, author of the 2019 non-fiction work ‘How to Be an Antiracist.’ I always assumed that he would be the least racist person I’d ever meet, but time makes fools of us all.”
For Timmins’ part, he just hopes that in future, people will be more careful before making assumptions about him based solely on the things that he says or does.
“Really, I think that calling me a racist is a perfect example of ‘reverse racism,’” Timmins said. “We shouldn’t just automatically assume the worst about people. After all, ALL lives matter.”
Of course, Timmins said, some online commenters still weren’t satisfied, even after he assured them that he wasn’t a racist. To silence these critics, Timmins hauled out his trump card.
“One of my best friends is black,” he said. “He’s very articulate. He’s definitely one of the good ones.”
luv it
All the code words. Nice.