NH Libertarian Party Celebrates MLK Day By Tweeting, ‘America Isn’t In Debt to Black People… It’s the Other Way Around’

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The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire tweeted and deleted a Martin Luther King Jr. Day post on Monday that – to put in the most charitable terms conceivable – did not exactly meet the moment.

It all began when Nikole Hannah-Jones of New York Times Magazine its 1619 Project took exception to an MLK-themed tweet by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). She quoted part of King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech in which he said, “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.'”

Upon seeing the tweet, the person(s) responsible for running the Twitter account for the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire got an idea for a tweet. It wasn’t a very good one.

The tweet was deleted, but not before one user was able to take a screenshot:

https://twitter.com/_EthanGrey/status/1483212905315246084

“Black people in America get special access to essential drugs, receive special federal funding due to race, and are first-in-line for every college and every job,” it read. “America isn’t in debt to black people, if anything it’s the other way around.”

The tweet appeared to be repeating the misleading claim that’s made the rounds on right-wing media to suggest White people are being denied treatments for Covid-19.

This is hardly the first time the Libertarian Party in the Granite State has offered a hot take. In November, its Twitter account declared, “Racism is pretty much a non-issue in America. Libertarians suffer more oppression than black people.”