How often do you think about Rob Schneider? I must admit, I had forgotten that he was a creature currently populating our fair planet until—hark!—his name began trending on Twitter. Now, generally when I see that a name in the Trends box, I assume that they are dead or newly wed. Schneider is neither: he merely saw fit to inform congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis how he might best emulate Martin Luther King Jr — who, by the way, Lewis knew personally.
Rep. Lewis, as you may have heard, has made public his plans to boycott Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration. Trump, in Lewis’s estimation, is not a “legitimate” president, and as such, he cannot tacitly condone the inauguration by attending.
Not long after Lewis made this announcement, Trump—ever the thin-skinned sentient kidney stone—commenced Martin Luther King Day weekend by attacking the congressman on Twitter.
“No action or results,” says Trump of the man ferociously beaten by police during the 1965 protests in Selma, Alabama. Since this characteristically asinine remark, other members of Congress have voiced their support of Lewis, as well as their own plans to boycott the inauguration.
But we must pause here, for a crucial voice was conspicuously absent from this dialogue — absent, that is, until 1 p.m. this afternoon.
Ah, there he is. Robert Michael Schneider—star of masterworks The Hot Chick, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo—has flexed his Civil Rights historian muscles with a benevolent “What Would MLK Do?” lesson. Schneider graciously reassures Rep. Lewis that he’s a decent guy—did I mention Lewis led the Civil Rights Movement alongside Martin Luther King Jr.?—but suggests that he ought to suck it up and attend the presidential inauguration of a strident racist. Dr. King would have wanted it that way, or so Schneider, illuminated by superior insight, claims.
If nothing else, we’ve learned two things today. First: Rob Schneider is not dead! He’s just another hyper-privileged, myopic white man blathering on the internet. Secondly, this GIF from The Boondocks is even more directly applicable than it was before.