Bo Bice has received an apology after being referred to as a “white boy” at a Popeye’s restaurant in Atlanta — but the “American Idol” alum isn’t done venting about the racial situation in America, or about the “defamatory hateful language” he says people have been subjected to on his Facebook page since the incident came to light.
In a lengthy Facebook post published Wednesday, Bice blasted the “hateful, racist comments” that have been left on his social media accounts and cautioned, “Wake up America!”
Bice, who said that his original Facebook post about the Popeye’s incident was deleted by the social-media company, added in his post Wednesday that he preserved the hateful comments left on his accounts to alert people to the uneasy racial situation in our society.
“I left these comments up so you can see the proof of how bad this situation has gotten in our society and it’s time to start talking about this problem in our society and stop the behind closed door whispers of how we feel when we are treated this way,” the singer wrote. “This is real! And if it had been anyone of ethnicity that this happened to you’d have the NAACP, Al Sharpton all over this situation and every channel on TV would be covering this story.”
In an interview with Atlanta’s Fox 5 published Tuesday, the singer said that he was referred to as “white boy” at a Popeye’s franchise at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Friday.
“The three ladies behind the counter asked whose food it was,” Bice said. “Just when I turned around, one of them said ‘that white boy.’”
“If tables had been turned and I used something as insensitive like that … I would be boycotted, people wouldn’t buy my albums,” Bice lamented.
While Bice subsequently received an apology and declared the situation “done,” clearly the larger issues of racial tensions and social-media nastiness is still gnawing at him.
“Wake up America! These folks don’t have to use facts to tear you down, get people to swam [sic] your page with comments and threaten you physically,” Bice concluded his Facebook jeremiad on Wednesday. “Apparently that’s O.K. to do as well. Double Standard? NOPE, NO STANDARDS. Stand up to this behavior, today it’s me, tomorrow it could be you our your loved ones who are starting [sic] down the barrel of the PC Police gun. They don’t have to use the true, it’s hard enough to get them to except [sic] it.”