[envoke_twitter_link]Hindu extremism has reared its ugly head over the issue of cows and beef once again[/envoke_twitter_link], this time reaching across the Atlantic. It was only last week that American comedian Jeremy McLellan was attacked online for this post:
Ticked off by McLellan’s mention of hamburgers – just your regular, ordinary American staple – several angry Indian Facebook users began to flood the 30-year-old performer’s inbox with insults, death threats and even started targeting his mother (just standard operating procedure for douchebags on the interwebs).
But McLellan wasn’t one to be put down easily. He responded to the online hate the way any good comedian might. With humour. Sharp, biting humour:
And speaking of communal hate and violence, the comic also had some pretty solid wisdom to share:
He joked that as a result of his clash with these “cowherds” online, he now has 155,199 followers (and counting!) on Facebook alone, and he keeps ‘em all hooked with his political satire, updates about current events, and fun culture-mixing and political references (see t-shirt).
McLellan is popular among the Muslim community in his home state of South Carolina, often performing at events organised by groups like the Islamic Information Centre of Calgary and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, to name a few.
The comedian has also openly lent his support to Fulbright Scholar Zia Hussein Shah, who was arbitrarily debarred from returning to the USA.
Though raised in a Southern American Christian household, McLellan has a very inclusive outlook on things. And when he’s not fighting off bhakts from India, he’s [envoke_twitter_link]using social media to call out Islamophobic bullshit inside America[/envoke_twitter_link]. For example:
Religious extremism, intolerance, and general ham-handedness when it comes to minority groups – these are some of our biggest concerns as a global community. We need to start pushing back against it, and Jeremy McLellan has sure shown us a good way to do it.