Actor Charlie Sheen sent a message on Twitter Thursday afternoon mocking Barack Obama for working on his NCAA tournament bracket instead of giving attention to U.S. soldiers.
Barry Satera Kenya
u won't attend a
soldier's funeral uhkros
da street that u kild
yet u hav time
4 brackets?
s a d
c http://t.co/KM1in5MPio— Charlie Sheen (@charliesheen) March 19, 2015
The tweet, written to sound like Ebonics and intentionally morphing Obama’s name, makes reference to an unknown soldier’s funeral and links to a screen shot of the President on TV discussing his “Barack-etology” bracket for the college basketball tournament.
Sheen amplified attention to his critique with his permutation of Obama’s name, “Barry Soetero Kenya.” Most of the press has taken this flourish as a nod to the Birther movement–those who believe Obama was not born in Kenya, not the United States.
After a deluge of critical news coverage calling Sheen racist, the actor tweeted a second time, comparing his tweet to a joke Obama made about himself. “I just repeated a joke the president told last week!” Sheen said, posting an InfoWars link defending his Kenya quip. Through a combination of hashtag and emoji, Sheen punctuated the tweet with the slang slogan “Keep It 100,” meaning to be 100% honest.
This is not the first time Sheen has flirted with Birtherism. In 2011, he explicitly said he was skeptical of the President being a natural-born citizen and the legitimacy of the birth certificate Obama released to the public.
Sheen told a live audience in Washington, DC about a presidential poll which pitted him against politicians like Sarah Palin and President Obama, then compared himself to the Commander-in-Chief.
“For starters, I was f—king born here, how about that?” he said. “And I got proof! Nothing photoshopped about my birth certificate.”
Obama released his bracket Wednesday, after Israeli election results confirmed a decisive win for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. The President did not call Netanyahu to congratulate him on his victory until Thursday, instead sending congratulations through Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday.
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