From Unlikely Philanthropist To Vilified Racist

That should be the story.

That's it.

That's all we should be talking about.

It's a great, innocent story that has helped countless young children.

Carson King showed up to the Iowa-Iowa State game, made his way behind ESPN's College GameDay set, and held up his homemade sign.

"Busch Light Supply Needs Replenished Venmo Carson-King-25"

That simple messaged got a very unexpected response.

The money started rolling in.

We're not talking about a couple hundred dollars.

Before King knew it, he had thousands of dollars filling up his Venmo account.

King thought that was all there was to it, so he bought himself one case of Busch Light and vowed to donate the remaining amount to the University of Iowa's Stead Children's Hospital.

Then the story made its way into the national media, people and businesses all over the country got involved, and those thousands of dollars became tens of thousands of dollars.

Then those tens of thousands became hundreds of thousands.

And then those hundreds of thousands became $1 million.

$1 million raised for the University of Iowa's Stead Children's Hospital.

That should be the end of the story.

Not in today's media, though. No longer can we just let good things exist and live untainted.

Reporters went deep into Carson's Twitter account and found two racist tweets from over seven years ago.

Are they terrible?

Without a doubt. They are awful things to say and they should never be expressed by anyone.

However, King was 16 years old.

Is it an excuse for his actions?

Not in the slightest. He should have never made the jokes that he did. But he was a kid. He was a 16 year old kid that didn't understand that the impact of the words he was saying.

The Des Moines Register was one of the media outlets that reported on his tweets.

And King took the report and attention like a man.

But, wouldn't you know, in what some may refer to as poetic justice, one of the reporters that wrote about King's previous tweets had some questionable tweets of his own when he was younger, and they have been exposed.

Can't we just stop making racist and offensive jokes?

Can't we just start using these mistakes to teach the next generation?

Can't we just stop holding childhood mistakes over other people's heads?

Can't we just start being gracious with each other?


Sponsored Content

Sponsored Content