Vivek Ramaswamy ended his campaign after the Iowa Caucus and immediately endorsed Donald Trump. In response, Babylon Bee published the headline Trump Promises Vivek An Administration Position Running The White House 7-Eleven. The amount of layers to this joke is rather phenomenal. It makes fun of Trump, Indians, Ramaswamy, and an earlier time when Joe Biden said something very similar. In response, Church Leaders ran a story to attack the article for racism. Church Leaders is the liberal outlet of Ed Stetzer. Ed Stetzer is deeply involved with the He Gets Us Campaign, and Church Leaders was perhaps the staunchest defender of Andy Stanley’s affirmation of homosexuality.
Church Leaders ran a headline The Babylon Bee Again Accused of Racism Following Joke About Vivek Ramaswamy in which they used a comment section to mainstream a controversy against a rival faith-based media company.
Replies to The Babylon Bee’s post were quick to condemn the joke.
“The Babylon Bee is satire,” wrote one commenter. “Racist satire.” Another said, “I don’t think there’s a group that it’s more acceptable to be openly racist against than Indian-Americans.”
“I am an Indian-American and I find this grossly offensive,” said someone else. “Are we only good for running 7-11s?”
“If you ever wonder why some people are drawn to write conservative comedy, it’s because you don’t have to put in any effort,” another comment read. “You just regurgitate the racist stuff you’d hear on the playground, not even in a particularly clever way. Pretty easy grift.”
The controversy is based on a minority of replies on social media posts with millions of views. But Church Leaders is trying to create a woke narrative to shame Babylon Bee.
Notably, this is not the first time The Babylon Bee has courted accusations of racism. In April 2022, the Christian satire site came under fire after posting an article titled “China Introduces New Head Of COVID Policy Dr. Anthon-Yong Fauching.” A photoshopped image featured Dr. Anthony Fauci with a “Fu Manchu” style goatee, wearing a conical hat, and standing in a rice field.
As the joke came at a time when America was experiencing a surge in anti-Asian sentiments and an uptick in racially targeted violence against Asian Americans, a number of Christian leaders were quick to denounce it.
In response to the uproar, The Babylon Bee managing editor Joel Berry told ChurchLeaders, “We don’t care what a couple of self-righteous, race-obsessed Pharisees have to say about us.”
The Babylon Bee is not flinching in the wake of liberal attacks for this funny joke.
