Khloe Kardashian Sends Prayers To Baltimore

I want to preface this by saying that there is absolutely nothing about the violent riots that erupted in Baltimore on Monday that has anything to do with Khloe Kardashian. Both I and Kardashian herself know that. However, when Kardashian tweeted to pray for Baltimore on Monday, with an Instagram photo that requested the same, I don't think she quite expected the amount of vitriol and criticism that she would get for three simple words. The comments to Kardashian's tweet are, quite frankly, horrifying and, in light of what some people decided to say in response to her prayer, it's no wonder that she felt the need to send a follow-up tweet.

It would be doing the people who are suffering in Baltimore a disservice to dignify the comments by giving them added publicity, but the tweet responses contained racist remarks about the citizens of Baltimore (and about African-Americans in general) that ranged from absolutely ridiculous (and, no, not in the funny way) to wildly offensive. There were also those who attacked Kardashian herself for her perceived sympathy with the rioters, or attacked her for praying at all when apparently she should have just sent her non-religious support. Twitter can be a pretty dark place, is the point.

Naturally, it wasn't even 20 minutes later that Kardashian returned to Twitter in order to take the racists and the haters on herself. Her second tweet lost focus from the riots — understandably so, considering what she had to deal with — and slammed those who would criticize her for an act as simple as prayer.

There is no single right way to respond to the riots happening in Baltimore at this moment. (There are, however, many different things that can be done to show one's support once the city achieves peace, much of which is the exact same as what was done to help the protestors in Ferguson.) However, it's very clear at this point that no matter who you sympathize with, no matter who you support, and no matter how you show that support, there will be someone who disagrees with you.

There are, however, a lot of wrong ways to respond to the riots, and the worst way is to attack someone for having an opinion just because it's different than yours. There's a difference between having an opinion and being racist, overtly or in an internalized manner, of course, but Kardashian is the prime example of someone who did not deserve to be attacked for having an opinion. Her opinion is that the people of Baltimore need our prayer during this difficult time. Why should she be harassed for that?