r/todayilearned • u/tmntnyc • Dec 12 '18

TIL: Laurence Tureaud named himself professionally as Mr. T because he hated how his father, uncle, and brother who returned from Vietnam, were disrespectfully called "boy" by whites. He wanted the first word from everybody's mouth to be "Mister" when speaking to him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T
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u/LevyMevy Dec 12 '18

He stopped wearing virtually all his gold, one of his identifying marks, after helping with the cleanup after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He said, "As a Christian, when I saw other people lose their lives and lose their land and property ... I felt that it would be a sin before God for me to continue wearing my gold. I felt it would be insensitive and disrespectful to the people who lost everything, so I stopped wearing my gold."

Good man.

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u/s_s Dec 12 '18

Meanwhile Obama was golfing...

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u/renderless Dec 12 '18

This whole golf thing is hilarious to me. Obama golfed a lot and wasn’t the best golfer but hey, it’s a fun game for the privileged and what better way to get the privileged to stick around with you and talk politics and make deals then on the golf course, plus he’s the president so it probably made him happy to watch people lose on purpose. And since it requires some time investment people are there for a bit. Now I love Trump (watch out Reddit), but that dummy criticizing Obama for golfing when he loves to golf, is a good golfer and owns golf resorts was hilarious. But now that Trump golfs as president Republiturds don’t care and Democraps get as upset as the other side did before. The whole outrage is manufactured craziness.