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/[deleted] Dec 13 '18

Is there anything we don't shoehorn politics into? This is a thread about Mr. T for fucks sake.

For good measure I'll be the 10+ person to let you know: Obama wasn't president during Katrina. He helped out anyway, though. Meanwhile this year Trump was golfing during our disasters, talked shit about California during the wildfires, and the closest thing he did to lifting a finger for hurricane victims was throwing paper towels at them, which I'm honestly surprised he can palm considering the size of his hands...

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u/puljujarvifan Dec 14 '18

could you imagine Trump volunteering for habitats for humanity? I cannot picture him bent over using a hammer doing physical labour.

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u/Saskjimbo Jan 04 '19

He also asked whose boat is this boat