Chet Hanks is defending his “White Boy Summer” meme after a new report found that it has gone viral among hate groups.
Tom Hanks‘ 33-year-old son first coined the “White Boy Summer” Instagram meme in 2021. He said he was jokingly playing off Megan Thee Stallion’s “hot girl summer” and “Christian girl autumn.”
“I just got this feeling man that this summer … it’s about to be a white boy summer,” Hanks originally wrote. “Take it how you want, I’m not talking about Trump, Nascar-type white. I’m talking about me, [rappers] Jon B. Jack Harlow-type white boys, you know what I mean.”
But now a new report by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism released on Tuesday said the phrase has since been co-opted by white supremacist groups. The report also noted Hanks’ “White Boy Summer” font was a Gothic-style font similar to one used by such groups.
“Over the past couple months, white supremacists and neo-Nazis have been calling for the destruction of Pride flags, killing “[N-word] and communists,’ and the creation of militias all under the slogan ‘White Boy Summer,’” read the report.
It adds that several extremist groups including the Proud Boys, White Lives Matter, and the Identitarian movement in Europe are all using the phrase.
Hanks put out a response on Wednesday to the new report on Instagram: “White boy summer was created to be fun, playful, and a celebration of fly white boys who love beautiful queens of every race. Anything else that it has been twisted into to support any kind of hate or bigotry against any group of people is deplorable and I condemn it. I hope that we all can spread love to each other and treat each other with kindness and dignity.”
Hanks has acted in shows such as Shameless and Empire, and also raps under the name Chet Haze.
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