This popular TikTok leader quit his job as a prosecutor after old racist tweets resurfaced

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Waymond Wesley, aka Chef Way on TikTok, was known for his food content, but after Twitter users discovered posts where he made misogynistic, coloristic and shameful comments about black women, things got pretty bad. quickly deteriorated. On Jan. 24, Wesley tweeted a lengthy apology for his past behavior and announced his decision to quit his day job as a prosecutor with the Harris County, Texas prosecutors’ office.

I was a bully in 2015 who chose to go after America’s most disrespectful, underprotected and neglected demographic: black women, Wesley wrote in his four-page apology letter. On Twitter from 2015 to 2016, there was a sick trend that targeted and stalked black women for attention and followers. Unfortunately, I joined this trend, he added, explaining how his alcoholism at the time influenced his behavior. These tweets…were the product of a very sick individual who hated himself and just wanted attention.

Wesley started working in the DA office in March 2021, according to NBC News affiliate Click 2 Houston, but joined TikTok the year before. As a home chef preparing delicious meals in his own kitchen, Wesleys rose to fame on TikTok sounded pretty wholesome. Since 2020, he’s amassed over 250,000 subscribers and over 2 million likes by posting how-to cooking videos using his own recipes for dishes like oxtail empanadas, crawfish ravioli, and more.

But in early January 2023, Twitter users resurfaced many of Wesley’s old tweets (posted to his now-deleted @WaymoTheGod account) that targeted and harassed dark-skinned black women as far back as 2015. In a 2015 tweet, Wesley posted a series of photos comparing a black woman to a garbage dump, writing I see no difference. In another, he targeted Sandra Bland, a black woman who was found dead in her jail cell by apparent suicide just three days after being arrested for a minor traffic violation in 2015. If Black Lives Matter for Sandra Bland, she would not have committed suicide. . I’m serious too, he wrote, according to screenshots by @tayshusmama, who also shared screenshots of Wesley’s colorist and fatphobic comments about black women.

Considering he would later become a prosecutor in Texas where the black community makes up just 12% of the population, but black women make up 26% of all incarcerated women, according to the Texas Center for Justice & Equity Wesley’s comment about de Bland is particularly disturbing and signals how dangerous misogynoir can be in everyday life. As a meeting point of racism and sexism, misogynoir is often used to oppress black women by devaluing them, usually blaming them for their own mistreatment and sometimes even blaming them for the injuries or deaths they are subjected to. facing the hands of their oppressors.

When his old tweets first resurfaced and went viral, thousands immediately called for Wesley to be fired from the prosecutors’ office, despite his employer, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, declaring him. initially backed, stating, I believe in second chances, according to BuzzFeed. News. Ultimately (and after losing at least one brand partnership), Wesley announced his resignation in his January 24 apology letter. Once I saw that my presence in the DA office became more important than the office itself and the ability of black women, in particular, to feel protected, I knew that the only correct course of action was to step down and allow the healing process to begin, he wrote.

Despite the tweets, Wesley insisted, I don’t hate black women. I never hated black women. I was addicted to the vitriol and hatred that spread between me and other users who were irritated by my posts. Somehow, this mentality makes his behavior even more viscous.

It seems, however, that few people were impressed by his apology. Your colorism and disrespect for black women is not forgiven, wrote Twitter user @PolishedDreamer. I am [sic] tired of black men being the first oppressor of black women and then expecting us to save you.

@DavitaDavison tweeted, Chef Way is yet another example of how black men can spend years humiliating and hurting dark skinned black women and then expecting us to believe it was a phase from which they emerged.

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