Humza Yousaf has apparently brushed aside an attack from Elon Musk that was based on a selectively-edited speech shared on the billionaire’s X website.
Musk called Scotland’s first minister and SNP leader a “blatant racist” in response to a clip of a Yousaf address from 2020 in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder.
The lengthy speech to the Scottish parliament was edited to a 45-second clip of Yousaf listing all the senior public posts in Scotland held by white people.
It was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, by an anonymous account called End Wokeness. The account accused Yousaf of “openly despising white people”. It said: “Why would Scotland’s parliament and King select a guy who hates almost 100% of the country?”
Musk replied: “What a blatant racist!”
Yousaf responded by posting a gif of an Asian shopkeeper from the BBC Scotland sitcom Still Game doing a shimmying dance in his shop with the words “racists foaming at the mouth at my very existence”.
The edited clip has been shared before – and a fact-check by the Reuters news agency in February found Yousaf “is being misrepresented online by those suggesting it shows the SNP politician arguing that Scotland contains too many white people”.
It added: “Yousaf’s speech was given as part of a wider discussion about racial injustice and the lack of people of colour in positions of power in the Scottish parliament and government. The speech did not assert that white people make up too large a proportion of Scotland’s overall population.”