Küper And Beaux Banks Clash Over Alam Wernik Not Tweeting About Black Lives Matter Protests
As protests in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minnesota continue, dozens of gay porn stars have been using their social media platforms to show support and spread awareness for Black Lives Matter, and many performers have been joining the protests in cities across the country. But, some performers have been curiously quiet over the last week, raising questions among their more vocal peers about what that silence means, and whether or not they support the BLM movement. Yesterday, one of the gay porn stars being publicly questioned was Alam Wernik, who didn’t post anything about the protests or BLM on Twitter or Instagram, according to performer Küper:
Küper—a strong supporter of Black Lives Matter who’s been protesting in Los Angeles this week—singled out Wernik because of his large following (on Instagram, Wernik has over one million followers), but are these kinds of public call-outs fair, let alone accurate? On the one hand, silence during this historic time is disappointing and irresponsible (especially from those with a massive following), but on the other hand, how can anyone be certain of what everyone is saying on every single social media platform, 24 hours a day? What if someone does in fact support the cause, but simply forgot to post all of their thoughts on all of their platforms?
Beaux Banks, who has also been protesting in Los Angeles throughout the week, took issue with Küper’s tweet, writing in part, “Stop this shit. Let’s get off Twitter and get out and continue doing the work”:
Later, Banks was accused of “defending [Wernik’s] silence,” at which point Banks stated that Wernik has in fact been posting in support of Black Lives Matter on his Instagram stories all week, and that Küper’s tweet was “misinformed”:
Here below is a screenshot of one of Wernik’s Instagram stories that Str8Up was able to obtain, which is an image with the message, “It is not enough to be quietly non-racist, now is the time to be vocally ANTI-racist.” It was posted on Sunday morning, more than 24 hours before Küper questioned Wernik on Twitter:
Unlike Instagram photos that stay up permanently on someone’s account, Instagram stories are video feeds that are automatically deleted after 24 hours. So, other than the screenshot above, Str8UpGayPorn could not independently confirm what else Wernik shared in his stories over the weekend and yesterday, but Beaux Banks tells Str8Up that Wernik has been posting about BLM.
“Alam’s been staying at my place, I’ve had the conversations with him and heard his heart,” Banks said. He added, “A lot of people forget he’s an immigrant from a protest and riot-filled Brazil. This experience isn’t new to him, and he has been glued to the news non-stop. I understand some people want him to do more, but it’s not our place to judge how much or how little someone does. He posted a news clip, and he’s posted about Black Lives Matter. He’s been really promoting a message of spreading love.”
In addition to the Instagram stories, Wernik posted an image on Instagram this morning with the words “Black Lives Matter”:
In response to Banks’ tweet, Küper doubled down on his Wernik stance, writing, “I don’t think that people that don’t care about the public should have a platform of 1 million followers.” Küper also suggested that Wernik is a racist, writing, “It’s not wasting time calling out racists.”
Performer Cade Maddox also took issue with Küper’s attack on Wernik, and Maddox replied to Küper with an image that reads, “You never look good trying to make someone else look bad.”
Swiftly canceling people who are blatantly racist and unquestionably deranged is a no-brainer, but calling out others prematurely and without the facts can be risky, not to mention a waste of your own time and energy, which could’ve been spent fighting for the things you really care about.
Assuming that someone is racist because they haven’t posted a tweet in 48 hours is crazy, obviously (what if they were locked out of their account? what if they lost their phone? what if they were in jail after being arrested for attending a protest? what if, like Wernik, they posted on Instagram but for whatever reason forgot to post on Twitter?), and while it’s fair to keep mental notes and be privately suspicious of what we don’t see, jumping the gun over unfounded presumptions is as dumb as it is dangerous for all of us. To be clear: Calling out racists is always the right thing to do. Calling out people you suspect of being racist without a single piece of evidence is obviously not the right thing to do—especially when you’re someone like Küper, who has 125,000 Twitter followers who’ve now been irresponsibly led to falsely believe that Wernik is a racist.
Speaking of Küper’s followers, some of them are apparently hoping that Küper will continue to randomly call people out. But, thankfully, Küper has now told people that he can’t “fight your battles,” and that he’s “overwhelmed.” (Really? Imagine how Alam Wernik might feel after being falsely accused of racism.) Küper tweeted to his followers tonight, “Everybody needs to stop telling me who to publicly attack, I am very vocal and I will fight the fights that I deem important on my own time.”
Küper—and the majority of his fans and peers in the gay adult industry—is on the right side of history, and we’re all fighting the same fight with him, against the same injustices. Let’s not be distracted by errant tweets or vanishing Insta stories, especially when they’re coming (or not coming, depending on what time of day you’re opening your feeds and skeptically scrolling) from our allies and our friends.
