AEW: Cody Rhodes needs to be held to account for liking problematic tweet on Sami Zayn

AEW executive vice president Cody Rhodes is in hot water today after liking a tweet telling Sami Zayn to “go back to Canada,” but he quickly unliked it and backtracked after a backlash.

Apparently his time in quarantine has led AEW’s Cody Rhodes to slip up and reveal himself on Twitter, and it’s not a good look.

Earlier today, a tweet from Rovert (who is already known for being very problematic) stated, “if Sami hates normal, regular American folk supporting their President he should go back to Canada IMO.”

And AEW executive vice president and performer Cody Rhodes “liked” it.

Let’s take a step back to unpack this, because there’s a lot going on here. What Rovert is specifically talking about is a tweet by current WWE Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn, which included a screenshot of a series of tweets from Donald Trump and criticized the actions and tweets of people who are not valuing the importance of physical distancing to save lives.

For those missing context on what was said by Trump this time, it was a string of tweets supporting protests in multiple states by citizens who are insisting the mitigation efforts underway to lessen the impact of COVID-19 be halted immediately and all stores be opened back up like normal.

While it would be bad enough to just be critical of Sami Zayn’s comments that seek to prevent the spread of a dangerous virus, it is the wording that Rovert chose which makes things so much worse.

Using “go back to Canada” on Zayn, whose parents immigrated from Syria to Canada, is reminiscent of a centuries-old racist insult used in the United States primarily by white Americans against minority groups and immigrants. The roots of the phrase go at least all the way back to 1798, and it was later popularized by the Ku Klux Klan.
Since liking the tweet, a fierce backlash on Twitter has seen Cody immediately backtrack, unliking the tweet and insisting that his actions were completely accidental. Which, to be honest, isn’t very believable considering the context and the attempted responses by Cody Rhodes.

Cody Rhodes’ attempt to insist that Rovert’s account is just fun wrestling posts and they weren’t being serious is at best willfully ignorant of their problematic history and at worst a blatant lie.

On top of that, while Cody insists he’s “not a trump [sic] guy,” his old Twitter account seems to suggest otherwise with a tweet from as far back as September 2015 where he explicitly says he was wearing a Trump hat, which was only three months after Trump announced his candidacy for President and included incredibly racist language. So it was abundantly clear to Cody and others what Trump stood for.

Cody Rhodes quickly deleted his old tweet and possibly the entire account when backlash started rolling in, but a cached version can be seen and screenshots of the tweet were taken before he could get rid of it.

On top of that, another set of tweets from his old account attacking Starbucks for “hiring folks who don’t speak a lick of English” has surfaced.

No matter how much he tries to backtrack, Cody Rhodes still liked a racist tweet and has shown his willingness to like and support Trump as much as five years ago when the reasons not to were already clear as day.

It’s possible Cody may have changed, but liking the tweet today seems to indicate otherwise. It’s not a good look for someone for an Executive Vice President of AEW, especially at a time when Trump’s actions are actively costing lives due to the continued threat and impact of COVID-19.

While Cody Rhodes has denied being a Trump supporter and feigned innocence for liking Rovert’s tweet, his choices to actively delete his old account and avoid directly addressing his actions or apologize for them show he’s still got a lot to answer for – and his current response is far from sufficient.