A US politician mocked Meghan Markle as a prehistoric black Briton, so Twitter banned him
Paul Nehlen, a challenger of US House Speaker Paul Ryan, and whose anti-Semitic tweets caused a stir in recent months, drew criticism again this week after tweeting an image of actress Meghan Markle Photoshopped with the face of Cheddar Man, the dark-skinned man believed to be the first modern Briton.
The tweet, the latest in Nehlen’s history of incendiary statements, appears to have been prompted on Friday by recent revelations that early British inhabitants are believed to have been dark-skinned. Nehlen has described himself as “pro-white” and decried the research on Cheddar Man as a way of “disappearing whites or dispossessing whites of their homelands”.
Last week, a new project from London’s Natural History Museum and University College London revealed groundbreaking DNA results showing that early British inhabitants did not have pale skin as initially believed. Cheddar Man, who lived 10,000 years ago and whose skeleton was discovered in 1903 in a cave in Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, England, had brown hair, blue eyes and “dark to black skin”. New analysis and facial reconstruction have led scientists to believe that his ancestors arrived in Britain via the Middle East after leaving Africa.
The tweet has caused an uproar on social media and among some British tabloids. Dail y Mirror called the tweet “racist”, while The S un described Nehlen as Markle’s “Twitter troll”. Actor Patrick Adams, who co-stars with Markle in USA Network’s legal drama Suits, lashed out at Nehlen in a tweet on Saturday, calling the Wisconsin businessman “a sad and sick man with no sense of shame or class”.
Nehlen’s campaign did not immediately respond to a call and email requesting comment. But he defended himself on Sunday by again attacking the research that revealed the physical features of early British inhabitants.