A marital therapist, who has run a parenting and adoption blog for the best part of a decade, has recently hit back at members of the public who have used her family - and more specifically her four children - as a means to spread racism and hatred.
Kristen Howerton of California fell victim to these individuals after she chose to upload footage of her two daughters unwrapping back American Girl dolls on the morning of December 25th.
Kristen, who is mum to two white biological daughters and two black adopted sons, was dumbfounded when she learned that her family's atypical dynamic was being used as fodder to promote white supremacists views.
Taking to her blog to express her disdain for those responsible, Kristen outlined, in a post entitled How I became the target of hundreds of white supremacists from a video of Christmas morning, the chain of events which appear to have ignited the volley of criticism she has been subjected to online.
"Over the past three weeks, I’ve been getting hundreds of racist comments every day. They berate me for having adopted black children, they take pictures of my kids and create racist memes, and they say awful things about my boys," she wrote.
Providing a background to her post, she continued: "It started with a video I took Christmas morning of my girls opening their American Girl dolls Christmas morning. A couple weeks later a video went viral of two young white girls being gifted with black dolls and subsequently expressing their disapproval. I decided to upload a video of my girls receiving their dolls and the joy they felt as an alternative reaction."
Kristen revealed that her contribution had resulted in a barrage of 'nasty comments', writing: "Comments about how disgusting I was, how my boys were going to kill me, how they would rape my daughters, all kinds of vile hate."
The mum-of-four went on to explain how a white supremacist news outlet used her as a symbol of negativity, writing: "I was portrayed as a “nauseating” woman who hated her own race and who was training her daughters to be ashamed to be white. Which, listen. I do promote diversity."
"When I saw that this white supremacist organization had used images of my kids, without my permission, in a propaganda video for segregation, I was livid. So I took to twitter, asking both the organization and the “reporter” in the video, a woman by the name of Lana Lokteff, to remove the video."
In a revealing post which must have been incredibly difficult to write, Kristen revealed the extent of the abuse she has received, but ended her upload by expressing sympathy for those who have derided her as a person, poured scorn on her family dynamic and expressed disdain for her two adopted sons.
"At the end of the day, as my anger about the whole thing recedes, I really actually feel sad for these people. Sad for their miserable little lives in which trolling people with hate is fun. Sad for how sheltered they are."
"How pathetic it must be for them to spend their life avoiding things that involve non-European cultures. The experiences they will never have. The places they will never go. The people they will never meet. The food they’ll never eat," she mused.
In a move which would surely give at least one of her small-minded critics pause for thought, Kristen finished: "As for me, I’m gonna put some Earth Wind and Fire on the stereo, pour myself a glass of French wine, fry up some Cuban-style tostones and Italian sausages and open a can of Indian chutney to dip them in, and I thank the Lord above that I’ve evolved way beyond the limiting mind of a white supremacist."
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