Chris Rock attends the Cinema Society with The Hollywood Reporter & Piaget and Disaronno special screening of 'To Rome With Love' at the Paris Theatre on June 20, 2012 in New York City. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

MSNBC – While Americans were watching fireworks displays and enjoying barbecues, Chris Rock was stirring up some fireworks of his own with a controversial July 4 tweet.

“Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren’t free but I’m sure they enjoyed fireworks,” Rock tweeted.

Reactions came fast and furious, with some fans telling the actor/comedian they were now swearing off his films for what they considered an unpatriotic comment.

Wrote David Burge, “Good one! I bet your Guatemalan house staff got a good chuckle.”

And Jeff Schreiber, managing editor of libertarian-conservative blog America’s Right, tweeted “Slavery existed for 2000yrs before America. We eradicated it in 100yrs. We now have a black POTUS. ‪#Go( (expletive) Yourself.” Schreiberlater followed up with, “I’m not saying we’re blameless for that horrid practice, but for @chrisrock to indict the US as he did is inappropriate at best.”

Yet some jumped in on Rock’s side. Actor Don Cheadle retweeted Rock’s message with a simple “Haha,” which put Cheadle on some Twitter user’s enemies lists.

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