Here’s an experiment for you to try. Google the phrase “why is Kyle Rittenhouse a white supremacist.” You will find literally thousands of articles and speeches from people who call Kyle Rittenhouse a white supremacist. But there is nothing I can find that actually explains why Kyle Rittenhouse can be considered a white supremacist.
“Rittenhouse ’embodies’ the ‘danger’ of “armed white supremacist culture,” March For Our Lives said. But how? Why?
I will ask forgiveness from my lefty friends for being so ignorant, but the only “evidence” that I’ve been able to uncover of Kyle Rittenhouse’s “white supremacist” views was a story in the Kenosha News that was subsequently picked up by the Washington Post and other large, mainstream news outlets.
After his arraignment and his bond being set at $2 million — an amount easily raised in a few hours online — young Rittenhouse went to a bar in Mount Pleasant, WI with his mother. Despite being underage, entering a bar with an adult allowed him to drink.
Here’s where it gets interesting. At the bar were several members of the Proud Boys organization. The Proud Boys were apparently supporters of Rittenhouse and serenaded him with the Proud Boys anthem and posed for pictures with Rittenhouse. There is no evidence Rittenhouse went to the bar to meet the Proud Boys. There’s no evidence that Rittenhouse is a member of the Proud Boys. Some of his social media postings were about militias. There’s no evidence that Rittenhouse was a member of any militia.
Are we seeing a pattern here?
The Proud Boys are considered to be white supremacists by some organizations like the Anti-Defamation League. The fact that they were at the same bar as Rittenhouse is significant how?
At some point, Rittenhouse flashed the “OK” hand signal. Being an old man, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that a hand signal flashed by presidents, astronauts, high and low born all, is now considered “racist” because it was “hijacked” by the alt-right, white supremacists.
Was Rittenhouse flashing a white power hand signal? Or was he signaling that everything was going to be alright?
The origins of the “white power” connotations in the OK hand signal are ludicrous and need a 4-minute video by the ADL to explain it.
Anything that needs 4 minutes to explain to me why something should be considered racist isn’t worth accepting. Who allowed the alt-right to “hijack” a universal sign that everything is alright in the first place? Why not ignore the teeny, tiny portion of people who use it as a white power signal and accept the universal usage of the sign as a harmless way to communicate that all is well?
It’s balmy. I think those of us not infected with the disease of racialism should hijack the OK signal right back — not that it would take much effort. Or, perhaps, we can hijack the “middle finger salute” and instead of it meaning “F***You” or “Up Yours,” we could say it means “Peace and Love, man.”
Put that online and in half a day, the same amount of people who accept the OK hand signal as a signal of white supremacy will also accept the raised middle finger to mean “Peace and Love, man.”
Related: How Unethical Were the Prosecutors Trying to Put Kyle Rittenhouse in Prison? Let Us Count the Ways…
Kyle Rittenhouse shot two white people dead and wounded another. The two people he killed, one of whom was apparently trying to seize his weapon, were taking part in an anti-racism rally. Did Rittenhouse shoot the white men because they were protesting against racism and not because he feared for his life? That’s part of the convoluted narrative being told as fact by the left and most of the media.
In some of his social media postings, in addition to expressing an interest in militias, Rittenhouse apparently likes guns. There are millions of young American males, white and black, and a growing number of young American females who like guns, like to talk about guns, like to own guns, and like to fire them. Liking guns is not racist and never will be.
So, was it really that easy to throw a bunch of crap about Kyle Rittenhouse being a white supremacist against a wall and have it stick? The left deliberately misconstrued so much about this kid that it’s become impossible to wade through the muck and mud to determine who Kyle Rittenhouse truly is.
Reason.com headlined its piece about the Rittenhouse verdict, “The ACLU Thinks Kyle Rittenhouse’s Civil Liberties Got Too Much Protection.” That’s pretty much the story of the left’s effort to turn this relatively simple trial into a morality play about white supremacy.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that activists and Democratic politicians would reflexively cite white supremacy in a trial outcome that disappoints Team Blue. More troubling is the response to the verdict from an organization that should know better: the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In a statement reacting to the verdict, ACLU-Wisconsin Interim Executive Director Shaadie Ali lamented the “deep roots of white supremacy” in Kenosha that prevented Rittenhouse from being “held responsible for his actions.”
Note that the only way that the white supremacy narrative can be told is if the entire town of Kenosha, Wis. becomes a hotbed of white supremacy, by revealing the “deep roots” of race-hatred in the sleepy little town.
It is, on its face, ludicrous.
When politics hijack a narrative, the reality we live in can be altered if you’re not paying attention. The left’s overreach in trying to gin up hysteria about baby-face Kyle Rittenhouse fell flat on its face and exposed the purveyors of myth to be liars and charlatans.
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