Angry Youth Unwittingly Campaign For Trump
[guest posts by Dana]
1) In a scene that played out several times Monday, a Black Lives Matter protest that began in Columbia Heights confronted White diners outside D.C. restaurants, chanting “White silence is violence!” and demanding White diners show their solidarity. #DCProtests pic.twitter.com/fJbPM76vb0
— Fredrick Kunkle WaPo (@KunkleFredrick) August 25, 2020
n Adams Morgan, protesters screamed at Lauren B. Victor for several minutes for refusing to raise her fist with them.
“Are you a Christian?” a female protester demanded.
“Good for you — you stood your ground,” Chuck Modiano said sarcastically as the crowd moved on.
Modiano, who had been yelling at Victor and moments later identified himself as a citizen journalist who writes for @Deadspin, told Victor he couldn’t understand why she was the only diner in the area who wouldn’t comply. “What was in you, you couldn’t do this?”
“I felt I was under attack,” Victor, an urban planner, said, adding that she felt there was something wrong about being coerced to show support.
“In the moment, it didn’t feel right,” Victor said, adding that she also could understand their anger. “I wasn’t actually frightened. I didn’t think they’d do anything to me,” she said. “I’m very much with them. I’ve been marching with them for weeks and weeks and weeks.”
Given many comments regarding protesters’ races, it’s worth noting that a young Black woman leading the protest Monday asked White protesters to step forward, as seen here. This direction was given more than once.
Idiots. They haven’t got a clue that their outrageous bullying is not only devouring a righteous cause, but it is also providing Donald Trump with the visual he needs – especially during convention week – to convince average Americans why they need to re-elect the self-professed law and order president .
And yes, Ms. Victor was indeed under attack. She was being bullied and shamed and being strong-armed into submission. If that isn’t being under attack, I don’t know what is. No wonder it didn’t feel right. Everyone should be allowed to think about an issue, work through it, let it marinate, and draw their own conclusions in their own time and on their own terms. Further, only that individual should make the decision about whether to even make their views known to others.
Here’s my unpopular take: I don’t care who you are, and what your cause is: Do not approach me during a pandemic when I am masked-up, minding my own business, and having drinks and/or waiting for a meal while supporting a local establishment with my hard-earned money. There is a righteous concern at the root of the protests, but these jokers are working to obliterate it with their strong-arm tactics. They are trying to *force* compliance from a fellow American and make that individual bend and conform to their will, right then and there. Obedience to the cause. Approved speech only. Submit now. Do it, or be labeled a heretic and known from this point on as a racist who clearly hates black people and thinks it’s dandy that another black man was killed by the cops. This is what constitutes reasoning these days. Both sides of the aisle play this twisted game with their pet causes as they furiously try to convince the masses that they have landed on the “right side of history.”
So, my reaction to the angry youth in the video or anyone trying to force me into submission: Me and my brown skin say fuck you to any kind of bullying. I’ll think what I want to think, I’ll believe what I want to believe, I’ll say what I want to say, and I’ll decide when and where I make my stands. All of this because God gave me a brain to think for myself, and I don’t need any mob telling me how to think and what to say. And don’t you dare try to force my hand in such an authoritarian manner. Seriously, just who do you think you are? Let me eat my damn waffle in peace. I owe you nothing.
For those who have falsely framed the scenario as: If the women in the video don’t pledge their allegiance to the cause when demanded, then they obviously don’t care that another black man was killed by law enforcement. To them I say: It is possible to hold two thoughts in one’s head at the same time, even two seemingly opposing thoughts. Adults do it all the time.
–Dana