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From the 'Nip This Shit In The Bud' File: "Derek Chauvin Is Not a Victim" by Tim Wise
For right-wing lawmakers hoping to raise money in time for their mid-term campaigns, few bogeymen serve the purpose as well as Congresswoman Maxine Waters. As a Black woman and racial justice advocate, Waters ticks any number of boxes on the side of the ledger marked: Things the far-right despises.
And so it’s no surprise that as we awaited the jury’s decision in the trial of former officer Derek Chauvin, her words to protesters would be deliberately twisted to suggest she had issued a call to violence in the event of a not guilty verdict. What better way to conjure the specter of Black mobs and liberal perfidy? What better way to shift attention from the murderer in the room, Chauvin, and the brutal law enforcement apparatus he served?
When Waters joined the protest over the recent police killing of Daunte Wright and told demonstrators they would need to “stay in the streets” and be “more confrontational” should Chauvin be acquitted, she was not encouraging riots. Confrontation only means violence in this instance if you presume that Black people are irrational beings without the capacity for strategic thought or discernment. And however much white conservatives might view them in such a manner, it goes without saying that Waters does not. She believes they understand what confrontation means, the same way civil rights protesters did when Dr. King called the Birmingham campaign “Operation C” (and yes, the “C” was for confrontation).
Perhaps Waters should have known her words would be mangled this way by the right. Fine. If so, one can fault her for presuming good faith from those who despise her and the causes for which she fights. But at some point, one has to place the blame squarely where it belongs: not on the congresswoman, but on those who deliberately stoke public fear and anger with claims they know are false.
And so it’s no surprise that as we awaited the jury’s decision in the trial of former officer Derek Chauvin, her words to protesters would be deliberately twisted to suggest she had issued a call to violence in the event of a not guilty verdict. What better way to conjure the specter of Black mobs and liberal perfidy? What better way to shift attention from the murderer in the room, Chauvin, and the brutal law enforcement apparatus he served?
When Waters joined the protest over the recent police killing of Daunte Wright and told demonstrators they would need to “stay in the streets” and be “more confrontational” should Chauvin be acquitted, she was not encouraging riots. Confrontation only means violence in this instance if you presume that Black people are irrational beings without the capacity for strategic thought or discernment. And however much white conservatives might view them in such a manner, it goes without saying that Waters does not. She believes they understand what confrontation means, the same way civil rights protesters did when Dr. King called the Birmingham campaign “Operation C” (and yes, the “C” was for confrontation).
Perhaps Waters should have known her words would be mangled this way by the right. Fine. If so, one can fault her for presuming good faith from those who despise her and the causes for which she fights. But at some point, one has to place the blame squarely where it belongs: not on the congresswoman, but on those who deliberately stoke public fear and anger with claims they know are false.
https://medium.com/our-human-family/derek-chauvin-is-not-a-victim-42ba4ed3cd48
Tim Wise was an antiracist before antiracism was cool. We should never allow the Right to raise money off lies. We need to point out lies until the racist gullibles know that 81 million of us are going to show them up and beat them down in 2022.
https://miro.medium.com/max/2048/1*b_1HG5rBtLVKkWy7twP9sg.jpeg
