Here is a story we can unpack from The Guardian newspaper by Adria R. Walker, University of Mississippi: 'Abhorrent' Counter-Protestors Condemned / Largely White, male group taunts pro-Palestinian protestors on campus and one man makes racist gesture towards Black woman, The Guardian (online Saturday, May 4, 2024).
It would be easy to dismiss this as a report from Mississippi. That would eliminate the truth that this is representative of current events across the United States.
Newspapers and cable media conveniently label these racists as "counter-protestors." Try this one on for size: These people are racists. They did not show up to "counter protest" a thing. Sometimes these stories are written and published as though racist gestures toward Black people, particularly toward a Black woman, are an aberration, an unusual and regrettable side-effect of a "counter protest."
They did not show up to counter protest, they showed up to make racist gestures, to say racist things, in short, they showed up because they are racists.
While you are trying things on for size, try this one too: The students protesting the murders in Gaza are not actually "pro-Palestinian" although, once again, it is convenient for newspapers and cable media to describe them so. They may not even know, many of them, what it means to be Palestinian.
The students protesting on their campuses, on the greens of the universities to which they and their families have paid tuition, are there because they are against cruelty and inflicted suffering. In the end, that is also why the racist mobs descended on them, not just in Mississippi but in California and other places as well.
Cruelty and inflicted suffering, and protests against them. Those are our choices. Choose well.
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