Editor’s Note: February 2, 2016
An earlier version of this story included quotes attributed to a woman and her husband, described as Trump supporters. The woman was identified by her first name, Kathy, while the man was identified only as her husband. The reporter had provided a real individual’s full name and identity to editors but said the source did not want it to be used. When contacted, this individual said she did not support Trump, had not attended his rally, and had never spoken to our reporter.
The relevant section, which has been removed, read: “‘They need to be monitored and surveilled,’ said the woman, who was only willing to be identified as Kathy from Buckhall, Virginia. ‘We don’t need an influx of this in America. We’ve got to stop it.’ Her husband noted, ‘That’s what we like about Trump, he’s not afraid of the backlash. He tells the truth.’”
This piece includes additional quotes that The Intercept could not verify, including several from unnamed sources. We have been unable to confirm the existence of the Black Lives Matter activist named Aaron Geeding, and we have not found clear evidence that an Anna Ramirez was interviewed or that she attended this rally.
We have also added attribution to language taken from the news website Philly.com.
The problems with this story reflect a pattern of misattributed quotes that The Intercept uncovered in stories written by Juan Thompson, a former staff reporter. We apologize to our readers.
SINCE DONALD TRUMP jumped into the presidential campaign he has focused his vitriolic ire on almost every minority group in the country.
Trump called Mexican and Central American immigrants murderers and rapists; he used a Chinese accent during a rally that brought to mind the offensive Mr. Yunioshi depicted by Mickey Rooney in old movies; he mocked the movements of a New York Times reporter who has a physical disability; and he said, when speaking about Muslim Americans, “We’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.” Among the ideas Trump has endorsed to that end: shutting down mosques, torturing people who may be innocent, and creating a deportation force to round up undocumented immigrants.
Then last month, he tweeted a long-held lie believed by anti-black racists: that black Americans are murdering white Americans at a shocking rate.
A confrontation between Trump, the latest avatar of white ethnic nationalism, and the Black Lives Matter organizations seemed inevitable.
But it didn’t take place Wednesday night. Several Black Lives Matter organizers trekked to the Washington, D.C., suburb of Manassas, Virginia, on a damp, cool evening, with the hope of disrupting a Trump rally there. They were stopped at the door by event organizers who refused to allow in anyone, even with a ticket, who had on T-shirts or carried signs that disparaged Trump. The activists were wearing T-shirts that simply read “black lives.”
“What Trump is doing is disgraceful,” said Black Lives Matter activist Aaron Geeding.
We were talking as he and other protesters stood outside a pavilion at the Prince William County Fairgrounds where Trump was speaking. Inside there were maybe 1,500 people, almost all of them white, who at times seemed bored with Trump’s stream-of-consciousness bragging about his poll numbers and personal wealth.
A small crowd of protesters watched Trump on the flat screen that rally organizers had set up outside the pavilion, and when Geeding and the others started shouting “Dump Trump” and “Black Lives Matter,” their chants reverberated inside the pavilion. Some Trump supporters, outside taking cigarette breaks, started yelling at the demonstrators, “You don’t belong here,” followed by chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
Trump heard his detractors and asked the police to “gently remove the protesters.” By contrast, his supporters assaulted a Black Lives Matter protester at an Alabama rally last month. Trump’s response to that incident was, “Maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”
On Wednesday night, police asked the group to leave the fairgrounds, which they did. Trump smiled and told the white crowd, “We’re the majority. We call this the silent majority, but we’re not so silent anymore.”
“That tweet about black crime isn’t surprising,” said Geeding. “He has a pattern of doing this, of spreading racist lies about POC [people of color] and that’s why it’s important that we stand here with others.”
Indeed, standing with Geeding was a group of Latino American protesters also denied entrance to the rally. When I arrived at the rally site the very first sign I saw was a Black Lives Matter sign being held by one of them, among a group of maybe 50.
“His hate is dangerous, and he’s made it OK,” said 31-year-old demonstrator Anna Ramirez. Ramirez and her fellow protesters drove in from Washington, D.C., to display their dissatisfaction with Trump’s attacks on immigrants. “The people inside there like him because he is speaking to that.”
“We are all immigrants on some level,” Ramirez said. “My brother is in the Marines, my family came here 20 years ago, and we all contribute to this country.” She asked: “Can you imagine America without people like me?”
Rally attendees didn’t see it that way.
A middle-aged man who declined to give his name initiated an exchange with me.
“You look like a boy who’s up to no good,” he said.
“Don’t call me boy, boy,” I replied. He then offered me a handshake, which was promptly refused.
“I knew it, you’re a racist,” he barked. And then someone shouted, “Shake the man’s hand, black boy!”— a yell that was greeted with laughter and cheers from some in my vicinity.
A friend who attended with me, Joshua Cartwright, watched the exchange and concluded: “Their brazenness is shocking.”
Meanwhile on stage, Trump invited up a child, a black supporter, and a Latino supporter. He’s done this before when he’s gotten blowback for racist comments. One of those invited up was Milton Street, who Trump called “my pastor.”
But Street is not a religious leader. He’s a onetime Pennsylvania state senator who served 26 months in federal prison for evading $3 million in taxes. He ran for mayor of Philadelphia and got only 2 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary. According to Philly.com, he changed party affiliations from Democrat to Republican in 1980 so that Republicans could take control of the state senate.
On Trump’s stage, Street lambasted Black Lives Matters for not caring about black-on-black crime and begged the candidate to come to Philadelphia to speak about black crime.
“It’s such bullshit,” Geeding said. “Black Lives Matter is about police murdering black people.” He added, “There are black people all across this country who deal with and protest crime in our communities every day.”
I spotted a Muslim woman in the crowd who, along with her daughter, was wearing a hijab. I asked her why she came. “Do you see anyone like us here?” she asked. “We have to let these people know we’re not afraid.” She said she was expressing her protest merely by being present. She refused to give her name — out of fear, she said. She accused Trump of putting “a bulls eye on our backs.”
God forbid someone kicked out a protester. /sarc
We live in a country where we have so much freedom to do what we want. In any other country Mr Trump would have been thrown in prison, except maybe in IS territory where they share the same intensity of sentiments if not the freedom.
Whether it is a Trump rally or a Sanders rally, any negative reaction to BLM’s in-your-white-face agitation by campaign supporters is going to be automatically characterized as racist in nature. The crowd response to Bernie Sanders being accosted by BLM was one of collective disapproval; this was a politically astute, liberal crowd from Seattle who came to hear a self-described socialist speak to the political, social, and economic inequalities that plaque the vast majority of Americans. Yet, BLM activists, and its self-appointed apologists, have chosen to ignore the obvious reasons for such a reaction from a predominantly “white” crowd. Instead, they choose to attribute a patently false racial explanation for the crowds distaste of overly aggressive, race-specific political agitation from “black” activists who blithely presume that their postmodern concept of social justice is morally superior to that of radical-centrist “white progressives.” In fact, an Aug 21 Atlantic interview of a “black” social media specialist from “Real Change” attempted to discredit the “white progressive” reaction of Bernie Sander’s supporters to BLM’s disruptive antics by characterizing it as an example of “white fragility” which she in turn defines as a race-specific reflexive “response to a public attack on their morality.” This is coming from a young black woman who is still wet behind the ears! Such ignorance and arrogance should be offensive to everyone.
But what does BLM care for the refined moral sensibilities of “white progressives” who have fought and, on occasion, died for the very “space” from which BLM chooses to launch its self-interested, spurious attacks? Like Juan Thompson, BLM will say, or do, anything to draw attention to themselves in the name of their cause.
In other words: “If you are not with us, you are against us.” Isn’t this exactly what George W said when he initially embarked on his anti-terror campaign?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-23kmhc3P8U
It’s a private rally.
Trump can do as he chooses.
Keeping morons out seems like reasonable thing to me.
You’ve got a lot of guts doing that; it would be the equivalent of me walking into a Sen. Joseph McCarthy fan club (given the number of people who still spout his belief that there are evil communists everywhere, they almost have to exist…) wearing my Green Party T-shirt, except I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to actually try to do that. In my view that puts you right up there with Glenn Greenwald in terms of journalistic courage.
I only wish you had managed to record your experience on video, so as to completely silence the Trump fans on here who think you’re lying. They simply don’t see how they’re taking part in a recreation of historical events (ie, the fascism that swept Germany in the 1930’s), they simply know not what they’re doing, or perhaps some of them DO know what they are doing, which makes it all the more dangerous if that is the case.
By the way, have you heard of Jill Stein? She too has a knack for risking one’s safety/liberty in order to defend her beliefs or prove a point (see her 2012 protest against the CPD debates).
The stats that Trump tweeted were inarguably inaccurate. But the real stats still show that black-on-white violence far outpaces the inverse. http://takimag.com/article/barking_back_at_black_lives_matter_jim_goad#axzz3tTbR3miI
Apparently black lives only matter when a black person is killed by a white person or police officer, which is a very tiny fraction in comparison to black on black murders…but ya know point the finger the other way. I don’t think i, me, has ever heard or read a black person taking responsibility for their actions. Always playing the blame game.
On the contrary, terrorists have put a literal bull’s-eye on the backs of Muslims around the world. The biggest death-tolls from terrorism are and have long been in Muslim-majority countries. So have Christian terror groups painted a figurative bull’s-eye on the backs of all Christians? Did the white-perpetrated Planned-Parenthood shooting show us how dangerous white males are? Did the Charleston shooting do the same? Apparently not, at least, not for you.
This is an unbelievable pack of lies which embellishes, attaches statements to events they were not made about, and ascribes motivations there is no evidence of, inflates gaffs beyond recognizable promotion, and is just outlandishly shameful. Moreover, the person who wrote it has no regard for the intellect of their readers. All of Trumps events are filmed, and available on line view in full, unfiltered, and see the author of this article for the complete charlatan, political con artists that they are. Google “Trump rally u-tube” and the sate or date to narrow it down, and see for yourselves verses being railroaded by this propaganda!
Amen I couldn’t have said it better myself. This “story” was definitely not written by an impartial observer it came across as a hit piece written for self promotion at the expense of the truth. Im not a Trump supporter and I’m not a supporter of a group inserting themselves where they know they’re not welcome and then blaming everyone but themselves when they get exactly what they came for. I’ve lived in Baltimore and I’ve seen cops do things that would get anyone else thrown in prison for 20 years but for BLM to blame the guard dogs instead of their masters is playing right into the hands of the people who are really keeping us all down. There is a real problem of those in power abusing that power, it comes from the top down but instead of going to the source with their grievances they are doing their dirty work by keeping us all divided and at each other’s throats.
Yeah, Juan, how dare you believe Black Lives Matter more than Trump’s ascendancy?
That’s obviously communist.
“Muslim woman …accused Trump of putting “a bulls eye on our backs.” She is wrong. Muslim Terrorists have put the bulls eye on the backs of all Muslims and we should be thankful that TRUMP has the courage and integrity to make that very loud and clear. Our politicians and journalists do not want you to think that the problem might derive from within Islam. That would not be “nice”. As far as BLM is concerned, they don’t matter. Not in any special way. TRUMP IS RIGHT.
Just another angry black man, ranting on and on about nothing…
Black Lives Matter is a violent hate group exclusively for morons. Nobody in their right mind would want them near their rally.
… and accordingly, little Juan identifies with them.
…and when a bigoted-ass duece drops you apparently eat it up.
The only people who think BLM is a hate group are racists who don’t know what the definition of “hate group” is.
pigs in a blanket fry em like bacon sounds like a hate group. BLM radio group calling to kill whites and cops sounds racist to me.
BLM does not represent the black community. They are instigators and are doing more to invite racial violence than help it- much worse than what Trump says. Listen to their videos and the language they use- I’m talking about in a protest in Minneapolis- calling the black officer an Uncle Tom and if she had a @#$% he should suck it. Look on their website for what they believe! They want to replace the family structure and do away with the traditional “family” in place of a “village” (as if we don’t need stronger families!) and they state a Gay and Lesbian agenda explicitly, which seems like a different cause to me. So read carefully what they’re all about. Activism is great, if the result is constructive, but BLM makes black people look bad and just creates more hostility. Why don’t you go in and talk to Trump yourself and see how you feel about him, and ask him the hard questions?- I’d be curious if he’d meet with you. And, you know what? If that white man insulted you, I would have been the bigger man and shook his hand. That’s the beginning of getting a message across. You missed an opportunity there.
PS: I like your article overall!
Thank you, but I disagree. I have no obligation to shake anyone’s hand, esp someone who insults me. I don’t buy into that “bigger man” thinking. The best man is the one who doesn’t launch racist insults.
The best man is also the one who lets people organize and speak for themselves rather than disrupt such events. BLM might have some worthwhile points but their methods alienate those who might be sympathetic.
Thank you, but I disagree. I don’t have an obligation to shake anyone’s hand who insults me. Getting a message across is telling someone that racist insults are awful and won’t be tolerated.
Hey Juan! Did you get any video so i can help share on Twitter?
Nah if Jaun shook that mans hand he loses more. Jaun was placed in a lose lose. You don’t ask your young child to shake the hand of the bully who just punched his lights out? And you don’t ask a black man to shake the hand of someone who’s trying to make them feel like something less then human.
Black Lives Matter is just the latest in a series of post-modern deconstructionist social movements that masquerade their rabid racial hatred of “hetero-patriarchal [white] society” behind a flag of inclusiveness. They are ceaselessly and shamelessly endeavoring to reinvent the black liberation movement in a way that disproportionately advances the interests of a tiny minority of black people – the black LGBT community. To this end, they intentionally put themselves on the front lines of many mainstream protests with the deliberate aim of provoking the very reactions from “white people” that they routinely condemn. This strategy is seen as the mean whereby this tiny minority can inexorably conflate its gender politics with those of the black community at large.
Nice thoughtful response to the article Yolanda. I usually don’t post here because I am usually instantly attacked by people who really belong in a Huffington Post forum and not a class journalistic site such as the Intercept. I feel like BLM is really turning away a lot of people from their cause because of the way they are going about things. Its really a hearts and minds campaign and I think many in the movement are so angry that they fail to see that. Demonizing the entire white race just alienates people. I listened to a very thoughtful interview the other day from NPR about the perspective of many young black people. Many feel that BLM’s actions are just causing more problems and wish they wouldn’t be so militant and in your face. Just my two cents :-).
“One of those invited up was Milton Street, who Trump called ‘my pastor.’
But Street is not a religious leader. He’s a onetime Pennsylvania state senator who served 26 months in federal prison for evading $3 million in taxes. He ran for mayor of Philadelphia and got only 2 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary. He switched party affiliations from Democrat to Republican in 1980 to help Republicans take control of the state senate.”
Actually, that sounds the perfect pastor for the Church of Trump.
This is what President Trump would openly embrace:
http://freedomfchs.lefora.com/topic/7442322/nanodevices-in-sensory-overload-mind-control-torture
Trump does not appear to like any ethnic group that is not European American.
He forgets, or likely, is not aware that ALL groups in America are immigrants or sons and daughters of immigrants.
But most importantly, America’s ‘inclusion’ defines the whole, wherein lies her greatest strength. And not in shredding that whole apart into its component parts, and then deciding if each component should belong to the whole, or which is more deserving.
Folks that shred, lose before they even beginning. Because the primary component of America as a whole, is Native America. And they would have far more harsher words for Trump, the European American, than all of the things Trump has said about others combined were they to weigh in on the matter.
But they do not. And will not. Because they believe in the whole despite their sad history. And are thus far better than Trump as an American.
Isn’t trumps wife or girlfriend Latino?
The liberal media and their anti-Trump hate campaign is becoming more ridiculous every day. At least I know which journalists I can trust and Juan Thompson is not one of them. FAIL.
Thanks for this nice message.
You deserve the “praise.” Your article was an exercise in BLM/SJW propaganda. Also, your failure to shake the man’s hand shows how you and your ilk are part of the problem.
Well at least your reading an actual news sight. How does Jaun’s reporting of what he saw and experienced equal anti trump hate speech? And the intercept is not the “liberal media” that is reserved for the mass media only. Certainly not the intercept whom was started by the courages reporters that broke the Snowden files. The “liberal media” wouldn’t touch that story with a ten foot pole and they sure as hell wouldn’t risk bodily harm going to
A trump rally.
They wouldn’t “touch this story” because it’s not a story! Its place is in his diary, not a site for journalism. Course, we see now that The Intercept has morphed into propaganda bullshit like everyone else. Gotta keep that circle jerk in motion and the bills paid!
Yawn.
Go to a rally in support of a known racist in order to “disrupt” it, and then *surprise* get called “black boy”, and this is all you have to report? This isn’t even notable. And yes, Juan, maybe you don’t have to be “the better person” but that means no one else does. Let’s all be damn jerks to each other for whatever reason ya want, and see how things progress. Erm, regress.
This election (read: spectacle) seems to have the potential of being very dangerous. Lots of crazy stuff coming from Trump, or more of the same crazy stuff coming from Hillary. Is there actually a point in voting next year?
It’s a strange and uncomfortable feeling
“Crazy Stuff” indeed:
“Donald Trump Booed by Pro-Israel Group After Telling Them He Can’t Be Bought”
https://theintercept.com/2015/12/03/donald-trump-booed-by-pro-israel-group-after-telling-them-he-cant-be-bought/
I mean more the torture and killing entire families…
What? You sound as ‘crazy’ as you claim he is…
Donald Trump would “absolutely” bring back waterboarding as an accepted form of interrogation, he said today on ABC’s “This Week.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-bring-back-waterboarding/story?id=35354443
“With the terrorists, you have to take out their families,” Trump said during a “Fox & Friends” interview.
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-terrorist-families-isis-2015-12?op=1
If Jill Stein, the Green Party’s likely presidential candidate, gets on the ballot in your state, then yes, there is most certainly a point in voting. Consider it a protest, a form of dissent against the fascists and neoliberals running for election in the two current ruling parties. Heck, Jill and the Green Party could use some help in breaking the mainstream media blockade and getting their ideas out there.
http://www.jill2016.com
@ Karl
Look, if you want to make an argument that Donald Trump’s political campaign events are private matters on private property by written invitation only, and that because they are, Donald Trump and his campaign staff have the absolute right to do the best they can to keep anyone, for any reason, from disrupting them–that’s a fair argument.
Hell I’d agree with you that if anyone actually became disruptive it would be appropriate to politely ask them to leave, and if they refused to peacefully shepherd them from the venue.
But to suggest that simply wearing a T-shirt that states “Black Lives Matter” on it to the venue, or being black and showing up at the venue, is enough to be prohibited from entering the venue if otherwise invited or the event is open to “the public”, then you are treading on very thin ice.
Please answer my question below about your definition (and context if necessary) of what you believe is “racially provocative behavior”. And please do so for all races. Thanks in advance. I’m genuinely interested in what you believe those three words mean.
I answered these concerns below.
@ Karl
Are you stupid, or do you not understand English or the history of Gandhi and MLK Jr. I’m guessing both since you don’t even know how to spell Gandhi’s last name.
But for the record: Gandhi and MLK Jr.’s “method of non-violent confrontation” was most often met with violence. It was passive disruptive non-violent resistance by definition. But nevertheless for the purpose of eliciting a response, with the expected response to be “violence”.
So by your logic, that is precisely what BLM is doing. They are passively, in the sense of non-violent speech rather than going into a Trump rally and punching bigots in the mouth, exercising their First Amendment rights to provoke a response. No different than Martin Luther King Jr. did, and every civil rights activist who sat at a lunch counter non-violently and tried to order food where they were nominally not permitted. Or road a bus in a section nominally not permitted.
You really are either a very bad liar or have a very poor handle on the use of the English language, and the history of the civil rights movement in America or the struggle for independent in India.
If you don’t comprehend the historical and cultural distinction between an elderly black man referring to an adult black man as son or boy, and a elderly white man referring to an adult black man as “son” or “boy” then you’re either being purposefully obtuse or you are a bigot.
I’m surmising both.
I think I’m about done with you. From here on out I’m simply going to mock your facile duplicity and bigotry. Because that’s all people like you deserve in terms of respect, which is to say next to none.
Yet another post that employs invective as a mean of throwing the perceived opposition off balance…. shall we go back and examine your own comment history for errors in punctuation, diction, grammar, and/or spelling to determine if your definition of “stupidity” applies to yourself? Come to think of it, let’s apply it to everyone for the purpose of seeing how many online friends you have when we are done…
In keeping with spirit of non-violent resistance, Ghandi and MLK intentionally discouraged any overtly provocative actions that could even remotely warrant a moral justification for the predictable violence that was used against them in their struggle for social justice. BLM routinely engages in behaviors that are overtly provocative and racially divisive. For example, Mercutio Southall proudly admits to exchanging blows with those who allegedly accosted him. The movement itself states that “there is a clear rejection of the respectability politics ethos of the civil rights era.” thus it is interesting that, in accusing me of not comprehending historical and cultural distinction,” you are intentional blurring critical distinctions. This is why I prefer not to engage you. Like Mona, you will dishonestly employ any trick in the book simply to win an argument in service to your own bloated ego.
Again, I have seen adult black men routinely address younger white men with the terms “son” and “boy.” For example: “atta boy” is a widely used informal, colloquial expression of encouragement in the south – as is “way to go son.” Variations of the phrase that Juan so vehemently objected have been in routine use for generations; they are most often employed by older men to remind younger men (or boys) that they are being addressed by their elder and that they are expected to respond in a respectful manner. I do not deny that the term “boy” has been used as a racially pejorative term; the author himself has proven that. But you do not know what was in the mind of the middle-aged man anymore than Juan did. Hell, any recruit who has made their way through boot camp is all too familiar with the pejorative use of the word “boy” by drill instructors of every racial persuasion.
Please do not address me again, I am sick of your sophistry.
Of course he’s a ‘boy’ – you all feign over him like he is a sensitive little boy, and he basks in your glorious comments like a little boy would.
Shameless huh?
My my what a bunch of crap!
Why the hell would anyone want BLM activists in their event? Tell me, what rational purpose does it serve to let people in who are opponents of everyone in the room and are only there to disrupt the event?
@ bob
Who said they were “opponents of everyone in the room”? It may have been the case that they were there to disrupt the event, or not? Maybe they were just there to disrupt what The Donald had to say given the highly inflammatory racist shit that seems to fly out of his mouth about every other time he opens it.
The BLM were there to disrupt, not to debate. The BLM bullying on college campuses, and at organised political events are part of a tendency to shut down debate and impose a monologue. The BLM stormtroopers at the Bernie Sanders event is a sign of things to come. Ever wonder why Trump is so popular? Look no further than BLM. Reaction and counter reaction.
Dissent and protests are as American as apple pie and cheddar cheese.
And so are batons and tear gas.
As are property rights.
By the way, I agree that Trump and many of his supporters are racist, authoritarian assholes, but the title of this article is a non-story. Why would ANY candidate want to let people in who they know would cause disruptions?
The utter cowardice involved in refusing entrance to BLM activists is eye-opening. Trump, et al. are clearly afraid of anyone contradicting their narrative because they can’t actually defend it. It’s pretty pathetic.
Very succinct.
Exactly. Like when a reporter asked Trump the difference between what he’s proposing re: Muslims and Nazi Germany, and all he could respond with was, “You tell me.”
Trump really wants the white male vote, doesn’t he? His methods will fail, but sadly, with his rhetoric, he gives tacit consent for racial, religious and ethnic hate crimes.
I don’t know what’s more disturbing to think about — that we’ve come back to calling black men “boy”, or the possibility that a significant (and, until recently, silent) subset of the population never stopped doing it.
Haven’t sopped and, as you may read in this thread, are being supported by many others
@Juan Thompson
Let me get this straight… In less than a week after you uncritically report that a BlackLivesMatter activist WAS verbally and physically accosted by racially motivated Trump supporters at a privately funded venue, you choose to attend another rally wherein you allegedly witness the fact that “event organizers” prevented access to anyone wearing a BlackLives t-shirt. Accepting this portion of your account as fact, this sounds like a fairly prudent measure considering that Trump can exercise no direct control over the thousands of purportedly violent RACISTS that attend his rallies. Would you prefer that a whole group of BlackLivesMatter activists be verbally and physically accosted? (this is a purely rhetorical question as I already know that the intended aim of BlackLivesMatter agitation is to garner the very reaction that they purportedly disdain for the purpose of enhancing their own brand).
More directly, your personal account of interaction with racist elements at the Trump rally also reeks of brand-enhancing motives (if they can be believed at all). It is unbelievable that in an age where all kinds of racist activity by police is routinely captured on cell phones that you, or your friend, didn’t think to record the alleged reaction to your own racially provocative behavior. So, I guess that we will just have to take your unsubstantiated word for that which occurred eh?
When you say racially provocative, you mean I’m black right? I’m been provocative merely by being a black man there? How repulsive of you.
“When you say racially provocative, you mean I’m black right? I’m been provocative merely by being a black man there?”
I mean that the alleged exchange between you and the “middle-aged” racist could only result in further antagonism of what you purport is potentially violent, divisive, and irrational behavior. At best, you are a fool. At worst you are a deceitful, manipulative fool.
“How repulsive of you.”
Yes, I suspect that anyone who dares to challenge your brand-building narrative will be labeled in like manner in due time.
@ Karl
So African-American males are “fools” or “deceitful, manipulative fools” if they attempt to attend events or go places where there may be racists or people who otherwise do not like them being there? So basically they should just stay in whatever places you believe are “theirs”?
Exactly what “brand” do you think it is Juan Thompson is trying to build?
Are you seriously accusing Juan Thompson of fabricating his interaction with the individual at the rally or misattributing the dialogue? Based on what, the fact you were there or the fact Juan Thompson is black?
So basically you are saying Juan Thompson, whose credibility as a journalist is on the line every day and based on every word he writes, is somehow fabricating this incident? I’m not saying it’s not possible because from Judith Miller to whomever there have been isolated instances of that happening in America. But usually when you smear someone with the innuendo that they are lying you better be able to back it up otherwise it’s you who is going to come off like a sleazy scumbag.
@ Karl
You do realize that the “middle aged” man initiated the exchange with Juan not the other way around right?
And since you said the following:
Who said “it could only result” in X? And what exactly is “antagonism of what you purport is potentially violent, divisive, and irrational behavior.” Violent, divisive and irrational behavior by whom? The man who initiated the exchange because Juan didn’t engage in violent, divisive or irrational behavior. So are you suggesting that when someone calls Juan “boy” to his face, he should just walk away so as not to potentially provoke someone to further violent, divisive and irrational behavior? If so fair enough.
So you followed the above with that. And then I quote it directly back to you because you are describing Juan that way. Again, why is Juan a “fool” or “deceitful, manipulative fool” for a) not initiating and exchange with another human being and calling him “boy” and/or b) for not apparently walking away?
Given that what “Juan” says is actually true:
I am saying that Juan clearly chose to believe that the use of the term “boy” by a middle aged “white” man was racially motivated. In turn, he chose to engage in a tit-for-tat by calling a person who is perceptively older than himself “boy.” In spite of that intended insult, the middle aged man extended his hand in what is traditionally interpreted as a peaceful, friendly gesture. Juan chose not to entertain that overture as well. Based upon the way that Juan chose to describe the actions of the “sea of white people” who were provoked into swarming Mr. Southall (“blackshirts”), I believe that its is fair to say that he was predisposed to interpret and respond to the middle aged “white” man’s words with the same propensity for racial bias.
If one accepts without question that the middle-aged white man intended to use the word “boy” in a racially pejorative sense, I would argue that Juan chose to respond in way that had a great potential for violence given that he actually believed this his description (“blackshirts”) of Trump’s supporters was accurate. He could of easily diffused the situation by simply walking away.
Just for the record: I lived for many years in the rural south where it was as common as dirt for white and black folk of advanced age to address younger men with the terms boy or son. I wonder if Juan would be so quick to interpret a middle aged black man’s use of the word “boy” if it was directed at him, or a white man his age?
The reason BLM, Jaun , or anyone else would attend a rally where trump is speaking is simple. It’s like catching your child in the act of doing something wrong. You can tell the kid what your doing is wrong and they won’t listen or they will. But if you catch them in the act then they know, and will be embarrassed by the fact that what they are doing is being witnessed. Do you think that the crowd of people at the trump rally would want there friends, family , and coworkers to see them at a trump rally. Would they be proud of their actions and there cheering? Or would all the emotion get washed away leaving nothing behind but a feeling of stupidity and shame.
Further antagonism b/c of his behavior. You’re not even making sense like most supremacists.
@ Karl
What exactly was “racially provocative” about Juan’s behavior? More importantly, what exactly in your mind constitutes “racially provocative behavior”?
@ Karl
Is it “racially provocative” for a black man to attend a Trump rally? Hey what other places shouldn’t certain people go in America because of their race on pain of be accused of engaging in “racially provocative behavior”?
Can white folks engage in “racially provocative behavior” or just “non-whites” in your book? If so please give an example of a white person engaging in “racially provocative behavior” and where exactly in American such an activity might take place.
Hey thanks in advance.
@ Karl
Really how do you know what the “intended aim of BLM agitation” is? Did you ask any members or people who generally support the stated aims of BLM what the “intended aim of their agitation” was/is?
Here’s what BLM expressly says it is:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/25/the-black-lives-matter-policy-agenda-is-practical-thoughtful-and-urgent/
Funny thing I don’t see anything in there about “garnering reactions they purportedly disdain for the purposes of enhancing their own brand.”
Do you honestly see what BLM is doing as some sort of marketing experiment for the personal “brand” benefit of the people who are participating or supporting BLM agitation?
Seriously, you’ve had some meaningful things to say at times around here, but you should stop digging before you make a complete jerk of yourself. Alternatively pull you head out of your ass and do a little research on how BLM came to be, what specifically they seek, and learn a little something about what modern decentralized “agitation” in the year 2015 is all about.
“…do a little research on how BLM came to be, what specifically they seek, and learn a little something about what modern decentralized “agitation” in the year 2015 is all about.”
Thank you for acknowledging the fact that BlackLivesMatter activists were attempting to gain entrance into a Trump rally for the specific purpose of agitating the type of response that the author uncritically condemned just a week ago. At least now we can engage in an honest debate about what type of political agitation best serves the common good.
AGAIN, your own propensity for unnecessarily aggressive, insulting, and discourteous discourse leaves me caring little about what you think of me.
@ Karl
Of course they were, and precisely what is wrong with that? Do you believe “agitation” and “protest” works best only in the venues where people agree with you and it isn’t disruptive by definition? If so, and I mean this in a very condescending way, you really have no idea about the history of political activism in this country. Or what it takes to advance such things as basic human rights.
the type of response that the author uncritically condemned just a week ago.
Please be precise: “which type of response” was the agitation meant to induce, and “where did the author uncritically condemn it a week ago”?
Okay please let’s do that. Right now. Please describe to me your view about “what type of political agitation best serves the common good”. Start by defining the “common good”. And here’s a historical newsflash, not once in the history of America can I think of a single instance of “political agitation” that was designed to benefit everyone. You know why? Because by definition the reason people generally politically or economically “agitate” or “protest” is due to a perceived injustice being visited upon that specific subset of the “common”.
Thanks in advance. And if you have the time I’d like to answer all the other question I asked above regarding when and where it is okay, in your opinion, for certain people to be, what time and what types of events, so as not to be said to be engaged in “racially provocative behavior”–both white and black.
Again, thank in advance I eagerly await your responses.
Karl, these BLM supporters were going to see a presidential candidate. That should be a fulfilling, welcome and interesting experience for all peoples of the Leading Nation of the Free World. Instead, it all has a whiff of the Brownshirted SA to me!
America has gone insane.
BLM activists were attending the Trump rally for the purpose of engaging in political agitation. A soon as you are willing to admit that fact, and drop the brown-shirt rhetoric, we might have a common ground on which a fruitful exchange of opinion could possibly take place.
@ Karl
I admit BLM activists attend almost all events for the purpose of engaging in “political agitation”.
The question is why don’t you believe that is appropriate behavior? Because it is “disruptive”? Of course it is that’s it’s point. In fact, all “political agitation” short of paid lobbyists is “disruptive” to one degree or another, from Janitors for Justice protests, to environmentalists obstructing vessels or tying themselves to trees, to union strikes, to sit-ins in college administration buildings.
Is it your contention that there is such a thing as “political agitation” that is not disruptive? If so please give me 5 examples of non-disruptive “political agitation” that accomplished any meaningful change in America.
Donald trump very recently experienced exactly what he could expect by allowing BLM agitators to attend his rallies. Mr. Thompson recently wrote an article that gave an uncritical account of the purported response that Mercutio Southall’s intentionally disruptive antics elicited from Donald Trump and his supporters. Mr. Southall’s sea of “white” attackers were described as “blackshirts” by Mr. Thompson in an effort to support his main thesis that Donald Trump is “advancing a dehumanizing view of black Americans” akin to that harbored by neo-Nazis. Given that most recent group of BLM activists could be expected to behave in a manner that was at least as provocative as that exhibited by Mr. Southall, do you believe that it would be either responsible or politically prudent for Donald Trump to allow his alleged “blackshirts” to be baited once again before taking any mitigating actions?
Again, I believe that the moral legitimacy of a cause is own best asset. If BLM is truly interested in honestly advancing, conveying, and preserving the moral legitimacy of their cause than it is solely incumbent upon them to engage in the type of political agitation that nurtures their purported aim of achieving greater acceptance and inclusiveness for those the claim to represent. By intentionally employing tactics that predictably result in potentially violent, divisive, and irrational behavior in their perceived opposition, BLM is predictably eliciting a result that directly contradicts and undermines their stated aims. Personally, I believe that Ghandi and MLK devised a method of non-violent confrontation that had the greatest capacity to elicit a sympathetic response from those who were not already intractably opposed to their message.
No matter what your cause, when you appear as though you will disrupt or do disrupt a candidates speeches, you have broken the covenant of belonging to a free and democratic country.
So he was only doing this to protect BLM members. How noble.
And where have I heard that argument before? (A list would be unwieldy.
Please quit using racist tropes to justify racism.
While everyone is piling up on Karl…how can you excuse this video incitement ?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR6ZsJXPCUM BLM says “Kill white people and crackers”
Perhaps Mr. Thompson would need to understand that he himself would not like the KKK showing up at his event knowing what type agitators they are. Personally I would not shake hands with any group that aligns itself with violence…because you reap what you sow. You sow discord in your article not peace…and you don’t provide proof of what you claim happened. I can’t count how many times I have heard the word “boy” and “n*gger” spoken between ‘blacks’ to each other. Where is the warranted offense in that? You may call me what you want but I refuse to retaliate.
Did you notice that Juan Thompson chose not to respond to the video you linked to? This is standard operating procedure when people like himself are faced with incontrovertible evidence that there black racists who are every bit as violent and hateful as those phantom “white blackshirts” whom they endlessly construct in service to their own racial bias.
How can he respond to it? He would have to eat his words. I’ve got to hand it to you Karl…you stood the ground of truth and that truth stands on it’s own. But he bows to his zionist trainers and helps hold Clinton’s net that Trump will force the fish into. The ole democratic slave ship that supports the occupation, theft, murder, torture, and ISIS in the ME and the long going abomination in Palestine. If people can’t see it they become ensnared by their deceiving words…trapped and held hostage by their vote. Juan is supporting that because he only cares about the BLaMer’s and their opportunistic terrorizing behind the mutilated Constitution. All votes go to corruption.
“So he was only doing this to protect BLM members.”
I never said or inferred this. But thanks for showing that you too are prone to bias when interpreting the words of your perceived opposition.
“You look like a boy who’s up to no good,” he said.
“Don’t call me boy, boy,” I replied. He then offered me a handshake, which was promptly refused.
“I knew it, you’re a racist,” he barked.
And he was right. The guy was simply referring to your youthful appearance, and when you took it the wrong way, offered his hand as an apology.
You ‘promptly refused’ to accept his apology, thus revealing your prejudiced and racial bias.
Juan Thompson is a full-grown man.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/2899982/images/o-JUAN-THOMPSON-facebook.jpg
You’re trying to justify a dog whistle phrase with a long history of racist connotations.
@ Johnny B.
Yeah, like totally man. It was just an innocent mistake based on Juan’s “youthful appearance”. And Juan was just being hypersensitive. Do you really believe that or did you eat a lot of paint chips as a kid?
Ha.
Yeah, I’m the racist b/c I don’t take to some strange white man calling me a boy. You really do think that don’t you?
You make a very good point, Juan, that it seems Trump’s actually trying to offend almost every American not white enough and male and preferably with some form of redneck racist tendencies. I can’t stand giving that guy any credit for anything, but not even Ted Cruz could’ve damaged the republican brand for years to come – this badly, so there’s that.
It was like a caricature last night.
Chump represents the worst in all of us. At first I was thrilled with him because I thought his clownish behavior would help trash the already beat down Republican party. Unfortunately I am belatedly realizing that their is a huge number of ignorant, stagnant bigots who see this man as a savior when he will never be anything more than a petty tyrant.
My point exactly.
I am glad that you now see that you share a number of Donald Trump’s worst traits – the least of which is racial bias. I just had the opportunity… to visit your Twitter feed… JOURNALISM WITH A [RACIAL] AGENDA INDEED!
It is deeply ironic that, in creating the Intercept, Glenn Greenwald claimed that he was committed to the goal of having the “most diverse organization of its size.” Yet, it is clear that he has embraced the banality of racial stereotypes when he resorts to race-centrism in allegedly advancing a post racial sensibility.
Well said…and because of that, I won’t be back.
BLM is a racist group and doesn’t deserve to represent black people.
Exactly – they seem to be doing more harm than good…
That’s a gross generalization. Who is BLM and how are they racist?
I just wonder how people justify being so presumptuous as to tell what a group they obviously don’t care to understand does and doesn’t “deserve to” do?
A primary problem here is that far too many White people treat people of color as a monolith while they enjoy the personal perception of themselves as this vast diaspora of peoples; I’m “Italian,” “I’m French,” “I’m German-Scot-and Irish.” Meantime the people brought here chained and prone on the hulls of ships were stripped of their past and their present – and their futures were cast for them so their stories held and continue to hold no viability in the wholly manufactured myth of “America.”
Now that many of these White people are being treated by the psychopath power elite as they believe only people of color should be treated, they are clinging even more to the sole advantage to which they have been trained to adhere – their alleged elevated status through the color of their skin.
Their sense of fear is so strong they will choose to cling to the missives of the grossest member of the psychopath power elite as long as he or she speaks to them in a manner that panders and appeals to the misperception of their skin color-based elevated status.
THAT ——– is sad… and potentially very dangerous.
Funny how ‘you’ lump everyone in the same basket…Your presumptions are just that…and you really don’t have a clue as to why Trump is playing the offense game. And THAT is sad. Juan is diabolically doing the same thing Trump is doing with this article but he hides behind BLM as a tool to persecute ALL whites while his chip weighs heavily on his shoulder(s) dragging him down the same path that gets him noticed by lovers of violence and segregation via offense…billowing the fire instead of putting the fire out. Peace is a free choice.
Hello Juan and everyone –
Juan, thank you for bringing this to us; I’m sorry for the racist slurs you encountered. That this nut job is even CONTENDING for the presidency is getting scarier and scarier. He also said we should also go after the families of IS. Anyone remember what Glenn said about going after family members after his David was detained in the U. K.? And how civilized does that make us? The racist mentality of those followers is just chilling.
And it’s seen in other things, too. Ted Cruz blasted the African-American campus protests – saying those students were “pampered.” (OK, I’ll give him that Princeton college kids, say, are privileged in that they don’t have to protest for living wages on minimum wage jobs). But I think you have to give the kids credit for being active and not just being satisfied with the status quo! Oh, gee, we can’t have the minority kids being too uppity, now, can we? And did you all see that “white student unions” were popping up around not in response to these protests?
And that’s just some random thoughts on the racial divides we see. There are, of course, others.
Well, before I put up a more cynical post, since the news has been SO bad lately, latest blog post is a unity post. Hey BK, guess where the inspiration came from!
http://observergal.blogspot.com/2015/12/excursion-together.html
Thanks for this.
TI, we need an edit function…
Sorry for the typo folks, should read “were popping up around NOW in response to these protests?”
@ Juan
A person, particularly a white person, referring to a black male adult as “boy” is every bit as racist as calling him the N word to his face.
And then when you refused to shake the hand of the man who said “you look like a boy who’s up to no good”, as I would have, he states:
You should have said, “No, if I’d referred to you, an adult male, as boy, then I might be a racist piece of shit like you. Which is precisely why I won’t shake your hand because I don’t shake the hand of anyone who projects their racism onto others and then gets offended when the object of that racism doesn’t tolerate it. If you can’t refer to me either by my name or in some way consistent with my adult status, then I’ve got nothing to say to you and I most certainly won’t shake your hand. So, and I’m going to phrase this as nicely as I can,–fuck off you know-nothing racist piece of crap!”
I have lots of family and friends of color. I’ve actually been with them when people have tried that sort of passive aggressive racist bullshit on them. They are always much more tolerant than I am if they get to confront the person before I can. Most of my friends and family politely explain that: “That’s the one I’m giving you without taking seriousoffense because maybe you simply weren’t raised any better. But here’s why what you said is offensive and hurtful . . . But if you address me that way again, you and I are going to have a serious problem.”
That usually does the trick. Though I’ve seen the alternative when someone thinks they can back up that sort of rhetoric. And it didn’t end very well for the bigot in question.
So….you suggest threatening violence then? Because thats what “we’ll have a serious problem” means.
@ Kevin
What I’m saying is that some words are so fundamentally dehumanizing with such a long history of racial animus and violent abuse behind them, that if you speak them to the objects or descendants of that abuse you better hope they aren’t inclined to take offense to the point of punching you in the mouth.
That is not to I condone violence in response to language. But regarding a very narrow set of words in this life, I can certainly understand how it comes to pass that people go to blows over certain use of language.
So my point is, it is best to forewarn someone that most human beings have limits about the amount of abuse they’ll tolerate to their face before they, rightly/wrongly, justifiably or not, respond in some fashion other than turning the other cheek or walking away–that’s what I mean by warning someone if they continue “we’ll have a serious problem”.
This is pure bullshit! The word “boy” is only potentially “dehumanizing” when used in a very narrow context. However, Juan’s use of the the term “blackshirt” to collectively describe Donald Trump’s “white” supporters is “fundamentally dehumanizing.” You are such a hypocrite!!!
This makes me cry.
It is awful isn’t it? I never cease to be depressed by this shit.
Then you’re a wimpy little pussy.
gh
Here’s a little test for you–you find the nicest woman you can find of equal size and weight to you. Next let her kick you in the testicles as hard as she possible can. And then after you’ve gotten up off the floor you get to kick her in her lady parts. 50 to 1 says you are the only one who hits the floor.
So my question is, why would you possible think it is appropriate or apt to denigrate another human being by comparing them to a female human’s genitalia?
Because, personally, I’ve yet to encounter anything that could remotely be accurately described as a “wimpy little pussy” on a female human being.
And when you’re all done recovering from that little experiment, try pushing a 9 pound malleable squash out your asshole just for shits and grins and get back to all the women in the world who have pushed the equivalent out their “wimpy little pussies”. Okay thanks. Look forward to you reporting back on the results.
Trump worships money. He will make it and then quit. He doesn’t really want to run anything. He just can’t stand to be second in anything that includes as a billionaire.
I think that’s true to a point.
Dismissing a proto-fascist as irrelevant can be very dangerous.
I think people like Trump because you never have to interpret what he says. He doesn’t say, for example, that he’s going to be the most transparent president to date and then proceed to head one of the most prolific shadow assassination programs I’ve ever seen. However, that doesn’t mean that his shallow, racist, misogynist, bullshit should win him the presidency and I’m glad to see reporters exposing this. Thanks for the great article.
Thanks for reading. And I agree with your broader point.
In Seattle, when Bernie Sanders came to town for a rally, he and thousands of his supporters were in for a rude shock.
As he started to speak, a Black Lives Matter activist climbed on to the stage and ripped the microphone out of his hands, and then proceeded to use the microphone to denounce “white supremacist liberalism”. Sanders was blocked frm speaking at his campaign rally in Seattle by this woman, who turns out to be a Christian evangelical supporter of Sarah Palin.
Black lives certainly do matter, but BLM “activists” are sometimes rightist nutbags, as we saw in Seattle, who dont deserve deference.
Disruption and protests are, traditionally, very American. But maybe it’s just for some Americans?
I guess I should simply repeat: Bernie Sanders came to Seattle for a rally. A BLM activist stopped him from speaking – for the entire rally – he ultimately left the stage and Seattle without being able to speak – because a BLM activist wanted to denounce his “white supremacist liberalism”. She is a nutbag far right evangelical Sarah Palin supporter who was allowed by White Guilt to stop an entire appearance by Sanders.
I cant stand Trump; black lives do matter; and BLM in my personal experience is comprised of extremist nutbags, and I wish Sanders had taken the microphone back and the ass who interrupted him I wish had been ejected.
Further – did that one looney woman’s belief that Bernie Sanders is a white supremaciat outweigh his right to speak *at all* at his own rally, and the rights of thousands of people to hear him?
Leftists have a massive problem being heard at all in corporate and official mass media, public rallies are one of the few venues we have.
Was this one absolute lunatic’s right to “disrupt” more important than the possible last chance for a generation for leftists to see a viable presidential candidate?
And you think this nut-job was helpful to your cause? You are a naïve fool, who sees the world only in black and white…
You are a hopeless loon.
CAF makes some salient points, Juan. Were you going to respond, or….
Not a campaign event, it was a soc sec related event organized by an unaffiliated third party to which Sanders and several other speakers were invited to appear.
But don’t worry about facts or anything.