Make It Bad to Be Raciest Again Hat

(CNN)It matters that they wore "Make America Groovy Once more" hats.

I'm talking about those loftier school kids in the video that went viral over the weekend, the one that showed the young men laughing and jeering while an older American Indian man drummed and sang. It seemed at first to be an obvious case of white bros interim shamefully, but then another, longer video showed the same encounter with more context and new characters -- a racist fringe group of black men, who identify equally members of the Hebrew Israelites, and who seemed to take been the main provokers of tension and aggression.

This twist in the story gave the whole country a instance of interpretive whiplash, feeding frenzied new rounds of argument over who the real victims were, and who was being disgraceful to whom.

But that's a pointless debate. Based on independent reporting, those students should share in the arraign, despite their denials stating they were innocent bystanders.

The Native American protester could have inadvertently made things worse even if he was sincerely trying to calm things. The Hebrew Israelites hurled insults at only about everyone who crossed their path. Nosotros tin even ask why there weren't more adult chaperones to counsel those students to do the only sensible thing: shut up and walk away. That would accept shown real courage and wisdom.

Accept at it. Cull whichever facts that will fuel your outrage. Simply I won't go involved in that because the debate threatens to obscure a broader, more than important truth, that we are living through what feels like a "back to the dorsum of the charabanc" moment for many people of color.

That's why those MAGA hats matter.

That's why it matters that they were immature white men representing the Christian religion supposedly for a march to emphasis the sanctity of all life -- while wearing those hats.

It matters that this occurred nether a President who won his part by openly spouting bigoted rhetoric, who kicked off his campaign saying Mexican immigrants were rapists and bringing offense, after spending several years spreading the bigoted conspiracy that the start black President wasn't fully American, and who defended white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, as good people.

That context cannot be divorced from the image of the MAGA chapeau any more than the Confederate flag can be divorced from the brutality of chattel slavery. And notwithstanding, every Donald Trump apologist will effort to say otherwise -- that it'south just a hat, or that it is worn by dissimilar people for unlike reasons. How practice I know? Because I've listened to similar excuses in my native Due south Carolina almost those who wear or fly the Confederate flag. They do then to honor their ancestors, I've been told, or to cover Southern heritage, or considering they are exercising their Commencement Amendment rights.

The MAGA chapeau, like the Amalgamated flag, wouldn't elicit outraged reactions if it were only a piece of cloth that harkened back to bygone days never to be relived. But it isn't. It is a signifier for those who believe America was not bad during some point in the past they dare non name, knowing if they do, information technology would reveal a time when it was worse for people of color. When was America "neat"? When millions of black people were slaves? When hundreds of thousands of black men were sold to US companies via convict leasing? Mayhap during the heart of Jim Crow, the height of lynching, or when black people struggling with drug addictions were viewed equally criminals to be controlled, not fellow human beings needing assistance?

The Confederate flag wouldn't elicit such outrage if that flag didn't wing on statehouse lawns and in statehouse buildings and in other public spaces for so many decades, even into the 21st century. Just information technology did, and does. That MAGA hat wouldn't elicit such outrage if Trump were just a man who used bigotry for his own ends, and a reality TV star instead of President of the United States. But he is President of the Usa.

That truth was underscored past this past weekend'southward events, which seemed to have begun with a verbal confrontation between white students from a Southern Christian school and a small grouping of black men virtually Americans never heard of. The difference between the two: those students represented the demographic that most strongly supports Trump -- a man who had the power to essentially steal people'south children at the edge without knowing whether they would always exist returned to their families -- while the group of blackness protesters constituted literal street preachers shouting into the wind.

There's no way to sensibly defend the Hebrew Israelites. Their ugliness fanned the flames that became a storm this past weekend. Still, in that location's an important element to the relative power represented past the Hebrew Israelites and the students from that generally-white Catholic high school. Only i of them supports a man who has both spouted hate-filled linguistic communication and has the power to ringlet back Obama-era oversight of law enforcement to curtail police brutality and unwanted shootings -- and that's the 1 those students chose to proudly align with.

That matters.

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Source: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/21/opinions/maga-hat-has-become-a-potent-racist-symbol-bailey/index.html

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