In early June, protesters at a raucous rally in Minneapolis screamed at Mayor Jacob Frey, “It’s not about you!”
White people on the political Left, however, would beg to differ. Since the tragic death of George Floyd in the custody of the Minneapolis police, they have very much made the protests, the chaos, the raw emotions, and this moment about them.
They have been falling all over themselves to express contrition, self-loathing, and outrage. The contrition and self-loathing is for their white privilege. The outrage is about showing that they are not racists, that they care about the plight of black people who suffer from racism and police brutality.
Alas, a great deal of liberal white people’s virtue-signaling has become disgusting and disgraceful. Earlier this week, protesters in Charleston, South Carolina, reenacted slavery with the roles “reversed”: Two white men walked shirtless and in chains, commanded by their black “masters.” The backs of the white “slaves” showed deep, bloody marks of flagellation. On full display was the hatred of the black protesters for a country that has tried, however imperfectly, to pursue justice for all races, as well as the obsequiousness and self-degradation of the white participants desperate to atone for sins attributed to them based purely on skin color.
Of course, such obscene incidents now happen regularly across the country. This week, protesters in Washington repeatedly and purposely tried to provoke police officers with torrents of profanity and insults. One shirtless white man shoved his face inches away from that of a black officer and berated the latter as a “bitch-ass [N-word].” None of the other protesters supposedly fighting for racial equality seemed at all perturbed at the racial slur.
Meanwhile, Seattle’s Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, an area taken over in recent weeks by so-called anti-racism protesters, has set up a “colored only” zone guarded by white protesters. In other words, modern-day segregation now stands proudly in one of America’s most liberal cities, with white people as its guardians.
While obscenities, violence, and segregation are only for some liberal white people, others with more money and status have taken to apologizing for their privilege in a tamer, more civil, fashion.
In response to the riots after Floyd’s death, Apple CEO Tim Cook penned a letter titled “Speaking up on racism.” In it, he promised: “To create change, we have to reexamine our own views and actions in light of a pain that is deeply felt but too often ignored.” The obligatory self-reexamining comes with a promise to donate $100 million to a new racial justice initiative.
Not every white person has Apple’s vast resources at his or her disposal to be woke. As such, many have taken to expressing feelings to black people more privately.
In an op-ed for the New York Times, one black writer expressed frustration at the numerous text messages sent to him by white friends, coworkers, or acquaintances that are “drenched in white guilt” for the purpose of showing that they are different from the former Minneapolis officer now charged with murder. The messages are ultimately about the white senders, not the black recipient.
Of course, the grand prize of symbolic self-flagellation goes to Minneapolis’s Frey. At the Minneapolis rally early this month, Frey confessed: “I’ve been coming to grips with my own brokenness in this situation, my own failures, my own shortcomings.”
That was when a protester yelled, “It’s not about you!”
The rally organizers agreed, for they did not have time for Frey’s self-reexamination or psychotherapy, either. They got right to the point and asked whether he supported their primary objective of defunding the police.
When Frey answered no, he was told, “Get the f— outta here!” The crowd chanted, “Go home, Jacob. Go home.”
It was a sorry sight: Frey, looking more like a forlorn graduate student than the mayor, walked out of the protest amid boos, jeers, and obscene gestures.
Yet, Frey’s groveling and rejection were merely more public than that of other white people on the political Left who are eager to please the mob. The broader lesson is this: The mob will not be satisfied until you do exactly what it demands.
At the moment, Black Lives Matter, the organization spearheading the protests across the country, wants to “end systemic racism” through “the national defunding of the police.” As Frey has learned, anything less is not acceptable. If you’re a white liberal who is not fully on board with that, you will be told to “get the f— outta here!”
If you do accept the “defund the police” mantra and condone or even participate in the mob’s violence and other shameful acts, then you should ask yourself what two young, white female protesters screamed at a line of police officers in the nation’s capital earlier this week: “What the f— is wrong with you?!”
Far too many white people today are far too eager to appear woke, atone for their sins, give money to organizations fighting for so-called racial justice, and condemn law enforcement and America in general as racist. They dare not question the legitimacy and morality of the movement before which they kneel because they are in a mad hurry to show they are not racists.
In the end, what they need to remember is: “It’s not about you!”
Ying Ma is the former deputy director of the Committee for American Sovereignty, a pro-Trump super PAC. She is the author of Chinese Girl in the Ghetto. Follow her on Twitter @gztoghetto.
