Why the Media Loves Hateful White Women
The left got an early Christmas present last week when a video went viral showing a white woman confronting a Spanish-speaking family at a Virginia restaurant.
Of course, the video went viral for all the wrong reasons. It captured what appears to be a remarkably angry, hateful woman telling a family she overheard speaking Spanish to “go back to your f—ing country” and not to “freeload on America.” The Hill reports she asked repeatedly for the family’s passports, though the clip I’ve seen doesn’t show that.
This video is important to the left, and it should be to conservatives as well.
The left needs this video. Conservatives have effectively weaponized the left’s increasingly hateful, unhinged and violent attacks on their ideological enemies.
(Well, really it’s less that conservatives have weaponized those attacks and more that conservatives have simply published stories about those attacks and the left doing what it does naturally — fomenting violent dissent.)
Leftists feel the pressure from the unmasking of their true tendencies and respond by lashing out even more. They’re caught in an unenviable cycle of self-reinforcement.
That’s why the video is important to them. Anytime they can find a conservative doing something, anything, untoward, they’re on it like white on, well, a white person.
Enter this white woman, who apparently felt the only thing missing from her dining experience was a good dose of hate. Right off the top, however, notice that nothing identifies her as a conservative or a supporter of President Donald Trump.
But conservatism isn’t needed for the left to jumpstart its racism narrative. Through the magic of the left’s one-sided racism, the term “white” is just shorthand for pro-America, pro-Western, pro-small government and pro-life Americans populating the country’s heartland. The woman in the video is white, so the implication instantly becomes that she’s a conservative Trump supporter, despite there being zero evidence supporting that conclusion.
From there the story has everything the left would want, except a Trump hoodie — an angry American, an apparently innocent family going about its business, and loads of hate from the one directed at the other.
It’s low-hanging political fruit, and the left seized on it. And politicized it. And anti-Trumperized it (new verb, meaning “to mold something, anything or nothing at all into an attack on the millions of Americans who support the president”).
That’s why the story’s important to the left. However, it’s far more important to conservatives, though the reason is subtle to the point that many haven’t thought about it.
Consider the average heartland America conservatives who put Trump in office. They’re sick of their way of life being trashed by the elites on both coasts. They’re sick of being ignored. And they’re especially sick of being told they’re racists anytime they don’t blindly accept whatever leftist narrative is in vogue at the time.
Who can blame them? Most don’t have a racist bone in their bodies, yet any number of innocent things they do are now called racist by the left, up to and especially including supporting Trump.
That means these everyday people are very sensitive to allegations of racism. After all, if you get falsely accused enough times, you’re probably going to be pretty touchy on the subject. If you don’t believe that, put yourself in Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s shoes for a minute — he’ll never view allegations of sexual harassment the same again.
That’s where this video becomes so important to conservatives. Some will see watch it and become confused. That word is very important: confused. They know the media will use the video to link them to racism — they’ve seen that done over and over. They also know that they don’t like illegal immigration and that the same media promoting that story is doing everything it can to defend illegal immigration.
At that point confusion sets in. “What do I do? What that woman’s saying isn’t right. But clearly the media’s going to use this to attack me. So maybe I need to delegitimize or dismiss it. But she’s against illegal immigration, and so am I. Maybe I should defend her even if she’s partially in the wrong.”
Those aren’t the thoughts of avowed racists. Those are the thoughts of people abused by the powers-that-be to the point that they know they can’t win — so some of them decide, “To hell with the media. If they say this is bad, I’m going to say it’s OK just to spite them.”
At that point, hasty generalizations can be made, especially by those who don’t think about the insanity of leftist politics day in and day out, and suddenly the media has another person or two they can claim are conservatives defending the woman’s hateful tirade. And all it takes is one or two out of millions of conservatives for the media to start grinding out all sorts of red meat.
So what do we do with a video like this? A few things.
If all is as it appears, first we condemn the woman’s hateful actions and attitudes. What appears to be captured in that video is just plain wrong.
Second, we say that even a broken clock is right twice per day and that she happens to be right about illegal immigration being bad for the country. The rule of law does matter, even when some misuse it as a bludgeon of hate.
Third, we defend that family. The video provides zero evidence one way or the other as to their citizenship or immigration status. Conservatives should never assume someone has broken the law without any evidence whatsoever.
Fourth, we stand for civility. Even if that family comprised illegals, what this woman did was pointless, counterproductive and wretched. Incidents like this provide invaluable ammunition to the left, allowing them to take the very few examples of actual hate from conservatives and paint all the rest of us as racists and bigots. That’s a lot harder to do if the rest of us are standing for decency.
Fifth, we call out the media’s motives and methods. Immediately after dealing with the substance of the video, we remind everyone that the media wants, needs and is willing to manufacture conservative hate. We also remind everyone that the media will use anything to advance anti-conservative narratives. It doesn’t care about that family any more than it cares about the woman. They’re just putty to be molded to fit a narrative. That’s grossly cynical for a group purporting to care.
Sixth, we keep ourselves accountable, reminding each other that we’re in a street fight but what separates us from the other side is first our belief in absolute right and wrong and second our refusal to compromise our principles.
Conservatism can beat back leftism, but we can never do it by abandoning our principles. We’ll do it by exposing the lies of the left, convincing others that our ideas are superior and winning at the ballot box.
Finally, for anyone still up in the air on the video, remember that hate is a tool of the left, used to pit humans against each other so that they don’t notice their political power being siphoned away. Leave hate where it naturally resides — among leftists. Hate will be far more powerful for us if we expose it on the other side than if we foolishly try to use it as they do and condemn ourselves in the process.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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