(Use promo code MostlyPeaceful for 10% off your purchase at Ex Umbris Designs)
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — Despite Western Kentucky University (WKU) being located in a smaller town compared to Memphis, Tennessee, hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters showed up to make it known to Kyle Rittenhouse he was not welcomed on campus.
This was the third stop on Rittenhouse’s college campus tour that has drawn a large, upset crowd. Posting videos of the protest on my X account, many people were asking: Does BLM know he shot three white dudes?
The answer is, mainly, yes and, to them, it doesn’t matter. Rittenhouse is still a “threat” to the black and brown community, in their eyes.
Interviewing some of the protesters last week, it is still shocking to me how deeply engrained the largely false media narratives that were set in motion almost four years ago still persist to this day.
Asking the college student who was holding the “White privilege should not cancel out murder” sign why she thinks Rittenhouse is a murderer, she said:
“Personally, in my opinion it was not an act of self-defense. Driving across state lines with a semi-automatic weapon to be surrounded by people who have different beliefs than you, it’s not an act of self-dense…He should have never been there in the first place,” she said.
When I confronted her about how she got a critical fact wrong, he did not cross state lines with the rifle prior to the shooting, the protester remained steadfast: “There’s no need for any rifles or any weapons at a protest because we’re all practicing our freedoms.”
And she was far from the only person at WKU who thought that way.