A month after New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay stated that seeing “dozens of American flags was just disturbing,” the Utah chapter of BLM chose Independence Day to stage its own race-baiting attack on the Stars and Stripes. Taking to social media, BLM Utah posted a picture of Old Glory and declared, “When we see this flag we know the person flying it is a racist.” And they tied the post directly to raising money for the re-election campaign of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
The full Facebook post stated:
When we Black Americans see this flag we know the person flying it is not safe to be around. When we see this flag we know the person flying it is a racist. When we see this flag we know that the person flying it lives in a different America than we do. When we see this flag, we question your intelligence. We know to avoid you. It is a symbol of hatred.
The BLM Utah Twitter account chose to “protect” its tweets, so only those who that approved to follow the account can see the post there, but reports are that the tweet was almost identical to the Facebook post.
That this is naked race-baiting is obvious. Lex Scott — the esteemed leader of BLM Utah — told The Salt Lake Tribune, “The point of the post was to make everyone uncomfortable.” She went on to say, “I am telling you when I see an American flag, I begin to feel fear for the simple fact that every time I am faced with hatred, it is at the hands of someone carrying an American flag.”
It would be difficult — even if this writer wanted to — to take such hyperbole seriously. Does Scott really expect anyone to believe that every time she has faced hatred, it is by someone who is carrying an American flag? Even giving some latitude that she did not intend to include those times when she looks in the mirror, it is a real stretch to imagine that she is being literal.
Scott also attempted to blame all of this on (no surprise here) white supremacists. She said that she was “triggered” when she saw images from Philadelphia, where nearly 200 members of the Patriot Front were marching. “They’re flying American flags. The Ku Klux Klan is flying American flags. The Proud Boys are flying American flags,” she said, adding, “They climbed the Capitol for their failed insurrection and were beating police officers with American flags.”
There she goes again.
BLM and other Marxist groups truly do hate America — of that there is no room for doubt. To declare the American flag a “symbol of hatred” flown only by racists is pretty low; to choose Independence Day as the day to do so is to go to new lows. But then again, it was BLM that burned, pillaged, and rioted their way through more than 200 American cities last summer after a career criminal died of a drug overdose while in police custody. So, it appears that nothing is beneath BLM.
Appearing to thoroughly enjoy their anti-American hatred, BLM Utah — after getting some pro-America comments calling them out for their post — posted the following comment to their own post:
Welcome racists. We know you are big mad about the racist flag post. You will not be heard here. You will be blocked and your comments will be deleted. We will be donating $1 to AOC’s election campaign for every racist that we block. Thank you for contributing to the re-election of AOC. We will jot down your names and attribute each donation to you. Comment below to help her once again head to Washington.
Setting aside the infantile made-up grammar (“big mad”?), there are a couple of points to be made about this comment. First, it is a cheap shot to deliberately illicit a predictable response and then refuse to address it when it comes. But, knowing that they lack any coherent argument to show that the American flag is a “symbol of hatred” or that anyone who flies it “is a racist,” they simply delete the comments, block the person who commented, and then seek a way to capitalize on doing so.
The way they chose to capitalize was to promise that they would “be donating $1 to AOC’s election campaign” for every comment that disagreed with them (making, of course, the commenter a “racist”). In doing so, they tied their anti-American claim that the American flag is “racist” and a “symbol of hatred” directly to the re-election campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
This writer tried to reach Ocasio-Cotrez’s Washington D.C. and district offices for comment, but could not reach anyone. So, I reached out on both Facebook and Twitter to ask, “Do you support money for your campaign being raised by declaring the symbol of our nation to be a racist symbol of hatred?” To avoid confusion, I included screenshots of the post and the “$1 to AOC comment.”
As of this writing, there has been no reply.
Can anyone imagine if a white hate group offered to make a $1 donation to the campaign of a conservative representative each time someone commented on a post? It would probably take all of about an hour for that representative to publicly disavow the group, its post, and its offer to donate to the representative. So far, this writer can find any mentions of AOC distancing herself from this.
As of this writing, it appears that she welcomes the money and the connection.
But not to worry; BLM Utah is not likely to be making any large campaign donations to AOC because, as of this writing, they have disabled comments on their post.
And that is a real shame, since this writer was going to comment that everyone should comment and then make a $5 donation to whoever runs against AOC.
But in all seriousness, since Facebook, Twitter, and Google (via YouTube) are essentially synonymous with “the public square” and have demonstrated that they have no qualms about burning conservative posts (and conservatives themselves, for that matter) to the ground. It is the height of hypocrisy for them to allow this post; after all, it claims that anyone flying the American flag is a racist.
To put in the for-what-it’s-worth column, when one calls AOC’s New York office, they are greeted with a recorded message from AOC herself stating in part, “If you would like to request a tour of the Capitol or have a flag flown over the Capitol, please visit us at our website.” So, by the “logic” (such as it is) of BLM Utah, their one-dollar-per-comment donations will be going to a racist who flies a “symbol of hatred.”
