Tomi Lahren has no right to comment on the Minneapolis protests
After the death of George Floyd and the Minneapolis protests, Tomi Lahren took to Twitter to berate the masses: “How does looting, rioting and destroying your OWN community bring justice for anyone?”
If there’s one thing I wish for more than anything right now, it’s that Tomi Lahren could be forced to spend just 24 hours as a person of color. That for just one little blip in time, she’d have to face the scrutiny that comes with stepping out in public. The stares. The fear. The anger. The words of ignorance. The words of hatred.
She’d probably argue that she puts up with this kind of hate already. That she already fears for her life because liberal snowflakes can’t handle what she has to say.
No, Tomi. You put up with this because you chose the spotlight. For people of color in America, there is no choice involved.
The fear and hate and anger is directed at our existence more than anything. It trails our footsteps like shadows, no matter where we go, for some of us more than others. I’m aware that there’s a hierarchy involved. I’m not sure where I — a visibly Muslim, visibly brown South Asian-American — fall on that hierarchy, but I know that I’m nowhere near the worst off.
I’ve tasted a little of it, though. I know what it’s like to walk the street wondering if (when) something bad is going to happen. For a Black person, I can’t quantify how much worse it is.
Fear, hate, and anger. It’s a smog. It suffocates. And it strikes when you least expect it.
So as I’m watching the fires rage and the window glass shatter, I’m not surprised at all. And while I’m hoping none of the protesters get hurt and no minority-owned businesses suffer, I’m not going to tell anyone to pick a different way to protest. It’s not my place to do so, no more than it is Tomi Lahren’s or Charlie Kirk’s.
Don’t tell people how to protest. You’re not breathing the smog that chokes them every day.
Black people kneel, and you have a problem with that. They put their hands up in front of a gun, and you have a problem with that. They speak out, they engage in discussion, they run for office, and you have a problem with every bit of it.
And then you have the nerve to condemn property damage to a Target. If you do that, you don’t know what anger is. You don’t know what it feels like to inherit a pain that you have to deal with because of nothing you did wrong. You don’t know what it’s like to be fed gunpowder all your life, and then be told not to explode when you’re doused in kerosene. This goes for white conservatives as well as self-professed white liberals.
If you have a problem with the protests, then you don’t know anger.
So now, when I watch the protests unfolding — when I watch the protestors demonstrating peacefully and still getting maced and pepper sprayed and shot at with rubber bullets — I remember my own little experiences, and I multiply them a million times in my head, and I still can’t fathom the depths of the frustration faced by Black families and Black communities every single day.
That’s the kind of pain America has been cultivating for years.
Don’t be surprised that people have hit the breaking point.
