Kyle Rittenhouse abruptly departed the stage during an appearance at the University of Memphis on Wednesday, after he was confronted about comments made by Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk.
Rittenhouse was invited by the college’s Turning Point USA chapter to speak at the campus. However, the event was met with backlash from a number of students who objected to Rittenhouse’s presence.
The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, he shot and killed two men—Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz—at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
He said the three shootings, carried out with a semi-automatic AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest where the shootings took place was held after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.
I had to look up that hand gesture because I’d never heard of it, and finding out what is pissed me off. Are they fucking serious? The O-K hand gesture??
It’s so evil and rotten to try to corrupt such a common, useful, and benign hand gesture and to try to turn that into a symbol of hate. Absolutely enraging
If Rittenhouse hadn’t even murdered or physically harmed anyone, I’d still say he’s worth society’s most energetic condemnation on his views alone.
It was supposed to be a troll post from 4chan, but they actually used it for that afterwards, so yes, we are looking at the evolution of dog whistles and the blurred lines of hate speech on the internet.
It’s called, “plausible deniability.” The in-group knows what they’re doing and they can gaslight the out-group.
It’s a brilliant but sinister tactic.
Yes it’s a White Power Gesture now.
The most hilarious part is that it was originally a 4chan joke, and now they’ve accepted it as a real symbol. It’s like the flat earth. You joke and the crazies take it seriously.
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/18/ok-sign-white-power-symbol-or-just-right-wing-troll
Yeah, I don’t dig deep into all this culture war nonsense, but I got informed of this after giving one my buddies the ok sign. They explained it to me but I don’t care, I am taking the OK back, they cannot have it, it belongs us to us normal loving folks, not the toxic hate filled mongrels.