Yesterday, President Donald Trump suggested that Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teen who traveled to Kenosha, Wisconsin and murdered two protesters, was the real victim.
“That was an interesting situation,” the president said in a White House press briefing. “He was trying to get away from them, I guess it looks like, and he fell and then they very violently attacked him, and it was something that we are looking at right now and it’s under investigation. But I guess he was in very big trouble. He probably would’ve been killed. It’s under investigation.”
He also framed the nationwide protests in starkly political terms. “I also want to provide an update on left-wing political violence that we’re seeing in Democrat-run cities,” he said. “Under my administration, federal law enforcement is working with state and local authorities all over the country to comb through hours of video, track down rioters, looters, and arsonists, and bring them to justice.”
“The violent rioters share Biden’s same talking points, and they share his same agenda for our nation,” he said.
Today, the president has traveled to Kenosha, one of the swingiest cities in a swing state poised to decide his fate.
With all the race-baiting and fearmongering, it sounds as if the president is counting on white voter exhaustion to keep him in office, particularly in Wisconsin. The New York Times thinks it may be working, but Politico is not so sure.
Kenosha’s issues with race are at once emblematic of those facing the rest of the country and also quite specific to them — John Oliver has a brutal assessment of Kenosha’s problematic white police chief here — but the renewed willingness to accept vigilante violence as legitimate force is a deeply disturbing development.
Rittenhouse is a young man with a big mouth and bigger gun, who killed two people and was later waved off the scene by local police with thanks for his service. He is facing six criminal counts, five of which are felonies, including first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, and intentional first-degree intentional homicide. His attorney will likely claim self-defense, as foreshadowed by the president.
But the sixth charge, of possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under the age of 18, is a misdemeanor — and in this case, a tell. For this charge, his attorneys are planning a unique defense: That Rittenhouse was acting as part of a “well-regulated militia” under the Second Amendment. It would let them circumvent the age issue, while hearkening back to a Constitutionally mandated vision of a patriotic age.
It is not likely to work, but the dog whistle is clear, and so is the rush to turn Rittenhouse into a martyr.
That said, the Blake family is holding firm with some deft counter-programming timed for the president’s visit.
The president inspected the protest site but had no plans to visit a peaceful protest planned by Blake’s family at the scene of the shooting. The rally included a community cleanup, food drive, music, barbecue, a bouncy house, healing circle and voter registration booth, reports Kenosha News.
It hasn’t been easy, though. Jacob Blake Sr. has been receiving death threats, he says, and his younger son was recently hospitalized for depression. “It is saddening to me that people don’t understand the type of pressure this family is under and what the rest of the family is dealing with,” he told CNN.
But Justin Blake, Jacob’s uncle, said today was about reclaiming the narrative from politics as usual. “Our focus today is on helping the Kenosha community and thanking the local community for its support,” he said. “It’s not just for my nephew, Jake,” Justin Blake said, “but for all the little Jakes around the country. We’re staying focused on getting justice and on healing. We want to come together.”
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On point
Losing Chadwick Boseman It came as a shock, like Kobe Bryant before him, who fell from the sky and was gone. But what few people knew was that Boseman, who was born to play King T’Challa, Jackie Robinson, and Thurgood Marshall, was living in a body harboring cancer for the last four years. He died on Friday, at 43. By now you’ve seen the tributes: this from Denzel Washington, who once underwrote his studies, this from co-star Michael B. Jordan, this from director Ryan Coogler, this from 7-year-old Black Panther fan Kian Westbrook. It is an incalculable loss for fans, though some have found a way to channel their grief into action: A Change.org petition to swap a Confederate monument in his hometown of Anderson, South Carolina with a memorial to Boseman. There’s some legal hurdles ahead, but it’s gaining traction. Petition organizer DeAndre Weaver told CBR.com that Boseman "made it a mission to give back to his community. It is only fitting that his work is honored in the same place that birthed him.” #WakandaForever
Change.org
Levi CEO Chip Bergh is not messing around In the latest episode of Fortune’s Leadership Next podcast, Chip Bergh digs into the details of how the legendary denim maker is coming back from the pandemic. But he spent a good deal of time on the issues top of mind for him — gun violence, voting access and building a diverse and anti-racist workforce. The issues are interrelated, he says. (Don’t miss my interview with Aimee Allison, the founder and president of She The People, a national network that aims to amplify the political capacity of women of color. It’s at the 26-minute mark.) When you’re done listening, check out Bergh’s latest op-ed, where he clearly sets out what he thinks is next for his leadership. “But the more I comprehend how structural racism intersects with gun violence and voting policies—as well as with environmental justice, financial opportunity, education, and other aspects of life—the more I am committed to using my and our company’s platform to highlight and address the human-made structures that nurture America’s racial caste system.”
Leadership Next
Will racism fall out of fashion? Washington Post’s Robin Givhan asks the essential question of the accountability era: Will the fashion industry’s late-stage commitment to racial equity make any difference? One positive sign is that the fashion forwards seem to be open to ideas from new quarters, like the Fifteen Percent Pledge, create by Aurora James, founder of the accessories brand Brother Vellies. It asks retailers to pledge 15% of their shelf space to Black-owned businesses, and make their audits public. In fact, says Givhan, the pressure is unrelenting. “The industry is being called to account for the composition of corporate boards, brand managers, editors, photographers and anyone else who has a hand in an industry that shapes our sense of self.”
Washington Post
Problem solved NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said on a press call today that the league plans to stencil “End racism” and “It takes all of us” in the end zones at every NFL stadium this fall. “The NFL stands with the black community, the players, clubs and fans confronting systemic racism. We will not relent in our work,” Goodell said. I’ll leave this here.
NBC Sports
Novelist Jasmyn Ward open her heart and pours out her grief in this extraordinary essay in a special issue of Vanity Fair called The Great Fire, guest-edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Her husband, whom she refers to as Beloved, died early in the pandemic, a casualty of a disease yet to be named. The story that follows is a blueprint of pain, her way forward as she cared for their young children and watched the world break open in a global righteous rage that she had to blink to see. “I sat in my stuffy pandemic bedroom and thought I might never stop crying,” she writes. “The revelation that Black Americans were not alone in this, that others around the world believed that Black Lives Matter broke something in me, some immutable belief I’d carried with me my whole life.” Praise upon Beloved and his beautiful family.
Niecy Nash nearly salvaged 2020 Well, not quite, but she did pull off the surprise of the decade. Nash, a comedic genius known for her work on The Mindy Project and Reno 911, came all the way out when she posted a photo yesterday of herself in a wedding dress, after a previously unannounced wedding. To further compound the surprise, she married Jessica Betts, a musician. “I gotta whole wife,” Nash posted on Instagram. Nash was not publicly known to be queer, and fans were delighted on her behalf. Click through for more about the happy couple. All the mazels to Mrs. Carol and Jessica Betts.
Out
Amplifying Black voices
- “I am proud to be black. And also…being black is exhausting,” says writer, community builder and tech policy adviser Corey Ponder.
- Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, the powerhouse who has made anti-racist thinking accessible in the modern era, sat down with Brené Brown to discuss policy, empathy and how to examine the racist ideas we’re all steeped in.
- The reckoning must begin with unlearning, says Michelle Alexander, who should know.
- Black Lives Matter is not a design challenge, by the way. Pencils down.
- “Companies, the lifeblood of our economy, must step forward not just in solidarity, but more importantly in leadership,” says tEQuitable CEO Lisa Gelobter. Now is the time to get your cultural house in order—“the beliefs, values, and behaviors that are communicated, even indirectly, to employees and dictate how people will be treated and valued.”
raceAhead is edited by Aric Jenkins.
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