Sun Aug 30 14:58:42 2020
<773ab1f1> <https://policytensor.com/2020/08/29/kyle-rittenhouse-duck-rabbit/>
— Kyle Rittenhouse, Duck-Rabbit
— A Duck-Rabbit is the familiar optical illusion where, given the exact same picture, some people see a duck and others see a rabbit. The tragedy in Kenosha is a Duck-Rabbit.
Credit: Wikipedia Commons. By now everyone and their mother knows most of the gory details of the tragedy in Kenosha. After the police shooting of yet another Black man captured on camera on Sunday, protests engulfed the small Chicago exurb of a hundred thousand residents. The protests immediately escalated into a riot of unprecedented violence. Dozens of buildings were burnt down, along with scores of cars parked in car dealerships. Images and videos surfaced on social media showing absolute mayhem. Local news media reported that 30 businesses had been ransacked or burned.
Kenosha Fire Chief Charles Leipzig said there were 34 active fires associated with the unrest, with 30 businesses destroyed or damaged along with an unknown number of residences.“Residents wake to destruction in Uptown; 30 businesses destroyed or damaged.” Kenosha News, August 25, 2020.
Credit: Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/USA TODAY NETWORKThe following day, pro-law enforcement armed vigilantes began organizing on Facebook. The Facebook page Kenosha Guard created an event called “Armed Citizens to Protect Life and Property.” The fake news site InfoWars picked up on the event and propagated it. Zuckerberg later admitted that the social media superpower’s censors, known in industry parlance as ‘content moderators’, had made an operational error in allowing the group and event pages to stay up despite being flagged.
That fateful night, a small cadre of these vigilantes showed up armed with semi-automatic rifles, determined to protect property and businesses from the rioters. Many took up sniper positions on rooftops. Others stood guard around a gas station. Videos shows that the shooter-kid, Kyle Rittenhouse, was on site with these vigilantes, armed with what looks like an AR-15 and a first-aid kit.
It is not clear whether the shooter-kid, now in custody and facing charges on six counts, including first-degree intentional homicide, was responding to the Kenosha Guard’s call. It is probable that he was. If he is convicted of first-degree intentional homicide, he will be facing a mandatory life sentence.
As the night unfolded, a verbal confrontation ensued between the rioter-protestors and the armed vigilantes. In videos circulating on social media, one of the victims, Joseph Rosenbaum, a white man, is recorded screaming “shoot me n*****” multiple times at the posse of armed vigilantes — a surprising turn of phrase from a BLM protestor. (Wisconsin circuit court records show that Rosenbaum had recently been charged with battery and domestic abuse.) Minutes later, another video shows an unarmed Rosenbaum chasing Rittenhouse, still armed with an AR-15, in a parking lot. As Rosenbaum catches up with the Rittenhouse, the latter discharges four rounds, including a fatal bullet in the head. Then he runs around the car and inspects his handiwork. When other rioter-protestors arrive at the scene, he takes off.
Yet another video of the immediate aftermath shows him running down a broad boulevard, chased by a bunch of rioter-protestors. Now, why would you chase an armed man who has just shot and killed someone? Perhaps adrenaline got the better of the self-preservation instinct otherwise known as fear? In the event, Rittenhouse trips and falls while running. The rioter-protestor who reaches him first tries to disarm him, at which point Rittenhouse fires off multiple rounds, including one that hits the assailant in the chest. The fellow falls down fatally injured. Another guy, this one armed with a pistol, again tries to disarm the shooter — why doesn’t he use the pistol? He is shot in the arm. A graphic video, complete with a trigger warning, show much of the flesh on his arm blown off. Having shot three men, two of them fatally, Rittenhouse walks with his hands up in the air to police cars parked a block away. The cops seem to not realize that he is the shooter. At first he seems to want to surrender, but then appears to change his mind and walks away. He would be arrested at his home in Illinois the next day.
As the shooting videos went globally viral, Kyle Rittenhouse became famous world wide. Opinions on his actions were, however, divided — to put it mildly.
The American Conservative ran an article headlined “Kyle Rittenhouse, Populist Hero,” that quotes a reader describing the event as “cleancut kid following rules of engagement absolutely wastes a bunch of criminal thugs trying to attack him.” Nor was defense of the shooter-kid confined to the right-wing fringe. A Christian fundraising website raised a hundred thousand dollars for the legal defense of the shooter-kid. College Republicans at Arizona State announced that they would contribute funds for his legal defense as well.
Half of all funds collected this semester for Republicans United will be donated to 17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse legal defense fund. He does not deserve to have his entire life destroyed because of the actions of violent anarchists during a lawless riot College Republicans United (@ASU_CRU) August 27, 2020
In his prime time show, the most watched in America, Tucker Carlson blamed the authorities for the mayhem in Kenosha. He repeated the claim on Twitter.
Kenosha devolved into anarchy because the authorities abandoned the people. Those in charge, from the governor on down, refused to enforce the law. They’ve stood back and watched Kenosha burn. Are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 27, 2020
Meanwhile, Nikole Hannah-Jones, the principal author of the 1619 Project and the one who led the call to cancel Bennet as the NYTimes Op-Ed editor in the aftermath of Senator Cotton’s Op-Ed, immediately called Tucker out.
He just justified murder. Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) August 27, 2020
The economic dove of the Clinton administration, Robert Reich, chimed in to demand that Tucker’s show be canceled.
If they don’t take action after this, every one of Fox News’s executives, directors, and advertisers is complicit in Tucker Carlson’s racist, murderous rants. Robert Reich (@RBReich) August 27, 2020
The shooter-kid immediately brought to mind images from school shootings involving white teenage males armed with military-grade weaponry. Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley called him a “white supremacist domestic terrorist” — a suspicion no doubt shared by other liberal elites.
A 17 year old white supremacist domestic terrorist drove across state lines, armed with an AR 15.He shot and killed 2 people who had assembled to affirm the value, dignity, and worth of Black lives.Fix your damn headlines.— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) August 27, 2020
But Rittenhouse was no white supremacist. Instead, he seems to have been a wannabe cop.
A photo on Mr. Rittenhouse’s now-deleted Facebook page showed him holding a rifle. The words “Blue Lives Matter” framed the photo. He attended Lakes Community High School for one semester in the 2017-18 school year, according to Jim McKay, superintendent of Community High School District 117, and was a former public-safety cadet.“Who Is Kyle Rittenhouse and What Happened in the Kenosha Shootings?” Wall Street Journal, Aug 28, 2020.
Graeme Wood gets it right when he characterizes Rittenhouse as exhibiting “sheepdog mentality.” That the teenage gun enthusiast and Trump supporter felt the call of duty strongly is clear from his record. Rittenhouse joined the Public Safety Cadet Program, jointly run by a number of police departments in the region, that includes firearms training and serv…
