TheKongoEmpire
The First Men
Conservatives don’t just want white dominance. They want to be able to abuse Black people in the worst ways possible—and get rewarded for it.
Conservatives may claim to care about policies and principles—you know, stuff that makes them seem decent—but their movement is, at its core, about preserving American racial hierarchy. And as recent years have shown, the greater their dominance, the deeper their sense of grievance.
While Donald Trump’s renewed attacks on Black civil rights may provide them with a bit of abstract satisfaction, what they really want is to flex the power of whiteness interpersonally. That is, the ability to publicly humiliate, dominate, and instill fear in Black folks, without consequence. Emboldened by the white supremacist accelerationism of this administration, conservatives are shedding old pretenses of respectability and civility, and making clear how much their identity depends on the right to put others “in their place.” And that includes being able to say the word “******” publicly and out loud again.
The response to Shiloh Hendrix, a grown white woman and mother from Minnesota, is instructive. Earlier this month, Hendrix called a 5-year-old Black boy a “******” on a Minnesota playground. She then repeated the slur while admitting to using it when a bystander began filming. When the footage went viral, Hendrix adopted a pose of victimhood, asking the public for money, and raised nearly $800,000. (Hendrix claimed in the video that the boy was rifling through her child’s diaper bag with the intent to steal; in her fundraising appeal, she wrote he actually stole from the bag, though she has yet to name what was allegedly taken.)
Hendrix declared in her fundraiser that she had been doxxed, though the only evidence for this remains the word of Hendrix herself, a woman whose outsize character flaws include screaming racist slurs in children’s faces. Her “two small children…do not deserve this,” she pleaded—taking as an apparent given that only Black kids deserve to be treated so inhumanely.
Many donors to Hendrix’s fundraiser, posted to GiveSendGochose, displayed racist usernames—“Nate Higgers,” “ItsAllNonsAndTheJews,” “kill all jews Andblacks”—and the site’s owners told Newsweek they they disabled comments because of the sheer “volume and intensity of racial and offensive language.” GiveSendGo, which positions itself as a Christian platform spreading “the Hope of Jesus through crowdfunding,” has already hosted so many racist fundraisers that a 2023 Rolling Stone article focused on its “white-power problem.” But the site couldn’t have been legitimately surprised, nor should anyone else be. White racists, after all, have always rushed to fund those whose sole claim to fame is hurting Black people.
www.thenation.com
Conservatives may claim to care about policies and principles—you know, stuff that makes them seem decent—but their movement is, at its core, about preserving American racial hierarchy. And as recent years have shown, the greater their dominance, the deeper their sense of grievance.
While Donald Trump’s renewed attacks on Black civil rights may provide them with a bit of abstract satisfaction, what they really want is to flex the power of whiteness interpersonally. That is, the ability to publicly humiliate, dominate, and instill fear in Black folks, without consequence. Emboldened by the white supremacist accelerationism of this administration, conservatives are shedding old pretenses of respectability and civility, and making clear how much their identity depends on the right to put others “in their place.” And that includes being able to say the word “******” publicly and out loud again.
The response to Shiloh Hendrix, a grown white woman and mother from Minnesota, is instructive. Earlier this month, Hendrix called a 5-year-old Black boy a “******” on a Minnesota playground. She then repeated the slur while admitting to using it when a bystander began filming. When the footage went viral, Hendrix adopted a pose of victimhood, asking the public for money, and raised nearly $800,000. (Hendrix claimed in the video that the boy was rifling through her child’s diaper bag with the intent to steal; in her fundraising appeal, she wrote he actually stole from the bag, though she has yet to name what was allegedly taken.)
Hendrix declared in her fundraiser that she had been doxxed, though the only evidence for this remains the word of Hendrix herself, a woman whose outsize character flaws include screaming racist slurs in children’s faces. Her “two small children…do not deserve this,” she pleaded—taking as an apparent given that only Black kids deserve to be treated so inhumanely.
Many donors to Hendrix’s fundraiser, posted to GiveSendGochose, displayed racist usernames—“Nate Higgers,” “ItsAllNonsAndTheJews,” “kill all jews Andblacks”—and the site’s owners told Newsweek they they disabled comments because of the sheer “volume and intensity of racial and offensive language.” GiveSendGo, which positions itself as a Christian platform spreading “the Hope of Jesus through crowdfunding,” has already hosted so many racist fundraisers that a 2023 Rolling Stone article focused on its “white-power problem.” But the site couldn’t have been legitimately surprised, nor should anyone else be. White racists, after all, have always rushed to fund those whose sole claim to fame is hurting Black people.
The Right Is Trying to Make the N-Word OK Again
Conservatives don’t just want white dominance. They want to be able to abuse Black people in the worst ways possible—and get rewarded for it.
www.thenation.com
