Kyle Rittenhouse, White Supremacy and That Time I Was ‘Debunked’ By Snopes

October 5 2020: A case study of the emotionalisation of contrary information, with bonus Anchorman quotes

Kyle Rittenhouse on the night of the shooting (Source)

I’ve been waiting patiently to go viral for a while, like most aspiring bloggers-cum-writers.

I hoped it might be for one of my meandering deep dives into religion and ancient mythology.

I’m glad it wasn’t for one of my super-profound-like, self-absorbed melancholic musings about the nature of existence.

I knew it wouldn’t be for my contrarian positions on COVID, which seem more likely to get me kicked off Medium altogether.

I kinda did for some pseudo-spiritual emo confession, but given it is about emo music, it really doesn’t feel like it counts.

I thought most likely it would be for one of incisive, witty, troll-lite political hot takes, because there seems nothing like a political hot take to incite mouse-clicks at the moment.

Turns out I was right, although not in the way I was expecting: I decided to crash the party in the comments section of a leftist reaction the shootings of three protesters in Kenosha by 17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse, helpfully (i thought) pointing out their respective criminal backgrounds, and nekminnit I’m being ‘debunked’ as a defender of white supremacy on Snopes. That escalated quickly.

Look, you can read it for yourself. You can judge me in whatever way you want: if you think the comment was offensive, or inappropriate, or just decidedly un-wise to poke the bear on such an emotional issue. Just make sure you read the original article first before you do come to any sort of judgement.

In the first paragraph alone, the degree of distortion and projection to suit the writer’s chosen political narrative is impressive — as in, “I’m not mad” kinda stuff (I wonder how many Anchorman quotes I can fit in this piece).

Apparently, Kyle Rittenhouse was a ‘domestic terrorist’ who arrived ‘looking to kill’. This seems grossly unfair, when there are images of him scrubbing walls to get rid of graffiti earlier that day, coupled with vision of him with a medpack treating other injured people on the scene prior to the shootings.

Later, of course, Rittenhouse is smeared as a ‘white supremacist’ with exactly no attempt at explanation and justification for said claim, even while ignoring the awkward fact that all three people he shot were unmistakably white. For those new to this: welcome to the level of political debate on Medium.

If you think I am being harsh, you can watch this break down of the available video footage, which includes details on the background of Rittenhouse along with the actions on the night in question of all parties concerned. If you want to counterbalance the original Medium article with the full right-wing-spun version of events, you can even watch old mate Tucker Carlson do his thing here.

Now, a few things to make clear. Aside from pointing out the obvious inconsistencies between his portrayal by many on the left and the evidence available, I am no particular defender of Rittenhouse (other details about his background suggest he is no saint) or the type of armed vigilante citizen justice movement he embodies (I’m from Australia after all, where we happily surrendered our right to bear arms long ago). I am, last time I checked, not a white supremacist or a defender of it (although I am white and not overly guilty about it, which might be enough for some). I am also, and this might require caps lock for proper effect, NOT SUGGESTING HIS VICTIMS DESERVED TO BE SHOT.

Nonetheless, there is one final and very important point that needs to be a made crystal clear here: attending what was originally organised as a peaceful protest for racial justice does not make you someone who is peacefully protesting for racial justice. I know this would make the whole situation a lot easier and more straight forward, if A always lead to B, but it doesn’t. And it seems like a lot of people genuinely don’t understand this: that there are people — whether wannabe anarchists or trained members of either left or right-wing organisations — who are using the cover of these protests as an excuse to start shit. Opposing the actions of these individuals, by extension, does not place you as an opponent of the protests themselves.

So, when we ask whether the backgrounds of these people are relevant to the discussion, it is in this context that we are asking.

Is it relevant that the first person shot, Joseph Rosenbaum, was a convicted pedophile? Maybe not, but it certainly helps to paint a picture of this individual who was, moment’s before being shot, lighting fires and telling people to ‘shoot me nigger’ (just a reminder: said by a white dude at a protest against racism).

Does it matter that Anthony Huber — who’s defenders claim he was acting to save other people by attacking Rittenhouse once he had fallen down after being hit from behind running away from a chasing mob — actually has a past criminal record that includes domestic abuse? Maybe it doesn’t on its own, but perhaps it does once counterarguments chose to link to a tweet praising him as a heroic family man.

Does it matter that the victim who survived, Gaige Grosskreutz, also had a chequered history? Almost certainly not (I would be a hypocrite if I thought so), but the fact that he later told a friend that his only regret was not killing Rittenhouse on the spot probably is.

Hey, maybe none of these facts matter to the shootings themselves given, as many helpful Captain Obvious’s have pointed out, Rittenhouse almost certainly had no knowledge of the victims pasts when he shot them in self-defence or otherwise. But it does, as I was trying to point out, matter to the way in which the debate around the issue is undertaken. That lazy and politically convenient characterisations of people — whether as hateful white supremacists on one hand or peaceful martyrs for the cause of racial justice on the other — are unhelpful and only add to the level of division and polarisation that have lead to this situation.

That said, I certainly could have made this point more effectively. I should not have made my initial post a direct response to a comment defending the shooting on the basis of self-defence (it felt like a safer way to put forth this information rather than on the post itself, a copout looking at it now). I should have made it crystal clear that by raising this information I did not by extension think the killings were justified, but that my response was in the context of the original article, which was one sided almost to the point of parody in how it described the shooting event.

But I didn’t, and I really don’t care now. Because by making the comment in this way, it created a response that highlights just how ridiculous public debate has become.

The exchange of contrary information should not be controversial. It should not be emotionally triggering. It should not be demonised, attacked and debunked in the sleazy, back-of-the-envelope way that Snopes specialises in. It should be taken for what it is: information.

And contrary information is important right now: it is a radical act, when the control of information from above us has been so weaponised. Surely all points of the political spectrum can agree on that, lest we each be trapped in our own glass cases of emotion.