North Carolina Congressman Robert Pittenger, a Republican, went there. “There” would be that place of base and crude ignorance where white supremacy has a cozy home. Speaking to the British Broadcasting Corporation on Thursday about the unrest in Charlotte Pittenger said the protestors "hate white people because white people are successful and they're not." According to The Telegraph Pittenger went on to explain that:
Democratic welfare policies had kept black people in "bondage" for decades, and led to hatred toward more prosperous white people that spilled over into violence.
The remark came after Mike Pence, Donald Trump's running mate, said he and the Republican nominee believe there has been "far too much talk" about institutional racism in policing.
The video of Pittenger speaking to the BBC, which is below, is less than one minute long and we don’t have the question(s)/dialogue preceding his statement, so true, full context is missing. On the one hand, Pittenger’s claim that Democratic Party policies of welfare—i.e. handouts—have kept Blacks in bondage is an old and familiar tune that, on its face, really isn’t that racist. But for Pittenger to posit that the unrest in Charlotte has to do with hatred of whites is more than tone deaf: it is the classic symptom of denial and the absolute refusal for the system of white supremacy, in this instance within the area of law enforcement, to take responsibility for its actions.
Whether you count back to July of this year or to August of 2014, to ignore the numbers of both questionable and unjustifiable shootings by law enforcement officers; to ignore this component in the anger of Charlotte protesters, mere days after the shootings of 13-year old Tyre King in Columbus, OH, who was running from police, and 43-year old Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, OK, who had his hands up, is shocking and insulting. It is sickening. It is an unwillingness to countenance the day-to-day, lived realities of Black people.
But that’s at its best. At its worst, it is the white racist continuation of equating false equivalencies when police violence directed at Black people is the topic. Pittenger might have gotten a pass if he had said Black protestors hated white police, or police, but he didn’t say that. Pittenger’s statement reveals inherent white supremacist thinking within the United States: White people identify strongly with the police to the point of “individualizing” this “institution” (“its not all cops, its the bad apples”). Police in the U.S., which evolved from slave patrols, began as an all-white institution to protect white people and their property. They do not value the lives of Black people, let alone Black peoples’ property.
That is why protestors are in the streets.