Conservatives are fond of calling liberals “snowflakes” for anything and everything. Yet it is actually conservatives themselves who fall apart whenever they are disagreed with and become practically unglued at any mention of race. Take, for instance, 22-year-old Kaitlin Bennett, who recently graduated from Kent State University. For her graduation photos, she decided to pose on campus with an AR-10 rifle. Bennett wanted the world to know that she’s a proud defender of her right to bear arms—any time and any place. And not only did she carry a military style weapon onto a campus full of people, she carried it with a graduation cap which read “Come and take it.”
Wow. Now reasonable folks know that Bennett was only allowed to do this because she is white. After all, black folks get killed for way less—like being 12 and playing in a park with a toy gun. Or walking around a Walmart that sells guns while holding a BB gun. Ironically, both of these murders took place in Ohio, the very same state where Bennett was walking around campus with an assault weapon. So the message is loud and clear: you cannot be black in Ohio (or anywhere in America, for that matter) and walk around armed, even if you have the right to do so, and even if the gun isn’t real. But Bennett is a white, blonde woman, so these rules don’t apply to her. When this was pointed out, Bennett did exactly what conservatives do: claim that she’s the victim of racism.
Poor little snowflake Kaitlin. She got to walk around campus with a rifle at her graduation just because she’s white, but we aren’t supposed to talk about it because it makes her feel oppressed and hurts her feelings. Boo hoo. Cry her a river. She may have just earned her degree but apparently she’s not all that bright. She’s thinks that people calling her white and saying she has privilege because of it is racism. Too bad she never made her way into a sociology or ethnic studies class. All that Fox News she’s watching and appearing on has clearly rotted her brain. And there’s even more. She also thinks people should have access to any and all weapons. In a recent interview with The Washington Post, she said this:
“I believe that if the government has it, we should have it. Machine guns — any weaponry,” Bennett told The Washington Post on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after her graduation photo accumulated 3,200 retweets (a stat that has since climbed to 4,500 retweets and more than 18,000 likes).
“To make sure the government can’t go against the citizens,” she said. “We should be able to protect ourselves against a tyrannical government.”
Kaitlin probably shouldn’t speak for the rest of us. No one rational thinks they should have access to tanks and bombs and weapons of mass destruction just because the U.S. government has them. Although under the current leadership of the country, we do have more to fear from a tyrannical government than ever before. If Kaitlin and those like her hadn’t voted for Donald Trump, we wouldn’t be here in the first place.
Not only is Kaitlin insisting that her photo isn’t an example of white privilege, she is also dragging black people and minorities into it.
“I think [saying that I have white privilege for going out on campus with my AR-10] is very insulting to minorities,” Bennett said. “I don’t think that anything bad would happen to them.”
Bennett smiled as she continued to defend herself against claims that her photo shoot is an example of white privilege. “I actually had a black police officer with me the whole time.” she said. “He was just … he loved it.”
Nothing to see here, folks. Just some good old fashioned white privilege in action. After all, if it’s not white privilege to run around campus taking pictures with a rifle while you are being protected by a police officer, and then whining about racism on Fox News when folks call you out, what is it?