Always interesting to see how the far-right propaganda machine gins up anger from non-stories in order to sell more ad space, and cater to your conservative agenda. The real story is so much less infuriating:
Shortly after the Nazi rally at Charlottesville, students and Angelenos
gathered for a peaceful rally against racism on the USC campus. This was on the 17th, and was really your typical progressive protest, hardly reported on, even in the local news. These types of rallies are common, of course, and have been ever since the hippie era. In fact, by comparison, today’s are far more tame and far less popular. The opening speaker, one of many, mentioned that racism isn’t confined to the deep south—the USC mascot was named Traveler, after Gen. Robert E. Lee’s horse, she said. (This was common knowledge on August 17th, as multiple newspapers had made reference to this fact over the years, most notably in the mascot’s creator’s obituary.)
This one-line reference the speaker made was noted in the school’s newspaper. And that would’ve been that, except someone at the LA Times took note, and wrote
a piece on this, with the added information that the horse actually
wasn’t named after Lee’s; it was just a coincidence. They also added that the speaker was one of the co-directors of the USC Black Student Assembly. The USC school newspaper dutifully updated their article to correct their mistake and say the horse actually wasn’t named after Lee’s, and now the stage is set for Right Wing Spin Time.
BLACK STUDENT UNION SAYS WHITE HORSE IS RACIST Fox News reports, after seeing the Times article; a million outraged conservatives click; a million people use it to further justify their racism; six Getbiggers rage-jerk themselves off for another ten minutes.
You might’ve run into Saphia Jackson, the day she gave her speech at the anti-racism rally, in line at a Starbucks and had a nice conversation with her and not even known she was the co-director of a Black Student Assembly. Because she’s a normal person and, honestly, probably a lot nicer and more reasonable than the average Getbigger. But now you think she’s the frothing racist mastermind behind a plot to destroy all whites, and the mentally ill liberal college students are useless and violent and out for blood. None of that is true, of course, but Fox News and Breitbart’s revenue streams depend on you thinking it is, so here we are.
