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An opinion piece in The Washington Post is outrageously and baselessly accusing the Canadian truckers’ “Freedom Convoy” that is protesting COVID mask mandates of being rooted in the country’s settler-colonial history and is tying it to white supremacy.
“In recent weeks, a convoy of truck drivers from across Canada began arriving en masse in Ottawa. The ‘Freedom Convoy’ traveled to the Canadian capital to protest new vaccination requirements for essential workers crossing the U.S.-Canada land border,” author Taylor Dysart wrote at the Washington Post.
“The convoy has amassed significant support; its (now removed) GoFundMe raised more than $10 million (CAD) and it has been celebrated by several center-right and right-wing public figures, including Elon Musk, Joe Rogan and former president Donald Trump. The Freedom Convoy now touts itself as an “Anti ALL MANDATES Movement,” desiring to remove all public health mandates,” Dysart added.
“While the convoy’s supporters have characterized the protest as a peaceful movement, uninformed by ‘politics, race, religion, or any personal beliefs,’ many supporters have been associated with or expressed racist, Islamophobic and white-supremacist views. When Tucker Carlson of Fox News interviewed Benjamin J. Dichter, cementing his place among the movement’s leaders, Dichter rambled and likened Canada’s western provinces to ‘a third-world country,’ due, presumably, to immigration. In Ottawa, various reports captured maskless protesters brandishing Confederate, Nazi and ‘Trump 2024’ flags. Police have launched dozens of criminal investigations and made at least 20 arrests, including for carrying weapons in a public place and assault,” the piece asserted.
“The primarily White supporters of the Freedom Convoy argue that pandemic mandates infringe upon their constitutional rights to freedom. The notion of “freedom” was historically and remains intertwined with Whiteness, as historian Tyler Stovall has argued. The belief that one’s entitlement to freedom is a key component of White supremacy. This explains why the Freedom Convoy members see themselves as entitled to freedom, no matter the public health consequences to those around them,” the author mind-blowingly contended.
Look at this gibberish. pic.twitter.com/IeP7hvSmzB
— Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) February 18, 2022
“Canada’s history of freedom then, was founded in the unfreedom of Indigenous people. This dynamic has been unnoticed and misconstrued by organizers, attendees and supporters of the Freedom Convoy. On the GoFundMe, the organizers claimed: ‘We are a peaceful country that has helped protect nations across the globe from tyrannical governments who oppressed their people, and now it seems it is happening here … We are doing this for our future Generations and to regain our lives back.’ They are advancing a settler colonial genealogy that deploys the language of ‘freedom’ and ‘unity’ while engaging in actions that are harmful and violent,” the WaPo hit-piece slanderously argued.
These are talking points that are being used on the left, by the media, and by those who want the “Freedom Convoy” stopped. Protesters from a number of racial backgrounds are taking part in the demonstrations, notably Sikhs, so the argument that this is about white supremacy seems flawed.
Sikh Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa: "Come out here and fight for your freedoms, if you lose your chance now, we have no Canada." pic.twitter.com/2qyTSmFDA2
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 18, 2022
Many feel that everything that the left doesn’t like now is somehow all about white supremacy:
When you call everything "white supremacy," the term ceases to have any effect whatsoever https://t.co/kjXoDR74fY
— Liz Wolfe (@lizzywol) February 18, 2022
That’s true, but according to mainstream progressive ideology white supremacy lies at the root of almost everything. There’s no way for them to make a correction.
— David Marcus (@BlueBoxDave) February 18, 2022
when they tell you who they are, believe them.
— MJ (@morganisawizard) February 18, 2022
Love this new platform! Dems gonna kill it in the midterms blue wave baby
— Nellie Bowles (@NellieBowles) February 18, 2022
I think they broke this argument out too early, too many people still remember how to think.
— Kyochi Myogo (@Kyochi_Myogo) February 19, 2022
Well, at least it is honest in that it implies what many of us have long believed – being “progressive” means being authoritarian.
— Danny Toma (@danny_toma) February 19, 2022
“Freedom is slavery”. Orwell called it.
— Deaths Head Moth (@DMoth_man) February 19, 2022
Democracy is dead in Canada and at the Washington post
— Jakethecrazy🦬 (@Jakethecrazy19) February 19, 2022
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