• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • News
  • Politics
  • Lifestyle
kyle rittenhouse white supremacy

Kyle Rittenhouse, Whiteness, and a Divinely Ordained License to Kill

November 20, 2021
black women group

‘Righteous and Ratchet’ Black Women of Faith Embraced on Jemele Hill’s ‘Sanctified’ Podcast

January 23, 2023
Martin Luther King Jr. Photo

How the Distortion of MLK’s Words Enables More, Not Less, Racial Division Within American Society

January 14, 2023
Shirley Chisholm book

Historian Connects Shirley Chisholm’s Life and Politics in New Biography

January 14, 2023
red apple fruit on four pyle books

Is White Supremacy a Bug or a Feature of Classical Christian Education?

January 14, 2023
bible gun Brazil

God and Guns Often Go Together In US History — This Course Examines Why

January 14, 2023
black news site

Kansas City Police Dismissed a Black News Site’s Reports of Missing Women. Then One Showed Up.

January 14, 2023
text

‘Thank You’ and a Look Back as We Look Forward to the New Year

December 31, 2022
Anthea Butler, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, and Jemar Tisby

Free eBook: Conversations on White Evangelical Racism and Christian Nationalism (Subscribers)

December 10, 2022
will smith in emancipation movie

News With Nicola: Is Will Smith’s Emancipation Movie Based on a True Story?

December 2, 2022
Pastor E. Dewey Smith’s House of Hope Atlanta Sues Over Alleged Black Church Scheme

Pastor E. Dewey Smith’s House of Hope Atlanta Sues Over Alleged Black Church Scheme

November 28, 2022
Bishop Jerome Stokes is seen in this 2020 YouTube screengrab.

Baltimore Pastor Bishop Jerome Stokes Attacked With Hammer During Sunday Service

November 28, 2022
Jonathan Majors stars as Jesse L. Brown in the movie Devotion

‘Devotion’ Movie Celebrates Successes and Sacrifices of Navy’s First Black Fighter Pilot

November 21, 2022
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Saturday, February 4, 2023
  • Login
  • Register
Faithfully Magazine
  • About
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Write for Us
    • Advertise
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Exclusives
  • Q&As
  • Inspiration
  • Subscribe
  • Shop Faithfully
No Result
View All Result
Faithfully Magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion & Analysis

Kyle Rittenhouse, Whiteness, and a Divinely Ordained License to Kill

by FM Editors
November 20, 2021
Reading Time: 6 mins read
kyle rittenhouse white supremacy

(Photo: livestream court video)

74
SHARES
ShareTweetPin It

By Robert P. Jones, Religion News Service

RELATED POSTS

How the Distortion of MLK’s Words Enables More, Not Less, Racial Division Within American Society

Christian Nationalism’s ‘Mission From God’ and the Political Influence of Its Master Salesman

Why We Call Them ‘Church Fathers’ and ‘Desert Mothers’

(RNS) — Kyle Rittenhouse has been “acquitted on all charges in the shooting deaths of two men and wounding of a third at a Wisconsin protest against racial injustice last year,” as AP put it.

I don’t say this glibly: God help us.

Rittenhouse, as we would say growing up, was clearly “looking for trouble.” He intentionally traveled across state lines, armed with an illegally purchased AR-15 semi-automatic rife, to clash with those protesting the police shooting of Jacob Blake, an African American man.

Despite his boyish white frat boy appearance, there was plenty of evidence of Rittenhouse’s deeper white supremacist orientation, both before and after these events.

Two weeks before the Kenosha killings, Rittenhouse was captured on video fantasizing about killing African Americans who were leaving a local CVS. Without any evidence, Rittenhouse concludes that they were armed and shoplifting. “It looks like one of them has a weapon,” Rittenhouse asserts in the video. “Bro, I wish I had my F^(<ing AR. l’d start shooting rounds at them.”

Prosecutors argued that the video established Rittenhouse’s general state of mind just ahead of the killings and demonstrated that “the defendant fervently sought to insert himself as an armed vigilante into situations that had nothing to do with him.” Judge Bruce Schroeder ruled this evidence irrelevant and inadmissible. (Among other odd behaviors, the judge also ruled that prosecutors could not call the people who were killed or wounded “victims” while allowing the defense to describe protestors as “looters.”)

Just 90 minutes after pleading not guilty to murder and weapons charges in January, Rittenhouse appeared at a Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin, bar in a T-shirt that read “Free as F^(<,” and drank three beers, despite being underage. He then posed for photos with members of the Proud Boys while flashing an “Ok sign,” a hand signal adopted by the alt-right to signify “white power.” He hung around for the white supremacist group to serenade him with “Proud of Your Boy,” a twisted adaptation from Disney’s “Aladdin” that has been fashioned into a Proud Boys anthem.

Later that week, Rittenhouse traveled to Miami to meet with the leader of the Proud Boys movement. Judge Schroeder, who claimed he had never heard of the Proud Boys movement before the trial, also ruled this evidence irrelevant and inadmissible.

That photo, with that “Free as F^(<“ declaration, heartbreakingly captures the brazenness of white supremacy in 2021.

There’s no doubt in my mind that if Rittenhouse’s skin were Black—or the skin color or likely religion of the characters from Aladdin—“acquitted on all counts” would not be today’s headline. The court system would likely not have let him walk away from killing two people and wounding another. He certainly would not have received massive funding for his legal defense from a conservative white Christian crowdfunding site.

And a Black Kyle Rittenhouse wouldn’t be celebrated by prominent white Republican elected officials who love to wear their Christian identity on their sleeve. Rep. Lauren Boebert not only celebrated the decision but added, “Glory to God!” U.S. Reps. Madison Cawthorn and Paul Gosar — the latter of whom who was just censured for sharing an anime video showing him killing U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and Matt Gaetz not only celebrated the verdict but openly offered Rittenhouse internships in their congressional offices.

If Rittenhouse didn’t look like the white boy next door (to whites), we likely wouldn’t even have such a trial. A Black figure openly carrying an assault weapon and boldly approaching law enforcement officers likely would have been shot, rather than given water, by police in the streets of Kenosha that night. And he certainly would not have been sent on his way by police in an armored vehicle with this comradely benediction: “We appreciate you guys, we really do.”

After the verdict, Karen Bloom and John Huber — the parents of one of the victims, 26-year-old Anthony Huber — captured another danger for our collective future. As they noted, the outcome “sends the unacceptable message that armed civilians can show up in any town, incite violence, and then use the danger they have created to justify shooting people in the street.”

That is the ultimate freedom, the unfettered license, of white supremacy. We’ve seen it before — countless times. In my home state of Mississippi, Roy Bryant and his half-brother J. W. Milam — the two men who abducted, tortured, and murdered 14-year-old Emmett Till — were acquitted after just an hour of deliberation by an all-white, all-male jury just one month after the murder. Protected by double jeopardy, the men proudly confessed to his murder four months later, calling it a form of southern justice, in a story they sold to Look magazine for $4,000 — about $40,000 in today’s currency.

That was 66 years ago. And still, here we are.

Conservative magazine editors and book agents are undoubtedly circling around Rittenhouse. And the support he’s finding within hours of this verdict is an indication that we’ll see Rittenhouse — if not himself, then as an iconic hero — on the CPAC stage, conservative speaking circuit, or at the next Republican National Convention.

As Professor Anthea Butler, author of “White Evangelical Racism,” predicts, he’ll also likely also be invited onto white evangelical stages and even into the pulpits of those who see his murderous actions as an example of defending and “saving America” as they understand it, as a white Christian country.

Guess who's about to make a killing (pun intended) on the evangelical speaking circuit ? ????

— ProfB (@AntheaButler) November 19, 2021

Lest we make the mistake of thinking Rittenhouse is some aberration, recently released data from PRRI’s American Values Survey shows that today a frightening number of Americans — especially those who are white, conservative, and Christian — believe that violence may be necessary to “save the country.”

Attitudinally, support for violence is positively correlated with feeling like “a stranger in my own country” and with a belief that “God has a granted a special role for America in human history.”

One quarter of white evangelical Protestants (26%) and three in ten Republicans (30%) agree today that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence if that’s what it takes to save the country.”

Among the three fourths of white evangelicals who believe God has granted America a special place in history, support for violence rises to 30%. And among the two thirds of Republicans who believe the election was stolen from Donald Trump, support for violence rises to 39%.

Today, for an alarming number of white conservative Christians, the mark of Christian faithfulness is not a love that inspires them to lay down their lives for their friends, but a defensiveness that lures them to take the lives of their fellow citizens.

The anti-democratic and white supremacist core of this worldview snaps into focus as soon as we ask just one question: What is the “America” they are saving? This question is at the heart of the MAGA ideology that has now fully overtaken one of our two major political parties.

That second “A,” for “again,” is the hermeneutical key that unlocks the obfuscation. This nostalgia for a White Christian America has become the weapon of choice in the culture wars. In that vision of the country, white law and order reign, and with refreshments and pats on the back, white vigilantes are informally deputized as partners. And Black people protesting in the streets or even shopping in the local CVS are seen as suspect for not playing their properly deferential roles or staying in their assigned subservient places.

If Trump has done anything for us, he has peeled back a thin veneer of patriotic- and Christian-sounding words to reveal the core claim underneath it all: That God intended America to be a white Christian nation. That claim has literally generated—for those among the chosen— a license to kill anyone who threatens that norm and the confidence that those actions will not only be free of negative consequences, but be rewarded both here on earth and in heaven.


(Robert P. Jones is the CEO and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute and the author of “White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity.” This article was originally published on Jones’ Substack #WhiteTooLong. Read more at robertpjones.substack.com. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)


Help Keep Christian Media Diverse

In addition to partnering with advertisers, maintaining a subscription program, and exploring paid live events, we rely on the generosity of readers who see value in our work and in our mission. We invite you to join us, and keep walking with us, in our mission. Every amount, big or small, empowers us to stay the course. Here are a few ways you can join us:
  • Give via PayPal
  • Place an Ad
We are grateful for your support. Thank you!

Share This Post

Share via

Share This Post

  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • Flipboard
  • SMS
More
  • Report
74
SHARES
ShareTweetPin It
Tags: Kyle RittenhouseOpinion & Analysis
FM Editors

FM Editors

Faithfully Magazine is a fresh, bold and exciting news and culture publication that covers issues, conversations and events impacting Christian communities of color.

Related Posts

Martin Luther King Jr. Photo

How the Distortion of MLK’s Words Enables More, Not Less, Racial Division Within American Society

by FM Editors
January 14, 2023
0

...

A Person Holding a Bible and a Flag of the United States

Christian Nationalism’s ‘Mission From God’ and the Political Influence of Its Master Salesman

by FM Editors
November 4, 2022
0

...

relief sculpture

Why We Call Them ‘Church Fathers’ and ‘Desert Mothers’

by FM Editors
September 22, 2022
0

...

President Donald Trump stands outside St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, DC

The Republican Party Has Embraced Right-Wing Extremism

by FM Editors
September 14, 2022
0

...

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Jesus and John the Baptist

Are Jesus and John the Baptist Cousins or Related in Anyway?

June 2, 2019
paige and christopher hilken family

Paige Hilken, Wife of North Coast Church Pastor Christopher Hilken, Dies by Suicide

August 2, 2021
stream movies laptop

Free Christian Movies: How and Where to Watch Free Christian Movies Online

March 15, 2021
White Christian Dean and Faculty Pose as Gangsters in Controversial Photo

White Christian Dean and Faculty Pose as Gangsters in Controversial Photo

16
study on evangelical churches finds some apply race tests on people of color seeking to belong

White Evangelical Churches Use ‘Race Tests’ on People of Color, Study Claims

3
depression

Why African Christians Should Rethink Depression

3
black women group

‘Righteous and Ratchet’ Black Women of Faith Embraced on Jemele Hill’s ‘Sanctified’ Podcast

January 23, 2023
Martin Luther King Jr. Photo

How the Distortion of MLK’s Words Enables More, Not Less, Racial Division Within American Society

January 14, 2023
Shirley Chisholm book

Historian Connects Shirley Chisholm’s Life and Politics in New Biography

January 14, 2023

Get the Newsletter

Loading

Listen to Exclusive Q&As on Faithfully Podcast

Faithfully Podcast · Faithfully Podcast Select
Advertisement
Advertisement
Mosaic Coffee
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Do Good. Obey God. Stay Woke.

Copyright © 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC. This website participates in affiliate programs.

No Result
View All Result
  • About
    • Staff and Advisors
    • Write for Us
    • Advertise
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Exclusives
  • Q&As
  • Inspiration
  • Subscribe
  • Shop Faithfully

Copyright © 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC. This website participates in affiliate programs.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Share via

Share This Post

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Copy Link
  • Tumblr
  • Digg
  • Flipboard
  • SMS

Add New Playlist

Add to Collection

  • Public collection title

  • Private collection title

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.

Send this to a friend