Thread by @kohenari

In an hour or two, I’m going to be attacked by a right-wing mob. It’s source will be Turning Point USA and Breitbart. If you’re interested in seeing how these folks weaponize the internet against college professors, here’s some information:

Last week, while on Spring Break, I was alerted to the fact that several Turning Point USA staff & volunteers posed making the “a-ok” gesture that’s favored by white nationalists because it’s a way to troll liberals and because it’s double nature gives them plausible deniability.

The same gesture has been used by well-known alt-right figures like Milo Yiannopoulos, Mike Cernovich, Jack Posobiec, Richard Spencer, and most recently the terrorist in New Zealand.

The person who posted the “a-ok” Turning Point photo was later fired for public racist tweets. Some of the other people in the photo went on to intern for Nebraska Congressman Don Bacon. Given that Governor Ricketts employed a white supremacist all year last year I was concerned.

I posted about it here and also on Facebook, tagging the Congressman to ask if he knew about this because it was very disturbing. Some of the people in the photo showed up in the comments of my Facebook post and gave different excuses for why they posed that way:

What followed, of course, was that they then decided to distort what I said and report that distortion to Breitbart. Which is why I got this email earlier today:

I didn’t say “conservative students share the same ideology as the New Zealand terrorist.” I asked Bacon “why are some of your former staffers and interns the kind of people who take photos in which they are flashing the same White Power symbol as the New Zealand mass murderer?”

That distortion matters. Because that’s the story they need to sell. They also need to sell that these are students. They aren’t students of mine, of course, and never have been. But they must emphasize that *1* attends UNL. Otherwise the nasty liberal professor narrative fails.

Here’s how they built the narrative, on Facebook, wrapping a bunch of my colleagues into it and attempting to make it about the university.

And that’s why, before contacting me, Breitbart tried to go to the university communications office to see if they could get a quote about disciplining me. And why they encouraged people on Facebook to call the Chancellor.

Missing in ALL of this is why these people took this photo. This hand gesture has a clear message, one that people use to signal to one another. The guy who worked for TPUSA got fired for racism. They’re having fun winking at white nationalism/white supremacy.
That’s the story.

UPDATE: For those who’ve been following along, and especially those who sent notes of support and solidarity, I see that Breitbart *finally* posted their story & I think they chose a nice photo of me that they grabbed from a lecture I gave about not being a bystander to injustice

I never link to Breitbart but I’ll do it here because you should read their ham-fisted attempt at the “mean liberal professor bullies innocent children” narrative. It just doesn’t work at all & they must know it. Plus, it really *is* a good picture of me.
breitbart.com/tech/2019/03/2…