Thread by @JonathanMetzl

For anyone wondering why Trump would even consider holding a WH balcony serenade while he remains infected and infectious...the #DyingOfWhiteness reason would be, yet again, that he drives and is driven by the politics of racial resentment.....

By this logic, signaling his devotion to a hierarchy that keeps white people on top is more important then what might seem from the outside like self interest or communal well-being....

So while many wonder why Trump can hold another WH rally even when he has/embodies Covid-it’s sending a very particular message about whiteness and white America that he assumes a more powerful message for his supporters than what might seem from the outside like self interest...

Or self-preservation/public health......

That message is: maintain this ensickened hierarchy, or destroy everything rather than allow equity or change. Ergo, #DyingOfWhiteness ...

Of course, the supreme irony - just like public health or #COVID19 prevention, really fixing inequity would make things better and healthier for everyone - even for Trump and the ppl gathered beneath the floating COVID droplets of his balcony...

And of course - if Trump had *even for a moment* considered a national reckoning with inequity, or rallied national unity vs the pandemic, he wouldn’t even need to be pulling these pathetic, suicidal stunts - rather, he would be coasting to reelection...

But of course, that's not in him. Rather...#COVID19 is in him....

And ergo, he too is #DyingOfWhiteness.

Very, very, very hopeful that we can change this channel, reclaim/defend/support/enshrine our white houses and Black lives and all in between - for the sake of...everyone...

This is of course an evolving story that just keeps getting worse. Last week, my thoughts were...

https://twitter.com/jonathanmetzl/status/1312763861762805765

And as it turns out - the racial optics of the event today.....made these points all the more literal....