Kyle Rittenhouse abruptly departed the stage during an appearance at the University of Memphis on Wednesday, after he was confronted about comments made by Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk.

Rittenhouse was invited by the collegeā€™s Turning Point USA chapter to speak at the campus. However, the event was met with backlash from a number of students who objected to Rittenhouseā€™s presence.

The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, heĀ shot and killed two menā€”Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutzā€”at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

He said theĀ three shootings, carried out with a semi-automaticĀ AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. TheĀ Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest where the shootings took place was held afterĀ Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.

  • PrefersAwkward@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    I had to look up that hand gesture because Iā€™d never heard of it, and finding out what is pissed me off. Are they fucking serious? The O-K hand gesture??

    Itā€™s so evil and rotten to try to corrupt such a common, useful, and benign hand gesture and to try to turn that into a symbol of hate. Absolutely enraging

    If Rittenhouse hadnā€™t even murdered or physically harmed anyone, Iā€™d still say heā€™s worth societyā€™s most energetic condemnation on his views alone.

    • tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Itā€™s called, ā€œplausible deniability.ā€ The in-group knows what theyā€™re doing and they can gaslight the out-group.

      Itā€™s a brilliant but sinister tactic.

    • RatBin@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It was supposed to be a troll post from 4chan, but they actually used it for that afterwards, so yes, we are looking at the evolution of dog whistles and the blurred lines of hate speech on the internet.

    • skozzii@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      Yeah, I donā€™t dig deep into all this culture war nonsense, but I got informed of this after giving one my buddies the ok sign. They explained it to me but I donā€™t care, I am taking the OK back, they cannot have it, it belongs us to us normal loving folks, not the toxic hate filled mongrels.