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The Media Are Acting Like a Bizarre 'White Woman' Protest Is Totally Normal

Anti-gun protest on March 24, 2023, in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
June 6, 2023

Two nonwhite female activists sent thousands of white women to Colorado's Capitol on Monday with orders to use their "privileged bodies" to demand an executive order banning all guns, including for law enforcement.

That seems like a weird story, right? You wouldn't know it from the tone of mainstream media coverage.

Headlines treated the sit-in like just another anti-gun protest.

NBC News: "1,000 Women Hold a Sit-In at the Colorado Capitol To Push for an End to Gun Violence"

ABC News: "Thousands of women participate in sit-in at Colorado Capitol against gun violence"

CBS News: "Colorado Mothers Hold Sit-In To Demand Ban on All Guns in Violation of Constitutions"

Here's how long it took each network to mention the racial dynamics at play and how those dynamics were described.

NBC News, sixth paragraph:

[Tina] Strawn, 45, who is Black, and [Saira] Rao, 48, who is Indian American, said they were inspired by the 1960s Civil Rights Movement to hold a peaceful sit-in and encouraged women of color to participate virtually in a simultaneous remote campaign.

Black people experience the highest firearm homicide rates in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

White women were specifically encouraged to participate in person "because they have a lot of power within our society and statistically are also least likely to be harmed by police," said Here 4 the Kids

ABC News, second paragraph:

The Here 4 the Kids movement, which advocates to end gun violence, is behind the event. Organizers said roughly 2,000 people were among the first to gather. They are also calling on white women specifically, to participate in the demonstration. ...

Tina Strawn, the movement’s cofounder, told ABC News that Black people have always been on the frontlines for social justice.

"So, it's time for white women to show up. It's time for white women to put their bodies, their privilege and their power on the line to save our kids," she said. "And it is something that they are recognizing that they need to be doing. That's why they're showing up."

CBS News, never.

One cable news channel did highlight the protest's far-left racial ideology, but only positively.

CNN: "Hundreds of White Women Gather at Colorado Capitol After Plea From Women of Color To Use Their ‘Privilege’ To Demand Action on Gun Violence"

The movement has garnered support from the entertainment industry, including from White actresses Amy Schumer, Michaela Watkins and Lake Bell.

Watkins, who showed up at the Colorado Capitol early Monday morning and plans to stay until late in the evening, told CNN her initial response to the call to action for mainly White women to participate was, "What? Just White women? That sounds just exclusive," but she understood what the founders meant.

"White women, statistically, have been the least likely to be arrested, assaulted by police officers and so we just said, ‘OK.’ If marginalized communities have been just traumatized over and over and over again I guess we just come together," Watkins told CNN as cars drove by and honked in support of the protest. "We are the biggest voting block in this country. We do have power, we just forget that and we have been conditioned to forget that."

She also said, "For me, it was very confronting, it was like, ‘I am an activist, but am I really willing to put myself on the line?’" when asked what was her response to other White women who feel uncomfortable with the movement.

"If someone says, ‘I don’t understand why I have to be there,’ they don’t have to be here. But if you feel you are over it, over this incredible horror that we are facing, literally every single day, then you should come here."

None of the outlets mentioned that one of the organizers is infamous for her anti-white racist tweets and questionable monetization of white guilt.

The media have a lot of practice acting as though the latest progressive ideas are totally normal.

But when conservatives express traditional American values—like democratic engagement, parental authority, patriotism, and free speech—intense media scrutiny is warranted.