Engage, Entrap and Have Others Destroy

Yesterday I was accused of stoking racist sentiment by some guy on Twitter who goes by the handle joelcomm. He said “Relax. Breathe. Everything is going to be alright.” To which I replied, “only if you’re rich, white and voted for Trump.” He then replied, “That’s a racist statement if I ever heard one."

Now, at the point I stopped engaging with him because he’s playing the typical Social Conservative game of engage, entrap and have others destroy.

How does it work? I’ve seen it many times here in the UK and during this election. First, its based on one simple fact.

Judgements are made on what is seen at the time not on what prompted the moment.

In order to best explain this, I need to tell you about Fred. Fred was a kid in my high school who was not part of the cool crowd nor, was he universally liked. He was a bit odd but a nice guy overall.

One day in class one of the cool kids who sat behind him surprisingly asked him how his day was. He did not respond obviously fearing a trap. The next day the cool kid asked him again and Fred, against all good judgement responded. The cool kid responded in kind and over the week the two started talking and becoming friends.

You know where this is going, right?

The next week Fred comes to class turns to his new friend and asks how his weekend was. The cool kid turns to Fred and yells at him, in front of the whole class, “Don’t talk to me! Nobody likes you!” (or something similar to that) Fred recoiled and screamed back at him. The teacher saw Fred screamed and kicked him out of class.

Fred, who had done nothing wrong, now had a stain on his record while the cool kid basked in the glory of his achievement; entrapping and humiliating a social minority.

Fast forward to last night. This person who doesn’t know me or, know what I do for a living, decided say that my phrase was racist. Of course, it wasn’t. Trump’s campaign was about attacking historically marginalized groups in America. Black people were getting shot and/or killed on the street by the police. Attacks against Muslims went up 78% during the campaign. In what world should anyone in those groups relax?

Since I couldn’t fit that in to 120 characters I simplified it for him.

If I got into a twitter war with him, he knew the outcome. He had already engaged by posting something he knew would illicit a controversial response. Had I continued I would have been entrapped where his followers could attack me from all side and I'd look like the aggressor(have others destroy). He had emotion and I had to defend myself. He was preaching togetherness and I was not. The social media burden was on me and given it’s taken over 500 words to get to this point across it was better not to engage him in his sphere but in mine.

In the end a few people retweeted my reply and thought it was funny. Joelcomm did not pursue it either. I imagine that he may have thought twice about goading a black man on the tenants of racism given the tone of the campaign (see below).

After seeing the riots across America last night, I remind you of Fred's story.

Marginalised Americans only really started to become mainstream in the last few years with LGBT people finally getting the right to marry. Imagine, if you feared that YOUR Government could annul your marriage? Imagine if you felt like YOUR Government would stand by and allow you to be shot for no reason. Imagine, for the first time, you felt like the system of law and politics was not totally against you. Then imagine Wednesday morning.

For black people and all minorities that was the reality for more than 200 years. For the past eight years it seemed as if a new normal was being established but, in one night, all of that progress is up for grabs. So some have taken to the streets but, in that one moment of explosive reaction they are now the ones in trouble. They have played right into the hands of the social conservatives and helped in creating their next narrative: Liberalism is Dangerous.

This is how I protest.