WTW128: Crowdfunding Hate, with Naomi Bethune

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob, how often you just don't see them coming.

0:00:11 Clip: Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.

0:00:19 Clip: Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down. The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything, everything, and everything. Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M &M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. I'm Thomas. That over there is Lydia. How you doing?

0:00:44 Lydia: Hello. I'm doing pretty well. Excited for this one. How are you?

0:00:48 Thomas: Good. I always excited to see the Wokeys. Wokey's.

0:00:52 Lydia: Of our favorite people.

0:00:54 Thomas: Speaking of favorite people, we've got a really cool interview today.

0:00:58 Lydia: Oh, yeah, we sure do. Are going to be talking to Naomi Bethune. She is a writer with the American Prospect, and she wrote this great piece that actually you came across and we got to talk to her. I reached out and she was so gracious and came on, called The Far Right Cash Machine.

0:01:16 Thomas: And it's not exactly what you think. You might think that's like buying elections or something, but it's actually kind of our podcast the article in a way because it's about how there is no cancel culture that's all pretend and what there really is is a funnel of money a spigot of money that can get turned on for anyone who does something horrible you know usually to like people of color or whatever um who takes part in the culture wars on the side of the right wing uh just a funnel And some of the stories that she goes through in the article are just so horrifying. We'll let her tell them. But this is, man, this not a fun topic. Yeah.

0:01:56 Lydia: Important work, right?

0:01:57 Thomas: And a really cool interview. Interview so let's talk to naomi about this you this uh normal person to culture warrior uh horrible person I you know it's mag it's also like deeply white supremacist but uh yeah well if you'd like to support the show go to patreon.com/wherethereswoke because we don't have a big spigot of white supremacists money coming our way.

0:02:09 Lydia: So, yeah. MAGA darlings sometimes. Yeah. Oh, yeah, totally.

0:02:25 Lydia: We don't have a big spigot of any kind of supremacist money coming our way.

0:02:28 Thomas: I don't even have a trickle of white supremacist money coming our way oh do want to shout out to Wokies I just put out some SIOs about the really stupid conspiracy theories about Trump assassinations and I thought it's it's a debunk it's debunks that I didn't know I needed to do and I know this show's crowd probably likes a good debunker too so So, nope.

0:02:48 Lydia: You, like, couldn't go on with life until you got this out of your system. So, yeah, you really did.

0:02:51 Thomas: I hit pause on life and had to talk about this. I can't believe it. So, if you're someone who also can't belief that we're, you up conspiracy theories about these Trump assassination attempts, or if you are somebody who believes those conspiracy theories, maybe give that a listen over on Serious Inquiries Only. All right. Let's take our break and then we'll get to the interview. Thanks so much for joining us today.

0:03:17 Naomi: Thank you for having me.

0:03:19 Thomas: Absolutely. Really, enjoyed the article, The Far Right Cash Machine, which is how we got kind of turned on to this. But I want to ask you, how topic? Like, what's your story of how you caught on to the story of the far right cash machine? Yeah. What's doing on here?

0:03:28 Lydia: The origin story.

0:03:31 Naomi: Is a great question. Way I kind of was introduced to it is I saw that, you really horrible video that went viral of Shiloh Hendricks racially harassing a young black boy. Boy. And, I respond in a very visceral way. It was, you really disturbing, you a Black person and, you know, anyone feel like was a horrible thing. I And just was wondering, like, how do you recover from that in the world that we live in? It Because, made me think, I'm like, we live in this kind of world that's becoming increasingly defined by, like, right -wing authoritarian um -black racism everything's just like on steroids right now um I look back to like say like 2020 I was like that should get you canceled like

0:04:16 Thomas: You want to quickly for the listeners, just give the, a little bit more of the full story so they know what you're talking about.

0:04:21 Naomi: Yeah it was a year ago um this was in rochester minnesota um video came out of this white woman named Shiloh Hendricks, in which she was accused by a Black man of calling a young Black boy the N -word. She said it was because he had been, quote unquote, digging through her diaper bag. She called the little boy, we don't know how many times, but then she called the Black man behind the camera at least three times and then doubled down by saying the little guy was going to act like that, that's what she's going to call him.

0:04:56 Lydia: Is insane.

0:04:57 Naomi: It was, it was horrible. Um, happens to a person like that in the world we live in? So I did a little research into it just cause it was really frustrating and terrible to see, like thinking about how traumatizing that is for like everyone involved, um, were, you hurt by her words. Saw that she had a give, send, go and And GiveSendGo is like this, I estranged cousin of like GoFundMe.

0:05:22 Thomas: It's the racist uncle. They have to see at the holidays.

0:05:24 Lydia: There you go.

0:05:24 Thomas: Yeah, go

0:05:25 Naomi: It is. Yeah, it's this.

0:05:26 Lydia: Uncle Frank.

0:05:28 Thomas: Fund me. He's like, Oh God damn it. Give, send, go is going to be at the fucking Thanksgiving. I don't know what I'll even talk about.

0:05:36 Naomi: It is. I would say that. For like people who don't know, it's this crowdfunding site. It' s labeled as like a Christian crowdfunding site. And it has like very little restrictions on like what you can fundraise around. On GoFundMe, for example, like you cannot raise money like to cover anything related to a violent crime, like any racist incidents, etc. But Give, Send, Go has like three guidelines. And one of them is you can't raise money to an abortion. And the other one is you can't raise money to support like transition and gender affirming care.

0:06:07 Lydia: Course.

0:06:11 Thomas: Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Incredible a

0:06:13 Naomi: People like Tyler Hendricks and Jonathan Ross and Kyle Rittenhouse can go on there and money for whatever they say they need it for. Um she set up a a fundraising page and I talked about this a bit in my story like how it kind of all came together um and she pretty much said I need you to help me protect my family you being threatened my life is upside down because of you what happened um and people really responded to that she page is still up now a year later and set her fundraising goal for a million dollars um she's pretty close to it

0:06:43 Thomas: Million dollars jesus yeah

0:06:47 Lydia: So crazy to me. Like, I need to protect my family from what happened. Oh, you mean from the actions that you took and the words that you made and that, environment of your own making. Speaking and gumption to then turn around and fundraise off of it is just another level of despicable yeah

0:07:07 Naomi: One thing I get into is that she had incredible support from white supremacists in doing this um are the people who like really pushed the fundraiser you out into the world who garnered support for it who gave substantial amounts of money obviously like I can't say who exactly was donating because there's really no way to know um

0:07:29 Lydia: You can type whatever name yeah

0:07:30 Naomi: It could have been anyone from like someone who's like super into free speech to you neo -nazi um herself I I cannot not exactly define like her political leanings or like you know off of you know what I saw which is her a coordinated effort to reach out to on x or twitter that perpetuate eugenicist white supremacist xenophobic views and her doing like going out of her way to do that having them where they asked her to prove an account asked her to prove that it was really her. Account's called Anglo Saxon girl. Um, they said if if, you want me to help you raise money, you got, you have to show to me that you're actually Shiloh Hendricks. And, she said the way to do that is send me a picture of you, your username, and please write the N word underneath it.

0:07:41 Thomas: Could take a guess yeah oh

0:08:19 Naomi: And sent the picture and that's picture stolen X.

0:08:20 Thomas: My god are you kidding me wow jesus

0:08:25 Naomi: So how it started for her. She she looks looking for support and like to be in community with during this time. And a lot of people wanted to participate in that and support her.

0:08:36 Thomas: Well to your point it's like who knows to do that that's not like a household thing I don't I hope like you have to already kind of be in with that to know that that even exists I would think I

0:08:48 Naomi: Agree. I is kind of interesting how like for a very long time, at least I saw crowdfunding attempts or like platforms like GoFundMe as this kind of way where the left would support each other, where people who were disenfranchised were struggling with their health care or rent.

0:09:05 Thomas: Was gonna say I see it as just the american health care system but yeah sure yeah

0:09:08 Naomi: Exactly. Yeah. Any of those causes you feel so moved to help them because you know we live in a world where most can't afford health care or some don't have insurance. And it's like, I need to give to that because it's wrong that that anyone would have to live that way. But right has started to notice that they can use that to raise money for themselves and to raise money to support people that they victimized. So Hendrix was victimized in this. She made herself the victim just victimized herself in a way that totally dismisses people who actually could be considered victims. People who who genuinely are going through like horrible period in their lives or really need help like with their medical bills for example um the people who surrounded her aligned like her struggle with that and really what I think got people interested in supporting her because she kind of martyred herself and made herself out to be the person who's really struggling um people wanted to help her you

0:10:09 Thomas: We were a little confused um I think in the article it talks about like oh what the left has done you know like there there's some somebody who quoted I think that was like well if the left is gonna do this they're the ones making my I was wondering what did the left do like did they do is I mean maybe I'm missing the facts but But was was there something that happened to her that as a result of this, you know, was she attacked or something or what? What do they claim?

0:10:34 Naomi: I think she was doxxed um that happens I guess in like these super viral moments yes

0:10:40 Thomas: You mean before she put the N -word under her photo and like before that?

0:10:44 Naomi: This was this was during a very difficult time for her obviously um was docked um said that faced like in person. Then that's what kind of triggered the whole, I need to support my family. I need protect my family thing. She saw some repercussions for what she did. And then, you was kind of used as like a jumping off point to create her gives and go and to, find you people, you know, who are going to support her.

0:11:09 Thomas: We know much about that or did she lose a job or anything or is it just like I was attacked online or something? Thing yeah

0:11:15 Naomi: We only know what she says um what she said is that her information was leaked or doxxed and her family was experiencing harassment she was experiencing embarrassment she said something about like where she goes to the gym like information was linked um I guess she felt unsafe um I said it's really up to like what she's put out there because there's really no other way I guess to know

0:11:38 Thomas: Think what really scares me about this and what is just I hate to be a bummer but back in my day you know I've been covering stuff like this for at least I don't know 12 years and it used to be that this kind of person was somebody who um plausibly subject to a misunderstanding. Like it used to be, oh, well, they were just saying, doing whatever. And the, you know, this person of color probably flipped out, misunderstood it, you know, took it the wrong way. Like, it used to be I didn't really buy it. Sometimes there was genuine misunderstanding. And there's people who, you know, people obviously online fly off the handle. And, you know, there's always going to be cases of people being too horrific to people who don't deserve it online. But for the most part, it was like, you you know, it'd be something that was plausibly a misunderstanding is, you know it, it made it made for a really good white victim where it's like, oh, this you know this nice white person was just doing whatever you remember that San Francisco one, hon, where the guy there was, uh,

0:12:39 Thomas: Yeah he wrote black

0:12:38 Lydia: They said like like why are you here yeah and like

0:12:41 Thomas: Lives matter maybe. And it was on his own property.

0:12:43 Lydia: This exactly and they were like you know prove that you live here like you're not from here I'm gonna talk to the person who Who owns this house?

0:12:47 Thomas: And, and this white couple harasses him and is like, Oh we know who owns this house. And turned out it was him. And they were just lying, that kind of thing. But where they could still at least plausibly say, like, look, we were just trying to protect our community, blah, blah. But this one, it scares me so much because this is just, oh, no, I was being a racist and doing horrible racism.

0:13:06 Lydia: I did that.

0:13:06 Thomas: Support my racism.

0:13:06 Lydia: I said that. Yes. Yeah,

0:13:08 Thomas: Like, that's what it does. That's come across to you the same way as kind of a maybe a bit of a change, you know, that doesn't pretend well. Well, no.

0:13:17 Naomi: I just one of many examples unfortunately that have like kind of sprung up in the past couple years where it's just really explicit you there's no room for misunderstanding because we see it we've seen it and then a lot of times people like double down um they show that doubling down through like crowdfunding um because they go out there and they say I did this but I don't deserve what happened to me give me money um mean I can think of several other examples where maybe the campaigns didn't do as well as hendrix's but there was a woman who worked at a cinnabon and there's a video of her like yelling at two somali customers saying some horrible things to them. She raised some money. Don't really know how much she made. The page got taken down like as I was doing my research. And then I think recently in Texas, a woman was caught like at some black kids who were playing in her yard or playing nearby. And I think she called them the N -word. And she raised a bit of money, too. Been happening a lot. Um, goals that are set, like may vary the ways that like people circulate them may vary, but don't think anyone goes out of their way to do this, to get caught doing it so they can make money,

0:14:28 Naomi: But it's kind of like a perk, you think that would just want to say ruin their lives, but completely like alter how they live and really change things and they'd see repercussions for it but instead they're they're really being rewarded

0:14:40 Lydia: I was gonna ask along those lines too because we've talked a lot about in the last few years you productive role that shame can actually play potentially you know like calling out bad behavior calling out people when are being are you beyond unkind they're being you you know, disgusting and racist and everything. And that shame can be an effective tool in that way. But it feels like I don't know if it can be if the next step is that whatever proportion of folks, maybe not everybody that experiences it, but some amount of them will just sit in it and say yes and claim it as them and make money off of it. And what are we left Like, what kind of tools do you think we can come up with to kind of push back on this stuff if shame is actually not going to be effective?

0:15:27 Naomi: I don't really know if I could say I really the world we're living in right now where it just doesn't work the way it used to and I think it's because we have very powerful people who are unashamed of their bigotry um so like why shouldn't the the regular person not feel that way, especially if they vote for someone or to their political beliefs or their social perspectives. So that maybe in the past, shame was, it's a good motivator to change yourself, to change your view, or it can have the opposite effect where it's like, I want to double down. I don't want to accept it. I I don't want it to change me. Lot of it has to do with the political climate we're living in. And I can't say like all of these crowdfunding attempts have happened under Trump, like 2 .0. Some of them happened under Biden. Example, Daniel Penny, the man who killed Jordan Neely, a black houseless man on the New York subway. Of way, he raised think like, over a million dollars for his like legal campaign. As And you guys know, he was acquitted. That was, I believe, under Biden.

0:16:31 Naomi: Know, that just might reflect like a pattern or like a trend that's kind of been changing over the past two years, regardless of who's like holding political power. I don' t know, maybe just humans are moving away from like shame being, you a good catalyst for change. Like maybe it's just, you know doesn't work that way anymore so I can't really speak to what would be you alternative to that

0:16:49 Thomas: Well well we have our views and our theories like I think that your culture has been just weaponized on talk about the difference between maybe some of more left or mainstream fundraising where it's like oh someone needs a kidney someone Someone needs a whatever or someone's a victim of something, an attack or whatever. I think this is that for them. They view these people as the genuine victims of this mythological thing they've created where there's this massively powerful D .I. machine, you know, whatever. Like it's just this whole story after story for them is what we cover is these made up or overblown stories about how repressive the don't know, diversity is or something like this, this unnamed kind of group of people that's always somehow in control and always in power, despite Republicans controlling literally every single aspect of government. So it's a victimhood thing. I think what has been very effective and I guess in a way is kind of the best case you'd hope for is hopefully people have just gotten so lost in wanting to, quote, trigger the libs or whatever, you know, like that they've lost track of that. That's like the bestcase. You know, maybe there's some of those people, but otherwise, I think it's been a pretty concerted concerted effort to take people from, you oh, this is we're just doing it to to to own the libs to where they've lost track of what that even is. And now they're just due in racism, like they're Just they're, just plain old due in Racism, and that triggers the lives, but it also should just be offensive to any decent person. You know, they've lost that.

0:18:30 Naomi: Mean like in some circles on the the right you know maybe more center right people you know should feel offended by that and feel like that you know goes against their personal convictions but I think one thing I've been been noticing under the second Trump administration is a lot of people you think, um, or politicians that you think are more moderate, you know, they do lean more conservative, but, you you're more rational, um... like, their politics. They've stayed silent, um… in cases like this. Um… haven't shown up and held other people on the right accountable.

0:18:37 Thomas: You would hope.

0:19:01 Naomi: Like… that's because being a Republican or being, you anywhere on the right side of, I guess, the political spectrum, that identity is just like completely splintered right now. And we have like this massive growing camp of people who are extremists. Group of people or people who identify with, you Know, some of the worst and most devastating and hurtful kind of views of the the world um and views of people in the world they they live in this ecosystem and they can just kind of feed off of each other and I think that's what the big thing about hendrix's campaign because just for the most part existed amongst far -right extremists and enough of those people that like can raise thousands of dollars um yeah, I can. Absolutely.

0:19:47 Lydia: Can stay insular, right? Yeah. Yeah,

0:19:50 Thomas: Yeah, they got their own version of everything. Now they got the MAGA dating. They got the mega pay apps. They've created enough of their own separate world that it can kind of function. It didn't used to be able to function independently. And now it kind of can. It's scary.

0:20:00 Lydia: Eerie.

0:20:03 Naomi: Agree. I self -sustaining. And more, you that we kind of slide into an authoritarian state and, Know, politics become redefined by Trump and his administration, I think that group of people are just going to become more powerful and emboldened and just kind of isolate even more from like the general population from people who are more moderate people on the left because they can take care of themselves and it's really clear through these crowdfunding campaigns that you do something objectively wrong and cruel and bigoted racist etc you will have people there to support you so not I don't there's an intentionality about going viral role for calling a child the n -word but like okay in the end because there's people who will back you up people who will get you to like a better place in life than you were before you did what you did yeah

0:20:54 Thomas: You'll be on Fox News sometimes. Times it's the either that or if you get fifth place in a swimming competition you're set you're set you know you're just absolutely set yeah

0:21:01 Lydia: You're set for life. I that's especially disturbing about this incident is like, come to expect that adults can be completely evil to each other and say horrific things to each other. But the fact that this woman said something like that to a five year old is just beyond comprehension for me. And the fact that people are willing to rally behind that, it wasn't that she said, you know, that she grabbed him by the wrist and said, what do you think you're doing? You know, you're not allowed to do that. I would still have a problem with that. But that's in a completely different league than using a racial slur against an innocent kid. I when you think about the right and idea that, Know, you we need to protect children. We need to, you keep them from the evils of X, Y and Z unless they're a black kid, I guess. And then we can just treat them however we feel like. And it's just that's one of the saddest things to me from that story in particular. I don't know how you feel about that, like from from, your experience as being a black person and kind of what that meant for you.

0:22:07 Naomi: Always just terrible to see um people in this country kind of know that as a reality and it has always been that way I think in this kind of I don't want to say it's like brazen but maybe it got more attention simply because more people able were to see it because it went viral um I've noticed is I just like um like waded through far right twitter um like like genuinely do did not see the little boy as a a boy child. Was a lot of people who were speculating and they're like, he doesn't look like he's five. No five -year -old's that tall.

0:22:40 Thomas: My god are you kidding me oh

0:22:42 Naomi: He has, he is autism too.

0:22:45 Thomas: God I didn't even know that oh wait yeah

0:22:46 Naomi: He doesn'T have autism. The parents are lying about it. You There's just so many ways to rationalize what she did. Like, it doesn'T matter or if he's five or eight, if he is neurotypical or neurodivergent, you never call a child a racial slur. That is traumatizing. It is cruel. And no one should ever have to go through that, regardless of what they do as a child. He's If 5 years old and he's going through your diaper bag, know she has kids. She knows that at that age, their aren't developed to the point where they're able to make the best decisions or even think about the decisions that they're making and then add to that that he on the spectrum um just makes it even worse now I can't say she knew about him being autistic when it happened but all she saw was a black child and her response wasn't don't touch my stuff it was you are the n -word you are acting like the n -word um

0:23:38 Thomas: That's I mean to my point earlier there's no plausible deniability in this whatsoever if there's the opposite of that like only that it's proudly what it is I in the same way that I've kind of miss corporate pride now that's gone it's like it was kind of bullshit but now that you know we have like actively discrimination instead of corporate pride you're like boy sure could use a meaningless rainbow on something right now yeah like in the same way the it gets real mask off moment and it's like man maybe maybe it's better with the mask on well okay it's not better with a mask on but it was was a better better indicator society that people felt a need to have their mask on, you about this kind of stuff. And all those facts you brought up. I can't even imagine why they're remotely relevant. Like no, you know? There's no connection to any of that, to making a slur. Okay. You the fact that that could even be part of the conversation worries me a lot. Like that, that's how these people are thinking that that would justify it. It's like, Like, no, at best, I thought the same with the Rittenhouse thing where it's like, OK, if if you wanted to defend him, which I don't understand, but if you did, I still don't understand why that would change you from, you being like, oh, he shouldn't be punished by the law to, oh. I'm actively going to hero worship him like that's just a different thing. That means you are hero worshiping the killing of black people. There's if you wanted to say maybe he shouldn't be punished by the law and you have some sympathy for that, which I don't agree with. But if you want to say that, that's one thing. It's entirely another thing to want to give money to these people and hold them up as heroes. It is really disturbing. And it just like so I was so shocked by this. And, you know, it's just not a good sign. I just really worried. I don' know if there's anything else in the article you want talk about along those lines, any other fundraisers or anything else you came across. But this is just disturbing.

0:23:57 Lydia: Yeah. Take whatever we can get at this point. Yeah.

0:25:22 Naomi: The next best one or the most like fruitful fundraiser would be you the ones that were set up for jonathan ross um the ice agent that murdered Rene Good, um, a couple of months ago, he, this was a coordinated fundraising campaign. Um, was a GoFundMe. Um. I'm blanking on like how much they raised, but it was over $500 ,000. Um? And it was set up by like a friend of the family or no, set up for just like a random guy who

0:25:48 Thomas: There's some guy that I think you said just like does this.

0:25:51 Naomi: Just like this random guy who was, this is different from that guy. Um! Was pretty much like, he shouldn't have gotten in trouble. Let's raise money for his family. People were like, yep, yep. And they started donating. And then we have a more extremist person who calls himself Tom Hennessy. And I still wish I could figure out like who this person actually is, but he set up a give, send, go. And the caption was just awful. It was riddled with anti -Semitism and like white supremacist kind of way of supporting Ross um then I guess they both coordinated together the the people who set up both the fundraisers and they were able to get all that money to his family um it appears that Ross was okay with that with the money coming from you know a fundraiser where the description was incredibly problematic um

0:26:38 Thomas: Yeah. Again, you want some plausible deniability. You wouldn't do that. You know, like if you were just a good guy, you would, you'd be like, well, okay, I don't support this. Like, well, I'm not going to take that money. Right?

0:26:48 Naomi: Like you should question it um I guess the first one on gofundme was you I was explicit and it's bigotry it was like he he shouldn'T get in trouble for what he did give help me support his family and then you have another one it's like we need to fight back against like the liberal politics and um the jewish mayor of um minneapolis and could see why he might pull from the first one because it's like it's just support him but the other one is it's so clear who they're trying to you get to donate like if you read that description and you're like yep like does that say about you what does it say about the the donors to that campaign specifically you know more than just people who support ice or you police officers etc they are extremists who like want to channel that all that rage and all of that you sympathy for someone into you them financially um was really interesting and I'm as of right now, I haven't seen how those campaigns are going. It might be closed and it might be open. Would But be curious to see, since I wrote the story, how much money has been raised since then.

0:27:56 Lydia: Rate of return for those different campaigns.

0:28:02 Thomas: Just wish we had some And I don't know if this is anything that, you know, you'd have an about based on this reporting, but I just wish I knew how much of this was people always thought these things and just were afraid to say it versus people actually being radicalized, you cause like I said, I don't know how long you've been doing this, but like, I've been doing this at least through the 2010s and it was different. It was bad, but it was different. There was always a story. There's always a story about, Oh no, you don't understand this. It was a misunderstanding. They didn't even know that this was blah, blah, blah, like there's all this plausible deniability. And I just wonder when it comes to now, I just, I just want to know, I wonder how much of that was that always bullshit. I thought it was always bullshit in terms of the people know, the personalities that were making those arguments online, but I wasn't sure about like regular people, like how much do regular people buy into these ideas versus are they being radicalized or is this how they've always thought? And they just were afraid to say it. Cause I sort of feel like if this is how they always believed, I mean, I would rather we knew, you know? Like, I guess

0:29:02 Thomas: I it's just, I'm not sure if you have any thoughts on that. Apologies. It's a poorly framed question, but if you Have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them.

0:29:08 Naomi: Very good question. I think, unfortunately, we'd never know. We're never going to know. I thing that stood out to me when I was listening to is that social media is playing such role in the success of crowdfunding campaigns. And I think the thing is like, if, people from like I of like, on the right who supported Hendrix's campaign. There's people who are just like free speech to people who were like, you me comment. Let me send you $10 ,000. And every time I do it, I'm going to comment a letter of the N -word.

0:29:41 Naomi: Like just like such a range of people. Assuming and I obviously can't speak to it, but I people might like feel, you this is great. Like someone did what I want to do or did something the way I think and they shouldn't be punished because if I was in that position, I wouldn't want to be punished. I want to support people who think the same way I do. And I think there's also people like they donate five dollars and they're like, you shouldn't have been treated like this. You should be able to say what you want. So it's just like really hard to know. And when like gets so much attention on like platforms like X, which we know now, it's juste like a really right coded site. Can figure that most people are on that side of the spectrum, But there very well could be some people who are more moderate and are just passionate about things like the First Amendment.

0:30:25 Thomas: Yeah, but don't Don't you think if they saw that description, they would maybe that's what I was going to say is like, OK, it's one thing if you thought, oh, this person got railroaded by, I don't know, cancel culture that doesn't actually exist. Then you read that description. How could anyone in good conscience donate to that? I they're not reading. That's my best case. Like maybe they're Not Big Readers.

0:30:45 Naomi: Know. I wish I knew. It's like I think any, you good person would look at that and be like, oh, my God, this is horrible. Favorable um right maybe they aren't reading there's definitely a possibility of that or maybe they're hearing a version of the story that isn't as bad as like it was like there's just really no way to know but you know the weird thing about it is that even people who seem closer to the center of the political spectrum found the fundraiser or were shown the fundraizer and then gave money to it so mean it makes you wonder like what is like the reach that these organizers have how picks it up who shares it you know what are the big voices giving attention to it it's with like a very modest goal probably like a couple thousand dollars but she saw and the people who were helping her saw that was like an like amount of support They're like, why not know, just keep increasing it, keep increase it. There's like people who want to do it. So why not, you set the goal higher. And people met that goal. They are trying actively. There are people today, a year later, still giving money.

0:31:47 Thomas: What in the world? Slash

0:31:49 Naomi: A lot of people out there who want want to be anonymous in their support who want to show their support um donating money and it's really great like crowdfunding platforms are like the perfect place to do it because your name doesn't have to show up most of these people are anonymous um you do not know who they are some of them you out themselves as being like a white supremacist and like you know the message that they send or like what name they like they decide to use um but a lot of people it's like five bucks and it's anonymous donor and don't know who they are but we do know that they were able to come across a fundraiser like that so like systematic like of attempts and ways to like have your fundraiser get circulated um scary um you can get so rich like you can just get make so much money um that's what floored me about it I was like she's she's gonna make a million dollars and she gets all that money um she puts it towards is a different thing but she made a million dollars off of calling a a black autistic child the n -word

0:32:54 Lydia: We know if all of these donations are coming from America or do you you think that there's potential like money involvement that

0:33:02 Thomas: Can this hopefully just be like one super racist with a bot farm like please you know that would be like the best case damn it yeah it was worth a shot oh

0:33:11 Lydia: Probably not.

0:33:08 Naomi: Yeah um unfortunately no um I believe Give, Send, Go is a Canadian company or by Canadians. I know they made a lot of fundraisers existed on there for the truckers convoy. That was like 2020. There was like a very fruitful fundraisters on there. Do not know if you need to be like located in the U .S. or like in North America to donate. There's a possibility that people like overseas are out. I say, though, it's probably most likely that they're Americans or, not quite sure. I actually don't think I ever found that out when I was doing my reporting.

0:33:50 Thomas: Any of this on like mainstream like fox news channels or anything like I know the ICE agent murder one guy that got a ton of mainstream coverage I would I would hope that this woman calling a child the N -word wasn't like a big mainstream cause celeb, but am I wrong? Did you try to say any of that?

0:33:58 Lydia: Daniel Penny. Yeah, yeah.

0:34:09 Naomi: Don't Think it was, and that's because it's kind of just repulsive, you in the case of Daniel Penny, there was a lot of conversation there. Like he was being violent, like he needed to be subdued. You people are violent. This guy, Penny, white savior. He was in the Army or I think he was in You know he did what he had to do to protect everyone. York City is riddled with crime and, you people with untreated mental illness. And was just a lot there to go off of you in this case it's like black and white it's a video of a woman calling a man behind the camera the n-word and then admitting to calling a black child the n-word um honestly even a couple outlets pick it up I don't think I don't think Fox News did it or maybe not like kind of blasting the coverage. But like

0:34:23 Lydia: Savior, you know. Yeah mm hmm. I almost

0:34:56 Naomi: The New York Post.

0:34:57 Lydia: Wonder if they're like, we can't even spin this. Like, we're not going to touch it. Yeah.

0:35:01 Naomi: I think that honestly, I agree. Like you can't. It's just so clear. The New York post, which, you like aligns with kind of right or like conservative views. They even said this is messed up. Like you shouldn't be doing that. And they're reporting of it. Why I'm thinking it was mostly circulating amongst amongst like personalities online, groups online that were more aligned with or accepting of like this really blatant like I So don't think Nick Fuentes was linking like Send, Go page, but he was definitely saying like, this happens, like I support it, you I think once you make it into like a free speech thing then a lot of people come out of the woodwork to defend it and very well could be like any I guess political leaning but they feel passionate about the first amendment yeah I

0:35:49 Thomas: Long as they don't read that freaking description, otherwise then I'm going to go ahead and say you're of a particular leaning. For

0:35:54 Naomi: Mean

0:35:55 Lydia: Well, I have her fundraiser up right now. And like, if the only thing you consume is this has been shared with you is this fundraiser and not the actual video. It just says, I recently had a kid steal from my 18 month old son's diaper bag at a park. I called the kid out for what he was.

0:36:10 Thomas: What he was.

0:36:11 Lydia: All she says. If that's all you're consuming, I could see, yeah, yeah, Yeah, a free speech person, if that's all you've seen of this, being like, oh, yeah, that's not okay. Maybe.

0:36:13 Naomi: It's misleading yeah

0:36:22 Thomas: I guess.

0:36:23 Lydia: I don't know. I'm trying to find any way that that could work, but yeah.

0:36:23 Thomas: I mean, maybe, but I don't know. Jeez.

0:36:28 Naomi: I think you read the updates you'd see a couple of dog whistles sprinkled in there. Um, we had moved somewhere with like amazing demographics.

0:36:34 Thomas: Dog whistles to put it lightly. Yeah. Oh

0:36:38 Naomi: Like that's gotta be a sign, you know, it's yeah. She said that I'm sure if you look, you'll see it. Um then if you went a little deeper, like I did and you found the video, you found like her update video, she posted an update video online, um, very happy. She said, I got all my money. She said, I'm grateful to all these white supremacists to help me. I reached out to them. Really happy. We're tribing up. This is what happens. Like, you know, we can fight back. You know what I mean? We shouldn't be scared. And then she's not saying it, but she's saying it.

0:36:39 Thomas: My God. Really? She's in a Klan hood. Yeah? Yeah.

0:37:12 Naomi: And that was for a lot of people. Very exciting. Yeah.

0:37:15 Lydia: Here's an exam. Here's a sample. I just found one of those updates. Per your recommendation, father is teaching them how to be strong men, and we are both teaching them the importance of preserving our existence.

0:37:26 Naomi: Yeah. So that's a little that's a sign. And if you read just the basic description, you're you're like, you're right. You could just be like, oh, free speech. She shouldn't be getting in trouble for exercising her First Amendment rights. But you read a little deeper, and I just don't know how many people are doing it or if they don't care.

0:37:28 Thomas: White genocide. Yeah Yeah.

0:37:45 Naomi: A lot worse than that. And I think the tough part about it is that the repercussions for this, she's seen, I guess, some like with the doxing and guess her information being leaked and her feeling unsafe but she's saying now that she's moved her location is private she talked to her lawyer um she was charged with um I think three counts of like um

0:37:44 Lydia: Disorderly conduct yeah like

0:38:09 Thomas: That's what it said in the article, disorderly conduct. And And then everything the lawyer said sounded to me like it didn't apply to disorderly conduct. Sounded like he was trying to defend like a defamation or or like an inciting violence thing. But it seemed fishy to me. I don't know.

0:38:10 Naomi: Conduct Yeah. To him, he was pretty much like, this literally never happens. No one gets prosecuted for saying a slur. Able to do that. This is a country where there's free speech. And he explained to me, he said, there's very few situations in which you can can get in trouble I guess legally for saying something like the fighting words doctrine um for example um believes and I think hendrix knows because she's obviously still in touch with him and has been showing up to like her court appearances um believes it's just it should not be a case at all um like harm to someone or like trauma isn't enough um charge someone you know with know a crime um last motion he filed was to dismiss the charges um and get them thrown out so I don't really know what's happening but when I spoke to him he seemed very very that your case was going to die um then once that that happens it's really like over for her and she's getting off scot -free if that's like the outcome um interestingly enough I think a lot of people in her position would grift a little bit more um beyond like the money they would you kyle rittenhouse for example yeah

0:39:35 Naomi: Media appearances books like into politics themselves like Riley Gaines for example she like becoming like a political powerhouse in like the past couple years but he told me the lawyer's like she doesn't want that and she herself said I'm not interested in that um that's that you know there's I think there's people out there who you do the bad thing they collect the money and then that's it um think if she ever wanted to um of come out with her story and start making media appearances I think she'd get a lot of support um I guess it's not on everyone's radar like not everyone has that you hope and goal in mind after getting that much attention

0:39:34 Lydia: Media appearances it's

0:40:12 Thomas: Yeah, I'm just curious about the if it's disorderly conduct. I mean, I mean I'm not a lawyer, but we do have a legal show and a lot of legal coverage. It's just something about it seemed weird the way he was framed. I know like we have a lot experience with these bullshit stories and often they frame it. One of their best tricks is, yeah, she's just getting in trouble for this. And then it turns out they're actually getting in trouble for a totally different thing. Now, I'm not saying that's happening here, but it just seemed weird. Like the way he was defending it, it disorderly conduct. It wouldn't really be dependent on the victims like emotional, you know, because it's not a civil case. It's not a, you Know, like disorder. The conduct is more they were disorderly in public and it's, you know, like it doesn't really matter the effect on the I don't know. We'll see. I maybe we'll keep an eye on like what goes on there. Maybe there's maybe I'm wrong, but It just seemed something about it seemed off to me. Who knows?

0:40:46 Lydia: Criminal it's

0:40:59 Naomi: It's a little complex because under Minnesota state law like the parameters around free speech and what can be considered disorderly conduct are a little stricter like Like, if you say something that could, you damaging to someone or cause distress, like, you can charge them with disorderly conduct.

0:41:16 Thomas: Well, I mean, typical disorderly conduct could just be wandering around drunk yelling. Free speech doesn't come into it or something. You know, you're never like, that's why I'm just wondering. Maybe, yeah, you probably read something in the details that I haven't gotten to. I'm curious about it because you could be yelling totally innocuous stuff, but you're yelling and causing a scene. It's disorderly. It's not. I don't think the First Amendment comes into that calculation all the time. So who knows. Boy. Boy, well, and then I think you also said now, was it this case or a different one where the the, you actual victims tried to raise money? Was it this one or am I mixing up another one?

0:41:51 Naomi: In this case, the family of the boy and then the local chapter of the NAACP did send setup. I it was GoFundMe's, but they closed those fundraisers after like they hit their goals.

0:42:04 Thomas: Didn't they have a hard time? I mean, just comparatively, like there wasn't much public support, was there?

0:42:09 Lydia: Like a fraction yeah hmm

0:42:12 Naomi: I think It's because perhaps like it didn't circulate the way Hendrix's fundraiser did, but did support it. You know, it's like, you fundraise or versus that of Renee Goods. Like they both did well. Like they hit their goals, maybe even more. Difference, I think, is that they closed it out. You know what I mean? They didn't keep it open. One is for the family of a child who is now like emotionally traumatized and scarred. And then one is for a woman who is like in her racism. Racism um think they both did well and people wanted to support the boys family and they did um it wasn't like an ongoing thing like the fundraiser is not up now it's done it was done a long time ago um and they both saw support um

0:43:00 Thomas: I think he said it was like nine thousand. Is way different than a million freaking dollars. But I guess because the NAACP, it seems like they were helping based on your article that they did get quite a bit of money through that. But again, I guess it just goes to show like the difference in priority. You know, I think Renee Goode, I think, is a tough example because that is a national story. I think that's going to be perhaps a little different. When it comes, it just is such a bummer, too, when you look at the people who are utilizing GoFundMe for its intended thing, which is being American health care. You know. You have someone who's, you know, needs an operation to live and they can't raise money. And yet someone calls someone a slur, calls a child a racial slur and they're rich now. It's pretty disturbing. What's next on the horizon for you? I mean, you have so much good reporting as going back through your work. Did anything result from this that you're following up on? Are you on to a new story? What are you working on?

0:43:53 Naomi: Have a piece coming out soon about um shooting of um king jr a black man um was killed by a white police officer or last month in Boston, and it's mostly stayed like in the local news. I'll get like a little more of kind national attention to it. It's a pretty big story. The family, Ben Crump is representing the family, and he represented the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, notable victims of police brutality. Then the police officer is being represented by the lawyer who defended Karen Reed, a woman who was accused of killing her who was a police officer, and she was acquitted. We have like some big players in that. But still, it's just kind of existing in like the Boston reporting ecosystem. So coming out about that. And then besides that, I have been doing some additional reporting on conservative influencers influencers um their impact online so you that's what's up next thank

0:44:52 Thomas: Looking forward to it.

0:44:53 Lydia: Looking forward to all of that stuff sounds great

0:44:55 Thomas: Yeah. Well, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate you taking the time. It's a great article. Keep up the great work and hopefully we can stay in touch. This was good stuff.

0:45:03 Naomi: You both so much for having me on you

0:45:05 Thomas: And do you want to point our listeners anywhere? I mean American Prospect, is there anywhere else you want to point listeners personally for you or anything?

0:45:11 Naomi: Prospect um are a wonderful newsroom um we actually very recently stopped um um on our site which is very big for for a paper publication, um, general that like it's free to access. Um, so now we have like a completely different site experience. Um. Just been really amazing to work for, um. An organization that like really prioritizes its readers. Um prioritizes amazing like independent reporting. Um

0:45:35 Thomas: Kidding so you're telling me I can open this on my phone and be able to see the site

0:45:43 Naomi: Exactly. Exactly yeah. Yeah. And that's like really big. I mean, if you go on like a local news site, yeah, there's a million ads because, you paywall, you means you have to find the money somewhere else. But we don't have a paywall. Now we don' have ads.

0:45:46 Thomas: It is yeah it totally is yeah fantastic that

0:45:57 Naomi: It's, it's amazing. Yeah. So I recommend checking out the site. Checking out the reporting that my amazing colleagues have done. The prospects like big, especially right now. We're doing work that is becoming increasingly hard to do. That's why I just, I'm very grateful and proud to like work for an organization like that.

0:46:15 Lydia: Cool wonderful

0:46:15 Thomas: Is really cool well thank you so much for the time we really appreciate it

0:46:18 Naomi: You so much again.

0:46:20 Lydia: Wonderful.