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 college’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 Rittenhouse’s presence.
The 21-year-old gained notoriety in August 2020 when, at the age of 17, he shot and killed two men—Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz—at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
He said the three shootings, carried out with a semi-automatic AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest where the shootings took place was held after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.
Even if you don’t think it was murder, it’s repulsive that he is trying to make a career out of killing two people.
“Charlie Kirk has said a lot of racist things,” said a student addressing Rittenhouse from the audience.
“What racist things has Charlie Kirk said?” Rittenhouse challenged. “We’re gonna have a little bit of a dialogue of what racist things that Charlie Kirk said.”
The student responded of Kirk: “He says that we shouldn’t celebrate Juneteenth, we shouldn’t celebrate Martin Luther King day—we should be working those days—he called Ketanji Brown Jackson an affirmative action hire, he said all this nonsense about George Floyd, and he said he’d be scared if a Black pilot was on a plane. Does that not seem racist?”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Rittenhouse said from the stage, prompting jeers among the audience.
“Does that seem racist is a yes or no question, Kyle,” yelled one attendee.
“Well, after all the things I just told you, would you consider that hate speech,” the student asked Rittenhouse, who had a dog with him onstage.
“I’m not gonna comment on that,” Rittenhouse said, sparking more noise from the crowd.
Seconds later, Rittenhouse abruptly exited the stage to cheers from the crowd. The attendees were then promptly ordered to depart the venue.
They fly him around the country, but the media outfit he’s working for didn’t bother to invest in media training for their homicidal poster boy?
So much for standing your ground.
“I don’t know anything about that,”
This seems to be the canned response to all “uncomfortable” topics.
It seems that right-wing “debates” are not about arguing a point or another, but bringing up the “right” talking points, and backing out the wrong ones.
Please don’t normalizing hating on people for not knowing something. If you think he actually knows kirk said these things, then please provide the proof. But if you are simply attacking him for admitting he doesn’t know something, then you’re part of the problem.
There’s a very simple way to answer this sort of question that was posed — by condemning the blatant racism of the statements themselves while acknowledging he didn’t know if Kirk had said them — and he decided not to do that.
The issue is he couldn’t know at that moment if what the students said or their portrayal of it is accurate. Furthermore, people can’t just instantly reach informed conclusions about things, a lot of people need, yk time to think. If I try to think about something on the spot I’ll just stutter and not make any sense
“I am not aware of these comments or their context, but if said—yes, I agree they are racist.” Not hard.
That’s easy to say in retrospect, it’s hard for a lot of people to answer something they didn’t expect on the spot, even if they know the answer
this dude bought a gun illegally (wasnt charged because of a loop hole) recklessly endangered numerous people. His parents fucking allowed this shit
AND he has the audacity to be a political figure? Fuck this guy, seriously.
Never mind he was found not guilty right? Because you know, public opinion matters more…
Confronting Kyle Rittenhouse? Be careful, no sudden movements. We wouldn’t want him to feel threatened, now would we?
I mean, based on history so long as you don’t chase him down and try to take his gun, knock him to the ground and move to bludgeon him, or try a false surrender with intent to shoot him you’re probably fine.
But seriously, if you think he just started shooting at the drop of a hat, watch the trial footage.
He’s a dumbass kid who should never have gone to the protest in the first place (but had every legal right to be where he was) turned right wing grifter because no one else will have him, but all three of his shootings definitely fall under self defense.
I’ll take my downvotes now for not expressing views that contradict trial evidence now, thanks.
Just like the Heard vs Depp case, people have already decided on the truth and they don’t care that the evidence at trial painted a very different story than the one liberal media told you to believe.
Like you said, Kyle was a dumb kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he was retreating every single time he shot someone. I hate this case because I’m left in the awkward position of defending a rightoid but that trial was very thorough and those are the facts.
Kyle Rittenhouse is the Greta Thunberg of the right-wing. Change my mind.
Maybe I’m missing something as I’m not from the states. Why the hell is a guy who is famous for murder invites to talk at a university?
Rittenhouse was invited to speak at Wednesday’s event by the university’s Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter. Founded in 2012, the non-profit promotes conservative politics at schools and college campuses.
he was at the demonstration to “protect businesses and provide medical assistance.”
Remember kids: you can take lives to protect property. You can not damage property to protect lives.
He was being beaten with a skateboard, wasn’t he?
Why did he go there in the first place? To “protect property” with his gun.
Yeah, but the shots were in self defence, even though he shouldn’t have been there
So back to my comment:
He can go there, with his gun, to potentially take lives to protect property.
This is because the protestors are not allowed to damage property to protect lives.WTF are you smoking? The dudes ATTACKED HIM FIRST… damn man…seems like you guys just insist on ignoring the facts.
Yea, but you’re on Redd…I mean, Lemmy… so, the looters, arsonists and burglars get a pass…
Right, because property is more important than people.
Your only way of disparaging these people is “they were damaging property!” Which last I checked did not carry the death sentence.
Put them in front of a jury and a death sentence would be monstrous, put them in front of a vigilante and “they had it coming for stealing!”“Property is more important than people” is a phrase being thrown around by the Left to try and make the Rittenhouse situation into something it isn’t. He didn’t go there to kill anyone. He went there to help defend stores, like 1000’s of others did throughout the country (remember during the LA riots, Koreans sitting on top of their stores with guns? Were they horrible because they cared about their belongings?). He was attacked by some low lives who fucked around and found out.
Remember kids, you can riot, burn, and loot… as long as it’s “for a good cause.”
The Boston tea party is taught to every single kid in this country, give me a break. We’re a country built on rioting burning and looting.
Lol…okay, let’s compare the Boston Tea Party to people taking part in criminal acts in their own communities…
I almost feel sorry for how this kid is going to be forever type-cast as a stupid gun-nut culture warrior type. Before his brain has even fully developed. What a disaster. What he did was gawdawful but it’s likely he will NEVER learn from his mistake and become a whole human being. Not when being a total dumbass for the RW elitists willing to fund such things pays a lot better than the alternative, I bet.
And when people talk about how what he did was in “self defense”…I always ask, what fuck was he even doing there in the first place? He had zero reason to be there.
He won’t learn from his mistakes, because despite being found NOT GUILTY in a court of law, he’s still crucified by everyone, including social media like Lemmy. It’s like when that dude with a smirk who was being yelled at by the Indian…the only thing people wanted to do is punch that kid… without even knowing the context. And, even after finding out the truth (how the Indians were in his face intimidating him) people still talk shit to him for being a Trump supporter…
Careful, he may feel the urge to self-defend again from hecklers.
I honestly feel bad for this kid. His parents are clearly unhinged, which caused him to end up thinking he needed to defend businesses in another state from rioters, and the right using him as a tool of propaganda along with the expectations that come with that cannot be healthy for the mind.
I’m sure a significant number of people in his life told him how to do the right thing and he choose racially based violence and murdered people.
There is no reason to feel sorry for him. At best we understand how he got to be such a waste of oxygen and try to counter that.
He’s clearly making a decent living from this, all because he murdered someone and got away with it. I feel much worse about the family of the dead, or people working minimum wage trying to get by. I feel just about zero sympathy for this kid. Sure, maybe he was raised in a bad position, but it was his choice to do what he did. Do you see many other people raised in bad situations doing what he did? That’s on him, not his parents.
I get you on this. A lot of people really struggle to maintain empathy with people they may otherwise find despicable, but to me, increasing empathy in the world among and for literally everyone is a paramount goal. Take this example: A huge percentage of men who sexually assault children were sexually assaulted themselves as children. It’s easy to dehumanize someone in this situation, but the reality is they have been both a victimizer and a victim in their lives. People are way more complex than our present instant judgment-based society allows for.
All that said, all Kyle Rittenhouse has to do is shut his ugly goddamn mouth if he wants to stop getting lambasted by the public.
I get what you’re saying. He was a kid and probably had a fucked up childhood that led to everything. It’s rare that people like that develop in a vacuum. But that’s an explanation of how he got here, not an excuse.
Now he’s an adult. There are definitely people on the right using him, but he made the decision to let them. He could have easily slunk into the shadows and gone on with his life. Instead, he felt the court acquittal wasn’t enough and had to continue to prove he was right for his actions on the public stage. That’s his choice and his alone.
He deserves the ridicule.
If this kid was black, you’d all be praising him for killing two white people who were attacking him. The reason Lemmy and Reddit hate this dude is because you associate him with some kind of “white privilege” for going to help defend businesses from being destroyed (at the request of the city’s businesses who had enough of the rioting and torching) he ends up defending himself against criminals who were there just to cause problems.
He actively sought out confrontation and killed two people after he got the confrontation he wanted. The right idolizes him because he’s a murderer and buddied up to white supremacists, and now he’s pandering to them for money and affirmation, and runs away as soon as he faces any criticism.
So no, we don’t dislike him for being white. We dislike him for being just like any other fascist grifter who fetishizes violence.
Oh brother…here we go…
Had a cheeky peek at your comment history and it sure seems like you’re at war with reality, friend. You do you, but that fight is never going to end.
“War with reality” is your way of saying “we must all think, act, and feel the same. If we’re not all liberals voting Democrat, than our country is doomed!”
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And the left doesn’t do this…right? LOL…
This dude is 100% innocent …ya’ll just mad that he killed two criminals.
