Kellyanne Conway links synagogue massacre to “anti-religiosity” of “late-night comedians.”
Appearing
on Fox and Friends on Monday morning, presidential advisor Kellyanne
Conway made a strange comment about the Saturday shootings in a
Pittsburgh synagogue that left 11 dead. “The anti-religiosity in
this country that is somehow in vogue and funny,” she said. “To make fun
of anybody of faith. To constantly be making fun of people who express
religion, the late night comedians, the unfunny people on TV shows. It’s
always anti-religious. And remember, these people were gunned down in
their place of worship. As were the people in South Carolina several
years ago.”
The element of truth here is that there has been a pattern
in the last few years of racists targeting ethnic and racial minorities
in places of worship: in 2015, a racist killed six Sikhs at a temple in
Oak Creek, Wisconsin. In 2016, a racist killed nine African-Americans in
a church in Charleston, South Carolina. In 2016, a racist killed six
Muslims in a Mosque in Quebec City, Canada. Last week, an alleged gunman
tried to enter a black church in Jeffersontown, Kentucky. When he failed to do so, he allegedly entered a nearby supermarket and killed two African Americans.
The Pittsburgh massacre fits this pattern. The alleged shooter subscribed to racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
The commonality of these killings and attempted killings is racism and
anti-Semitism, not anti-religiosity. The various gunmen picked their
targets because that was where a large number of ethnic and racial
minorities congregate, not because of any militant secularism or love of
anti-pious jokes on late-night television. Bringing up the spurious
issue of “anti-religiosity” falls into the familiar Trump administration
pattern of muddying the waters to deny the existence of racism.
