Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Alicia Garza Was Potential Target of Armed White Supremacist Nabbed by FBI
As we get closer to Election Day, more reports of planned, executed, and nearly-executed violence at the hands of white supremacists keep barrelling in. Deeply insecure white people with weapons have been targeting everyone from Black church-goers and the governor of Michigan, to even their police enablers in Minneapolis. Now news has come that these thugs may have set their sights on Alicia Garza, one of the three Black women who founded the Black Lives Matter hashtag and corresponding movement.
On Friday, Garza revealed on Twitter that the FBI found her name on a list in the home of a man in Idaho who they recently arrested on weapons charges.
She was apparently one of other potential would-be targets of the unnamed culprit, who the FBI believes was working with white supremacist groups.
This is why this President is so dangerous. He is stoking fires he has no intention of controlling. I’m ok y’all, but this shit is not ok. Vote this muthafucka out. For real.
— Alicia Garza (@aliciagarza) October 23, 2020
“I’m okay y’all, but this shit is not okay,” said Garza. “This is why the President is so dangerous.” She pointed to Trump’s ratcheting up of the kind of racist and gender-based violence that is already plaguing this year’s selections and is already putting the life of people like her life danger.
As you’ll remember, Trump recently told the extremist Proud Boys to “stand ready” from the stage of a nationally televised debate.
“He is stoking fires he has no intention of controlling,” Garza said of the President.
In Los Angeles, where Garza is based, incidents of hate crimes and white supremacist violence have jumped to their highest numbers in a decade, reports the LA Times.
Black people are the most frequent targets of this violence, despite making up only 9 percent of the population in Los Angeles. Hate crimes against transgender people have also surged in the city.
From the LA Times:
Los Angeles County reported the highest number of violent hate crimes last year in more than a decade, with white supremacist crimes jumping by 38%, while attacks on the transgender community surged 64%, according to a new report.
Of the 524 hate crimes reported in the county last year, 343 were of a violent nature, the largest number in this category since 2008, according to the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations 2019 annual report. There was one reported case of attempted murder.
Though the overall number of hate crimes was up only slightly from 523 the previous year, the increase continues a six-year upward trend. The overall rate of hate-motivated violence in 2019 increased from 61% of total hate crimes to 65%, the highest percentage reported since 2007.
2020 seems determined to go out in as much of a messy blaze as its been for most of the year, and there’s no telling what the president and his followers are willing to do to ensure that this will happen. Thankfully Garza is safe and the FBI at least seems to be monitoring much of the apparent plans to launch the popular right-wing fantasy of a bloody race war in America.
But it would behoove everyone—Black people especially—to keep their eyes peeled and their selves on guard for the very likely possibility of targeted violence in the coming days and weeks.
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