Lauren Victor DC diner harassed by BLM protesters demanding she raise her fist and show solidarity with the movement. Social media backlash follows.
When the aggrieved becomes the aggressor. Disconcert has come to the fore after a group of Black Lives Matters protesters were captured on video harassing several white diners in Washington, DC on Monday night for not raising their fists in solidarity.
One of the scenes, which has since gone viral, was captured by Washington Post reporter Fredrick Kunkle at an Adams Morgan neighborhood eaterie and posted to Twitter.
The video shows a crowd of young, mainly white, demonstrators closely surrounding and berating a female diner, since identified as Lauren Victor. Media on Thursday identified the woman as Laura B. Victor.
‘White silence is violence!’ the crowd screamed. ‘Put your fist up!’ others could be heard yelling.
The scene was also captured from another angle and posted by RawsMedia which showed unrelenting young protesters enveloping the table where Victor was dining and leaning menacingly over as she recoiled with her back against a wall.
1) In a scene that played out several times Monday, a Black Lives Matter protest that began in Columbia Heights confronted White diners outside D.C. restaurants, chanting “White silence is violence!” and demanding White diners show their solidarity. #DCProtests pic.twitter.com/fJbPM76vb0
— Fredrick Kunkle WaPo (@KunkleFredrick) August 25, 2020
White silence is violence protesters chant #dcprotest #dcprotests #blmprotest #ACAB #blm #Blacklivesmatter #JacobBlake #KenoshaProtests pic.twitter.com/W8DaT7Li9k
— RawsMedia™ (@rawsmedia) August 25, 2020
When the mob insists it’s always right
Victor, an urban planner sitting across from another white woman who was raising her right fist, told Kunkle she felt like she was under attack.
‘In the moment, it didn’t feel right,’ she told the reporter.
‘I wasn’t actually frightened. I didn’t think they’d do anything to me,’ Victor said. ‘I’m very much with them. I’ve been marching with them for weeks and weeks and weeks.’
Monday’s episode has since led to backlash on social media, with MSNBC host Joe Scarborough describing the activists as ‘horrible people’.
Posted one social media commentator, ‘Every single person in this video surrounding this woman should be arrested immediately.’
While another posted this comment, ‘Every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”- ‘1984,’ George Orwell.’
