Bulwark Takes - MAGA's New Icon? The Racist Playground Mom

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Tim Miller and Will Sommer break down a disturbing viral video of a woman yelling a racial slur at a child and how MAGA influencers turned her into a cause worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Check out False Flag here: https://www.thebulwark.com/s/false-flag

Hey guys, it's Tim Miller from The Boatwork here with my colleague Will Sommer who is monitoring the worst people in the world so you don't have to. There's been this thing that's been in my peripheral vision on social media over the course of the weekend which was this horrific woman like shouting at a little black child on the playground calling him the n-word and I guess apparently she's raised hundreds of thousands of dollars with the help of maga influencers who have decided to take her on as a cause celeb for reasons that are unclear to me so will is going to explain all this to us uh before we're going to watch the video you can you can just scoot ahead here 30 seconds if you

don't want to watch the video but for context folks might as well see what we're dealing with here. It is my own business. You call him a n***a? Okay, why don't you have the boss say it right now again? Okay. All right, that's what you say. Classy lady there, Will. What is happening here?

I mean, there are terrible people everywhere. There are people yelling at children on playgrounds, I assume at least once a day somewhere in this great country of ours. What happened with her and why did she take on this huge influence online? Yeah. So this is a woman named Shiloh Hendricks in Rochester, Minnesota. And, you know, the clip opens with this this man who is Somali-American saying, hey, you know, I saw you call that five year old the N-word. And then eventually she says, well, yes, I did. And then she starts obviously slinging the N-word at him as well. And so this would be kind of, you know, sort of a typical, you know, one of these videos we've seen many times before. You know, someone kind of going crazy, perhaps using a racial slur and then, you know, getting some kind of online backlash and criticism. But what's unique here is that the right has really rallied

around her in a way that I think is almost pretty disturbing when you consider that the original sort of transgression here was saying the N word to a five-year-old. And so they've helped her raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. They've said sort of like, by giving her money, this is going to be a way to kind of fight back against cancel culture. Okay. So she was getting canceled in the first place because what? I guess the Somali guy posted the video.

And like, what is the origin story? Like, how did these people find this? So initially there was backlash or there was criticism of her on sites like TikTok, you know, in sort of a traditional, you know, what, you know, I think critics of it would say is cancel culture. And then particularly starting on Friday or so, she had this crowdfunding thing on GiveSendGo, which is sort of like conservative or sort of like looser GoFundMe. And so it's a place where we're sort of more kind of outrageous crowdfunding takes place. And then people just start giving her more and more money. And now she's crossed, as we talk here, $660,000 with a goal to $1 million. It's been less than a week.

So I think it's pretty possible she'll hit it. GoFundMe has gone too woke. Is that what this other site is about? Yeah. I mean, this one, obviously, there wasn't violence in this case. Is that what the, is that what this other site is about? Yeah. I mean, this is, this one, obviously there wasn't violence in this case, but go, but give, send, go. It started as a place for missionaries to crowdfund. And so that's why it's give, send, go.

But in this case it started taking on more, it has sort of looser rules around like violence. And so it's like legal funds for people accused of murder. Luigi Mangione has a legal fund on there. Kyle Rittenhouse had one. And so it's sort of like a go-to place for conservatives, among other things. It's an intriguing pipeline from a missionary service to a place for murderers to raise money for themselves. It's a very, you know, I could think of Christian.

Is it a Mormon missionary thing or Christian? I think just broadly Christian. I interviewed the founders a few years ago when I was sort of like, wait, why are all these conspiracy theorists raising money on this this missionary site? And they said, you know, basically they'll take all comers. Got it, so to speak. All right. You're writing more about this in your newsletter, False Flag, which everybody should subscribe to if they haven't. The link is in the notes here. Have prominent people that we would know been sharing this GoFundMe, the GiveGo missionary site? Or is it more kind of dark web type situation? Yeah, I mean, I think what's interesting here is this is a lot of what we would

consider. I mean, I think sort of mainstream conservative commentators, Matt Walsh at the daily wire. He just put out a video just Monday afternoon saying, you know, the line from a lot of these people is like, obviously I find it disdainful that she used the N word,

but I think it's so wonderful that she's raised all this money because if this kind of behavior can be tolerated and even lucrative for people, then no one will ever get canceled again. And, and, and the, you know, his line is that, you know, when people say, you know, make them famous and sort of a threatening critical way, you'll say, you know, we asked, we'll make them famous and give them all this money. People like Tim pool, Tim pool said, this is the end of white guilt. I think so.

So Matt Walsh used this line that she's like the final boss for cancel culture. And so people have been pretty celebratory. The other thing I would add here is that I thought I'm sorry, I thought cancel culture was something like where there is the concern was that people are getting canceled for things they did a long time ago when they were kids. But the things people are getting canceled for things that were maybe kind of borderline. I mean, this this is a contemporary video, right? Of this lady yelling the N-word at a child. Yeah, it's a week old. Yeah, at this point.

Yeah. I mean, she has something to feel guilty about, I would say. You know, my therapist taught me about the difference between guilt and shame, Will. And I think at minimum, she has something to feel guilty about. Maybe shameful, too. Yeah. And I mean, the other thing I would say here, I mean, it's not like there are extenuating circumstances.

You know, her supporters have tried to, they've kind of done some like open source intelligence and they say, well, look at the kid she yelled at. He looks a little tall. So maybe he's like 10 years old, you know? Okay, all right. So he's in elementary school, you know, and you use this racial slur.

So it's been pretty striking to me, even as someone who studies the right pretty closely, to see them, you know, to see how much success this and how much traction this has got. What is the money for, ostensibly, for this woman? Well, I think she's claiming, you know, she's getting death threats. Her family's not safe, which, you know, I perhaps believe. But the idea, you know, I mean, it's I think for the people who are giving her money, I think they're making more broadly a statement at this point. The other thing I would say here is that there's sort of this is also sort of a backlash to an earlier crowdfunding effort. This case in April where a white athlete was murdered in Dallas by allegedly by a black student, Carmelo Anthony. And this became like a real. I saw this. I saw people comparing these two situations. I couldn't quite, I couldn't quite decipher what was the parallel. Well,

so this, this obviously became kind of very like racially tinged and the big cause celeb on the right. And then Carmelo Anthony, when the accused student here went on to raise $500,000 also on give, send, go. And so the people who are giving this this woman are often saying you know well you know kind of if everyone's going to act so like tribalistic is often the word that comes up like you know we're going to give to this white woman who did something awful got it oh so the theory of the case here is i guess i we don't really know but i guess they're saying that like black people were contributing to carmelo anth Anthony or people that have this white guilt were contributing to this person's give, send, go feed. And so the MAGA people need to find a horrible person to get to even the,

to make it an even Steven. That's it. And I will say, I'm a little suspicious about the origins of some of the money going on here or like the idea that the Carmelo Anthony one was entirely funded by, you know, by black people or what have you. Because I, it does strike me as like a great opportunity to sort of fan racial tension.

But, but, but again, I mean, at this point we don't know, but that is sort of the precursor. And I think a lot of what led to the embrace of this one. Well, the newsletter is called false flags. You're throwing out a theory of potentially a false flag theory. I'm certainly not saying even a majority of the Carmelo money was Anthony money. But it is interesting to me because for the first few days after the crime, I think this the accused student here really had very few defenders online. And then suddenly there started to be this kind of this narrative that, you know, maybe he was innocent or it was set up.

And certainly this idea was really championed by, really highlighted by the right that this money was being made. It's a pretty dark place we're at in society, Will, where people are going to have to scrimp and save to get their two dolls. They're going to cost more. But if you're looking for some walking around money to pay for these very expensive dolls and pencils uh shouting an n-word at the child i guess is now a path to to raising some cash and i i've seen i saw i mean i saw it shared by again like not people whose names like folks would know and you mentioned the walsh the tim pool thing but

like just on the mega social media guys i follow like people retweeting it they'll have like big followers like big accounts and it seems like everybody's basically on board with this and mega world. It is, you know, the other thing I would add is that there has been a little criticism of it from people like someone like Riley Gaines, who's like kind of a famous swimmer Dennis Prager's son. You know, I mean, these are not like the biggest names, but they're saying essentially, maybe it's not the best optics for us to embrace the N word woman.

Should we make her the face of the Republican party? Maybe not. And not. But for the most part, they've kind of been shouted down. I don't know what's happening in the Rochester congressional district, but if you're a Republican there, watch out. I think we might have a primary contender. Will Summer, thank you for educating me on this shit so when I don't have the will to live, the will to search for details. And this was one of those cases. So I appreciate it. Everybody subscribe to the feed. Go read Will's newsletter.

We'll be back with more uplifting news because it has to be more uplifting than this later today.