There Are No Girls on the Internet - DISINFORMED: Stop comparing Ashli Babbitt and Daunte Wright

Episode Date: April 14, 2021

This week, Daunte Wright, an unarmed Black man, was shot and killed by police in Brooklyn Center, MN. Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed by police while storming the Capitol on January 6th. After Daunte Wright’s death, far right bad actors on social media used his death to push distortions about the Insurrection.Text ENOUGH to 55165 or visit Color of Change for more info on how you can get involved: https://act.colorofchange.org/sign/enough_is_enough/ Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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844-844-I-Hart. Life is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline.

And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slices Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. So just a quick heads up, this episode talks about police events. violence. You're listening to Disinformed, a mini-series from There Are No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd. So if I sound tired or emotional right now, it's because I am. I saw something happening online and I felt just called to respond. That's how I put it to my

very patient producer Tari, who agreed to scrap the episode she had all set to publish today so that I could. So here's what's going on. In Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, Dante Wright, a 20-year-old black man was shot and killed by police during a traffic stop. And I don't know, this just really got to me. Wright was initially stopped by police for having expired tags, and the stop got confrontational after police spotted an air freshener dangling from his rearview mirror, which is a traffic violation in the state. Now, you might be thinking, why in the hell do you need police to have this kind of confrontation for something as simple and small as an air freshener? I know it sounds ridiculous, but this same thing,

has happened to me multiple times. And if you're Black, I probably don't need to tell you that these kinds of low-level traffic stops can turn violent or deadly pretty quickly. According to Harvard School of Public Health, black people are more than three times likely as white people to be killed during a police encounter. And studies have also found that black drivers

are far more likely to be stopped by police than white drivers. So, yeah, just driving around your own community as a black person can be a death sentence. When Dante, who, you know, at 20 years old, is still so young, was being pulled over, he initially called his mom for help. And something about that just really breaks my heart. In an emotional press conference following his death, Dante's mother, Katie Wright, shared her heartbreak, and it's really hard to listen to.

I just need everyone to know that he was my life. He was my son, and I can never get that back because of a mistake. The Brooklyn Center Minnesota Police Chief said that Kim Porter, the police officer who killed Dante, meant to use her taser but grabbed her gun instead. But if you've ever held a taser and a gun, I've held both, you know they feel really different. So how does a police union president and a 26-year veteran of the police force like Kim Porter make this kind of, quote, mistake? Dante's dad is not having it. Here's what he had to say on Good Morning America today.

I cannot accept that. I lost my son. He's never coming back. I can't accept that a mistake. That doesn't even sound right. You know, this officer that's been on the force for 26 years. I can't accept that. Now that officer, Kim Porter, she resigned this afternoon,

but to be clear, this is actually a pretty common thing that officers do when they expect to be fired, because it can be kind of a defensive move, to prevent facing further discipline like losing your pension. And right now, there is absolutely nothing stopping her from joining a police force someplace else. And all of this is pretty hard to watch, especially when you consider that it's happening in Minnesota, just a few short miles away from Minneapolis, where the city is currently gripped by a trial for Officer Derek Chavin, for killing George Floyd, another unarmed black man whose death sparked a massive global racial justice movement this past summer.

Y'all, it's just a lot. This moment, the Black Death, all of it. And here's where it gets even worse for me because we can't even have this moment, without bad actors on social media coming in to exploit our pain. This afternoon, when I logged into Twitter, I found a handful of big, influential, verified far-right accounts comparing Dante Wright, who was shot and killed for just driving his own car, and Ashley Babbitt,

the white woman who you might remember was shot and killed by police while she was pushing her way into the Capitol during the insurrection on January 6th. Popular conspiracy theory podcaster and convicted felon, Dinesh DeSuzza, tweeted, why do we know the name of the cop who killed Dante Wright, but not the name of the cop who killed Ashley Babett? These kinds of sentiments were echoed by many big, far-right accounts,

so much so that Ashley Babett's name is currently trending on Twitter right now as I record this. Instead of letting a community that's already been through so much mourn this loss, bad actors are trying to seize on the conversation and use it to distort and downplay the insurrection on January 6th. One person tweeted, Ashley Babbitt innocently entered an open capital as part of a legitimate protest,

a capital purposely left mostly unprotected to entice them in. She was unarmed, as were all protesters on that day. An unarmed insurrection, she was shot dead for her opinion, who killed her. I mean, there's just so much wrong with that statement. And as much as I see the worst of what humanity has to offer online from following the darkest corners of the internet for this very podcast day in and day out, I have to say this just hurt. And this is what I mean when I say discourse on social media

has reached a point where sometimes it seems impossible to have any kind of real dialogue, even about things that are important or impactful. And it should also just go to show how brazen, bad actors are on social media. Now, I don't believe that anyone deserves to be killed by the police. Full stop. But to compare Ashley Babbitt, someone who was forcing her way into the Capitol through a broken window during a violent and deadly insurrection,

and Dante Wright, someone who was just driving his car, minding his own business, is so deeply disingenuous that it's insulting. I am insulted. We should all be insulted. And peep the way these bad actors are trying to use race to further stoke this division. They say the officer who killed Ashley Babbitt is a black man, and we know the officer who killed Dante Wright is a white woman. The Daily Wires Matt Walsh tweeted, If everything else was the same,

but Ashley Babbitt was a liberal black woman, and the cop who shot her was a white man, there will be murals painted in her honor across the country, and that cop would be on trial for murder. It's so obvious what they're doing, and by now we should recognize this as a page right out of the bad actor playbook. These people sees on conversations

that are already racially or politically charged and flatten them out and distort them until it seems impossible to have any kind of meaningful conversation at all. They want to divide us. They want outrage. They zero in on our tensions and our pain points and poke at them until they throb. I talk so much about disinformation,

what it does to our discourse and our democracy, but this is its true cost. Even in tragedy, even in death, they exploit. Nothing is sacred, nothing. It's sick. It makes me sick. I'm tired, y'all, and I'm sure y'all are too. I'm sick of having to defend our humanity again and again

to people who are hell-bent on using our pain, our lives, and our identities, and our deaths to score cheap points and push false narratives that end up hurting us all. My friends at Color of Change are organizing, text enough to 55-165 or check the link in the show description to get involved. If you enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi.

We'd love to hear from you at hello at tangoty.com. Disinformed is brought to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet. It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. For more great podcasts, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get, your podcasts. Wife is full of hurdles. So how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward.

At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One. founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game.

This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment,

and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicalife-Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance

I've ever reported on, a Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multi-million dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last?

Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? me listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.