Washington Post hammered for painting Freedom Convoy as 'explicitly racist,' arguing 'freedom is a key component of white supremacy'

 The Washington Post was skewered for an opinion piece painting members of the Freedom Convoy as "explicitly racist," and arguing that expecting individual freedom is a "key component of white supremacy."

The article titled "The Ottawa trucker convoy is rooted in Canada’s settler colonial history" is written by Taylor Dysart – a Ph.D. candidate in the department of history and sociology of science at the University of Pennsylvania.

"The convoy has amassed significant support; its (now removed) GoFundMe raised more than $10 million (CAD) and it has been celebrated by several center-right and right-wing public figures, including Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, and former President Donald Trump. The Freedom Convoy now touts itself as an 'Anti ALL MANDATES Movement,' desiring to remove all public health mandates," Dysart asserted.

"While the convoy’s supporters have characterized the protest as a peaceful movement, uninformed by 'politics, race, religion, or any personal beliefs,' many supporters have been associated with or expressed racist, Islamophobic, and white-supremacist views," Dysart stated. 

"The convoy has surprised onlookers in the United States and Canada, both because of the explicitly racist and violent perspectives of some of the organizers and because the action seems to violate norms of Canadian 'politeness,'" Dysart claimed. "But the convoy represents the extension of a strain of Canadian history that has long masked itself behind 'peacefulness' or ‘unity’: settler colonialism."

"The history of Canadian settler colonialism and public health demonstrates how both overt white-supremacist claims and seemingly more inert nationalistic claims about 'unity' and 'freedom' both enable and erase ongoing harm to marginalized communities," Dysart wrote.

"The primarily white supporters of the Freedom Convoy argue that pandemic mandates infringe upon their constitutional rights to freedom," the WaPo writer continued. "The notion of ‘freedom’ was historically and remains intertwined with whiteness, as historian Tyler Stovall has argued."

In Stovall's book "White Freedom: The Racial History of an Idea," he contends that the Statue of Liberty "promised both freedom and whiteness to European immigrants." The book allegedly "provides vital new perspectives on the inherent racism behind our most cherished beliefs about freedom, liberty, and human rights."

Dysart alleged, "The belief that one’s entitlement to freedom is a key component of white supremacy. This explains why the Freedom Convoy members see themselves as entitled to freedom, no matter the public health consequences to those around them."

The article was widely slammed on Twitter.

Journalist Tom Elliott: "Evidently Not a Parody: UPenn Prof. Taylor Dysart argues Canada’s civil rights protest is premised on 'white supremacy.'"

Associate editor Liz Wolfe: "When you call everything 'white supremacy,' the term ceases to have any effect whatsoever."

Political commentator Dinesh D'Souza: "If freedom is a white supremacist notion, as this @washingtonpost article insists, what should we be aiming for instead? Unfreedom? Incarceration? Slavery?"

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.): "Why do conservatives want to keep critical race theory out of schools? Because it leads to the insane belief that 'one's entitlement to *freedom* is a key component of White supremacy.'"

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas): "WaPo: Freedom is racist. Don’t worry! While Canadian Mounties trample citizens."

It wasn't only the Washington Post that reduced the trucker protest against vaccine mandates in Ottawa to simply "white supremacy."

"This op-ed argues that the Ottawa 'Freedom Convoy' is really about white supremacy and white nationalism," according to an article in Teen Vogue titled "Canada’s 'Freedom Convoy' Trucker Protests Aren’t About Freedom."

"The protests have included white supremacist and white nationalist imagery, and in that inclusion have given rise to the false and dangerous supposition that those views are a function of freedom, amplifying existing threats to public safety," freelance writer Erica Marrison claimed in the progressive outlet.