Rep Donna Edwards: Media treats white militants better than black activists

Rep Donna Edwards (D-MD) accused the media of a racial double standard in covering the armed anti-government activists who are occupying a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon.

The group took over a federal building at the refuge Saturday to protest the treatment of a pair of local ranchers who were convicted of arson on federal land. Rep Edwards said that the activists should be called “lawbreaking . . . militants” and that they are being judged differently than black activists who have demonstrated throughout the country over the past 18 months as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. “I am deeply troubled by the media portrayal of the events in Oregon and the armed takeover of a federal wildlife refuge,” Rep Edwards said. “Since the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement, activists . . . have been referred to variously as ‘thugs,’ ‘criminals,’ and ‘drug users.’ To the contrary, most of these protests and protesters have been peaceful, and organizers have sought and obtained permission to peaceably assemble in exercise of their Constitutional rights. But in Oregon, a group of armed men illegally occupying a federal building have been referred to as an ‘armed militia,’ or simply ‘occupiers,’ as though that behavior is acceptable in a nation of laws. What is happening in Oregon is not protest sanctioned by the Constitution, it is lawbreaking.”