Although President Donald Trump might like to assert that white supremacy is not a rising threat, the facts tell a different story. This week in Dallas, a white bartender named Austin Shuffield was caught on tape beating an unarmed black woman while holding a gun over her after the woman’s vehicle got in his way and the two ended up in a face-to-face argument. Shuffield — who’s been fired from the bartending job that had him on the scene in the first place — is an apparent racist, having shouted racial slurs at the victim during his assault, and has been charged with assault causing bodily injury and interference with an emergency call since at one point, he hit his victim’s phone out of her hand as she tried to call 911.
The incident began after the woman realized she was driving the wrong way on a local road very early Thursday morning and pulled into the bar parking lot to collect her bearings. Shuffield began his confrontation with a demand that she move her car, which quickly escalated into him punching her across the head and torso some half a dozen times.
Further graphic video of the incident is available below:
Oh my god…
Neo-Nazi in Dallas, Texas brutally assaulted a Black woman. He pulled a gun on her, called her racial slurs and knocked her phone out of her hands when she attempted to call 911.
I have no words….
Here’s his facebook account.https://t.co/aKawziZtec pic.twitter.com/hWMyxbpLje— Daniella ☆･ﾟ☆･ﾟ✧ (@Dany_xoo) March 22, 2019
The victim was able to recover enough to speak to local media, and the assailant apparently got out on a $2,000 bond, considering he was only charged with two misdemeanors.
Concerned citizens dredged up the assailant’s Facebook page and he’s clearly a Trump supporter, fittingly enough. Some asserted that he’s a neo-Nazi.
Many times, Trump has directly called for violence against his opponents. On a number of occasions during the lead-up to the 2016 elections, Trump pushed his supporters to physically and even violently confront protesters, and in the time since, he’s translated that push for violence to the trappings of the U.S. federal government. Just recently in an interview with Breitbart News, he asserted:
‘I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.’
Why is it relevant that he makes sure we know that his supporters can get “tough” and make the scene “very bad, very bad” at a moment’s notice?
There’s little available interpretation for the comments besides as a threat for his backers to act just like Austin Shuffield did this week in Dallas. One’s got to wonder if he would have reacted the same way if a white, obviously local man had pulled up in a vehicle and been “in the way.”
The incident unfolded not long after a white supremacist targeting New Zealand Muslims killed a full 50 people, and even if the incidents aren’t on the same “level,” how are members of minority communities supposed to feel now?
On a whole different front, Trump continues to push his rhetoric that minorities are dangerous to the point of there needing to be a wall blocking off Mexico, and words have consequences.
Featured Image via local news
