Krewson, the Protesters and Hypocrisy

If you don’t know what happened, St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson read the names and streets or addresses of several protesters on a Facebook Live broadcast and the protest community had a meltdown and is demanding that Krewson resign.

Krewson has apologized and the video has been removed. If I had to guess, Krewson probably thought she was doing something nice for the protesters by noting their names, and that they were city residents.

Now, I have to agree with the protesters on some levels. Having my street address read on any kind of public broadcast would be unsettling.  And at a deeper level, I believe that there should be a line between people’s private lives and their public lives. 

But part of what made me chuckle was how the protesters characterized what Krewson did.  Instead of saying it was a mistake, they suggested she released their names as a means of threatening and intimidating them.  Somehow the protesters have convinced themselves that they are such a threat to the Man that now the Man is hunting them down, and Krewson is helping with the process. 

It’s worth noting that the mythology that the protesters have created for themselves also justifies an amazing amount of hypocrisy.  At least a part of the protesters feel like they aren’t held to the same laws and standards as everyone else.  As revolutionaries, they weren’t bound by the laws or conventions of the system they were trying to overthrow.  

And that hypocrisy was on display yet again with how the protesters responded to Krewson’s actions.  How did they show their disappointment at Krewson breaching the line between public and private?  Did they protest at the Mayor’s office, her public address?  No, they protested at Krewson’s private residence, her home.  Yes, you heard me right..

My wife and I have watched the madness of the protest movement for almost six years.  And you just have to laugh at parts of it.  The self-aggrandizement.  The self-righteousness.  And the protester’s amazing ability to not see the hypocrisy of their actions.