Late in the fourth night of their burning and looting spree in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the mob of “peaceful protestors” invaded the orderly streets of residential areas where families slept – safely, they believed – in their houses. For the greatest of all causes, the ending of the appalling racism that starkly characterizes America, they honked car horns, beat on buckets, and yelled “Wake up! Wake up!” How dared people sleep, indifferent to the cause and its righteous protestors? How dared they not come out and join in the yelling? Had not the mob and their political aiders and abettors – stalwart anti-racist Democrats in Congress and governors’ mansions, and town halls in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Kenosha – told them that “silence is violence“? And violence, they want to impress upon you, is an appalling thing that must be stopped.

What we must all wake up to realize is that they – the victims, the black race martyrs and their legions of white empathizers – have succeeded in making American politics all about race.

They have won.

Do you think you can go out to dine with a friend, sit there enjoying a meal and and a chat while black people are being martyred by police officers, white men, Republicans, and President Trump?

Just try it and see what can befall you –

This dramatic description of a scene on video is by Dominic Sandbrook, writing at the Daily Mail on August 27, 2020:

The footage could hardly be more chilling …

A woman sits at a table, recoiling in fear. She is penned in, surrounded by a mob of masked men and women, their clenched fists raised menacingly in the air.

Again and again the rhythmic chants go up: “White silence is violence! No justice, no peace!” The woman shrinks further back in her chair. The mob moves in. Some of them lean into her face. They stand over her, fists raised, shrieking and shouting, demanding that she too raises her arm in salute.

On and on it goes. Nobody comes to her defense. It’s an awful scene, reminiscent of the street scenes in Germany in the spring of 1933, when Nazi thugs demanded that ordinary people raise their arms in homage to Hitler.

This was Washington, D.C., one of the great capitals of the democratic West, just two days ago.

The woman’s name is Lauren Victor, and her crime was to be having dinner at a Washington restaurant. The mob were, inevitably, Black Lives Matter protesters, roaming the streets of the US capital during their latest demonstrations about alleged police brutality towards black Americans.

The predominantly white activists were trying to force diners to raise their fists and join in with their chants. Miss Victor … said no.

All the other diners, including the friend Miss Victor is sitting with, are shown to have obeyed the command of the mob and are meekly holding up their fists.

Ironically, it turns out she had previously been on Black Lives Matter marches herself, but now she just wanted to have her dinner in peace. “It didn’t feel right” she said afterwards, adding that she felt “under attack”.

That seems a remarkably understated way of putting it. I wonder how many of us, in Miss Victor’s shoes, would show the same grace and guts under such horrendous pressure. In almost every detail, it’s a scene that turns your stomach. …

The facemasks give the episode a deeply sinister feel. …

A glimpse of the scene is shown here, after another sequence of an angry black woman berating a diner, screaming invective at him and ordering him to put his mask on. Dammit, he does!

https://youtu.be/prmL14ERKkQ

Fox News reported the episode with the brave (even if otherwise politically misguided) Lauren Victor, and added this:

Another video that went viral Monday showed a man and a woman sitting outside a restaurant when a crowd of protesters confronted them. Other diners nearby all complied with the protesters’ demands to raise their fists, but the man and woman kept their hands on the table. The protesters screamed expletives at the couple as they demanded they raise their fists. One protester appeared to yell at the man, “Pasty piece of sh–.”

Because, you see, he is passionately anti-racist.