Can Minorities Engage In “Legitimate Political Discourse”?

This article is dedicated to Greg Price, who on 2/5/2022, tweeted the following:

Four years for walking into the Capitol. Probation for burning a school.

Price then shows screenshots of two different headlines:

• CNN: “QAnon Shaman” Jacob Chansley sentenced to 41 months in prison for role in US Capitol riot
• The New York Post: Man who tried to burn Minneapolis school during BLM riots get probation

Of course, anyone with basic reading comprehension can see Price lied when he said this man — named Mohamed Hussein Abdi — was convicted of “burning a school.” The article said he attempted to burn down a local High School, although the most he managed to do was set a trashcan on fire. His probations is also going to last five years, while Chansley is going to be in prison for only about three and a half years.

If you want to argue that this man should have gotten actual prison time for attempted arson, then I would agree with you. However, painting him as getting some kind of light sentence (he really didn’t) is utterly nonsensical once the facts are taken into consideration.

But wait a minute, I thought what Jacob Chansley did was “legitimate political speech,” as the Republican National Committee…