This is fucked up on so many levels:
They were arresting town-hall attendees in Flint. Not for rioting or anything close to it, but for cussing during a moment of emotional agitation, and for wearing hats in a church (but only if you were male; women were allowed to keep theirs on, which is kind of funny, because they weren’t arresting any bareheaded women, as church doctrine would actually require them to do if they were really so religious about it all).
Yes, that’s what it takes to be arrested in Flint: Wearing a hat in church, while male.
I don’t hear any men’s rightzers screaming about THIS, though. They’re right-wing as fuck, and of course they don’t give a shit about anything that happens to black folks in Michigan, or the poor or the disabled, as long as they get whatever the hell THEY want. Only progressives would care, because this isn’t actually about masculinity or the right to wear a hat in church (or the obligation to veil oneself, if female) — it’s about the right to clean, safe drinking water, which the good folks of Flint don’t have.
And it’s also about the right to speak freely in a democracy, which the good folks of Flint also apparently don’t have. Because if they did, their voices would be heard, regardless of whether or not they cussed while upset, or wore a hat in a church. The church and the state have conspired against the people.
And in a country that prides itself on freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and democracy, that’s ironic and terrifying as fuck.
