Earlier this month, Shiloh Hendrix, a

White woman from Rochester, Minnesota,

was caught on camera in a local park

playground using the N-word toward a

five-year-old Black autistic boy who she

claimed had taken her diaper bag. A

surveillance video showed Hendrix being

belligerent, combative, and defiant,

gleefully repeating the derogatory racial

slur while being recorded and verbally

berated by a witness to the sordid

incident. In the video, as she is

confronted by the man recording the

video, Hendrix throws up a defiant

middle finger and deliriously and

sadistically hurls a tirade of repetitions of

the racially loaded epithet while holding

her own child in her arms.

Not content to be quiet after being

exposed for such embarrassing behavior,

Hendrix went on a perverse form of

offense, claiming, “I called the kid out for

what he was.” Yes, you read that

correctly! Really? Lady, please! The truth

is that any person regardless of race —

including a Black person — who would

use a racial slur to attack a child of any

race, autistic or normal, is deviant,

demented, depraved, deplorable, and

disgusting! They are also immoral and

amoral to the core of their being.

In an effort to raise funds for her family

and herself, Hendrix wrote a fundraising

plea, adding that she’d been doxed: “I

am asking for your help to assist in

protecting my family. I fear that we must

relocate.” Her rabid bigotry has proven to

be a boon for Hendrix. On May 1, a

crowdfunding campaign was set up on

Give Send Go — a prominent facilitator

of extremist crowdfunding — to raise

funds for Hendrix. It is unknown who

was instrumental in crafting the

campaign. Nonetheless, several X users

known to promote extremist as well as

anti-Black, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic

rhetoric have claimed responsibility for

spearheading the effort. They stated that

Hendrix will be the primary recipient of

the funds, and the Give Send Go

campaign page confirmed this as well.

The Give Send Go campaign immediately

went viral on X, and the link to the page

was mentioned over 25,000 times in the

days following the circulation of the

video. As of this writing, the campaign

has received over $700,000 of its

$1,000,000 goal from over 26,500

donors, with many of the donation

comments containing white supremacist,

racist and antisemitic messaging, names,

and denominations.

But the contributors’ usernames (before

the host website prevented comments

and anonymized all donations) were

more revealing than the actual amounts

given. A user named “kill all jews and

blacks” gave Hendrix $5, “Nate Higgers”

gave $10, and “WhiteLoveWorldwide”

gave $15. Other messages expressed in

the usernames included

“DontUseSlursButDontDOXCancelPeople,”

“Tired of One-sided BS,”

“EveryoneIsTribal NowWeAreToo,”

“WhiteLoveWorldwide” and “God Bless

Shilo and Family.” Additional

contributions were given under the

names “Karmelo Anthony.” Two donors

using the names “Average White Man”

and “White Lives Matter” contributed

$1,488 — a combination of two popular

numeric symbols used by white

supremacists. According to the Anti-

Defamation League, an organization

which has sharply decried and

denounced Hendrix and those who have

fiercely rallied on her behalf, the number

14 is shorthand for a 14-word slogan

about the “future for white children,” and

88 stands for “Heil Hitler.”

Left-wing critics made their displeasure

known as well. The following comments

about Hendrix were posted on Bluesky:

“Normalize sending death threats to

Shiloh Hendrix,” “Make her famous (and

unemployable),” “Shiloh Hendrix, you

made your bed. Now die in it,” and “I

take comfort in knowing that wherever

Shiloh Hendrix goes, she will never find

peace. Passions ran wildly and rapidly in

both directions. Omar, the person who

filmed the incident, told NBC News that

the child is on the autism spectrum; that

the parents, whom he knows, have

expressed support in filing charges

against Hendrix; and that a local chapter

of the NAACP has raised more than

$300,000 for the family since the video

went viral. Local police, meanwhile, have

said that they completed an investigation

of the incident.

To be sure, there has always been a

segment of Americans harboring

fanatical levels of hostility and hatred

toward non-White Christians. The

difference was that in the past, such men

and women were largely forced to

discuss and reaffirm their racist and

bigoted viewpoints with like-minded

individuals. For much of our recent

history, their outpourings were confined

to secret conferences, white supremacist

communications, obscure far-right radio

programs, and the darkest and most

racially sordid corners of the web.

However, to quote a line from the music

of iconic musician Bob Dylan, “The times,

they are a changin’.”

Apprehension about engaging in racially

inflected behavior has all but evaporated

for many individuals who inhabit this

political and cultural sphere. Indeed,

blunt, acerbic, and outright racially

arrogant antics have become the order of

the day. Some blame Trump for the

current state of affairs. There is no

question that the current administration,

with its vile attacks on diversity, gender,

fairness, equality, and free speech, has

contributed to such an acrimonious

political, social, and cultural climate. That

being said, racial animus has long been a

part of American society. It has been

firmly woven into the fabric of our

society since the dawn of the republic.

Predictably, pundits and journalists

across the political spectrum, ranging

from Ibram Kendi to Matt Walsh to Piers

Morgan, expressed strong and unfiltered

opinions on Shiloh Hendrix. Notably,

Hendrix has been lauded as a “folk hero”

supported by the so-called “woke right,”

but the reality is that contributors to her

efforts (at least a sizable percentage) do

not harbor any genuine feelings for her.

On the contrary, they see this as a battle

in the culture war to further their right-

wing agenda. Whether legal action would

prevail is a huge question given the first

amendment. However, there is a very

credible argument to be made that the

rhetoric espoused by Hendrix

transcended into harassment and hate

speech.

The sad and indisputable reality is that when a virulently overt racist is showered with almost $1,000,000 dollars from people with screen names such as “Nate Higgers” and “kill all jews and blacks,” we still have quite a way to go as it relates to race in America.