The image went viral, and you can see why: a lone Black woman, sitting on a Washington, D.C., Metro train, surrounded by members of Patriot Front. She is the only one showing her face, wearing an expression both calm and wary. You don’t exactly know what the rest are thinking, since their bodies are covered with masks and a uniform of khaki and navy blue on a broiling summer day.
That’s par for the course for flash mob-type gatherings organized by the group the Anti-Defamation League describes as white supremacist. Though, after viewing a video of confused members navigating the D.C. Metro system, with leader Thomas Rousseau shouting instructions no one seems to understand, “supreme” is not the word that comes to mind.
On a day celebrating the country’s 250th birthday, it was an arresting scene, and just one during a weekend that bore the mark of one man. But it was a scene that stuck, more than fireworks barely visible (on TV anyway) through a haze of polluted smoke or sparse crowds at a poor facsimile of a state fair.
Maybe that’s because the Department of Justice under the direction of President Donald Trump has prioritized pardoning and erasing the crimes of members of such groups, so their bold presence made perfect sense.
