Kenneth Roth, the provocative executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), is once again courting controversy. On Sunday afternoon, Roth chimed in on the violent incidents in Charlottesville, Virginia, by sharing an inflammatory cartoon about the White House.
The cartoon depicts the a triangular KKK-inspired hood adorning the top of the entrance to the White House. Just to make sure his nearly 220,000 Twitter followers know exactly what he’s referring to, Roth added the caption “The White Supremacist House” to his tweet of the cartoon:
White Supremacist House.#Charlottesville https://t.co/LMEM9VPnrL pic.twitter.com/HrmLrzgfV6
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) August 13, 2017
This isn’t the first time Roth has inspired controversy.
In 2015, the head of Human Rights Watch drew widespread condemnation from pro-Israel supporters after he criticized the Jewish State for providing aid to Nepal, a country devastated by natural disasters:
Easier to address a far-away humanitarian disaster than the nearby one of Israel’s making in Gaza. End the blockade! https://t.co/PUISAcGwqY
— Kenneth Roth (@KenRoth) April 26, 2015
While Roth’s Twitter history demonstrates his profound disdain for President Trump, the current occupant of the White House, the HRW director has now redirected his ire from a single president he disagrees with to the very symbol of the American presidency in order to perpetuate the far-left narrative that the United States itself is irredeemably racist, that racism itself is embedded in the very foundation of the American political project.
The narrative Roth is attempting to legitimize by sharing a seemingly innocuous cartoon is one that has been casually advanced by former President Barack Obama. In a 2015 interview with NPR, Obama suggested that racism was imbued in America’s “DNA.”