On Saturday, an extremist anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion group called Mayday USA took over the center of Cal Anderson Park in Capitol Hill. And this far-right invasion wasn’t a shock. It was a city-permitted prayer rally at the center of Seattle’s queerest neighborhood.
On the first day of Memorial Day weekend, when queer Seattleites would typically be sunbathing in the grass, Seattle’s parks department granted the group a 15-hour permit to dominate the park with stadium speakers. Across the field that once hosted the Black Lives Matter Memorial Garden, they set up tents for children’s haircuts, facepainting, a bike give away, and a raffle for grocery store gift cards. In front of the public bathrooms, there was a towering stage with a pink and blue banner that read #DontMessWithOurKids. From a distance, with your ears plugged, the saturated colors could have been mistaken for a Pride rally.
But the voices thundered over the Hill: California-based Minister Ross Johnston speaking in tongues, the choruses of “Our God Is an Awesome God,” and the crowd 500-people deep with their hands raised, crying out about the Godless destruction of the American family.
We knew they were coming. They’d been promoting the event for weeks, and Seattle’s Department of Parks and Recreation permitted the event from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. that day. Hundreds came from as far as Boise and Spokane, where On Fire Ministries is based. Hundreds more Seattleites staged counterprotests. The first was by the fountain, where punk bands tried to drown out the megachurch rock—and offered fascism-free haircuts. The second, called “Keep Your Bibles Off Our Bodies,” was organized by Organized Workers for Labor Solidarity, Puget Sound Mobilization for Reproductive Justice and Radical Women. LGBTQ advocates made a crescent around the event, booing and chanting with signs that read “Republican Lies Kill Trans People” and “The LGBTQ Agenda is a peaceful existence.”
That friction would have been hot enough on its own, but between them were dozens of cops, armed, packing “less than lethal” weapons, carrying batons, and announcing instructions on a massive cruiser-mounted speaker. They set up a barrier between the two groups and stood with batons in hand, always facing the counterprotesters. The protest lasted more than six hours, and in that time the police made 23 arrests. All of them counterprotesters, all of them thrown to the ground and cuffed. An elderly man was shoved violently back over the barrier after sitting in peaceful protest on the other side. Witnesses describe cops dragging protestors over the barrier for shouting in the officers’ faces. Other protesters, seemingly zip tied and incapacitated, were pepper sprayed.
By 7 p.m., SPD asked the far-right group to end the event, three hours ahead of schedule, exactly as Mayday USA wanted it. With the protection of the police, they went to a historically gay park in a historically gay neighborhood in a historically gay city for a “spiritual” battle. They showed their followers queer people weren’t untouchable and that power would side with them over their vulnerable targets. And still, they were able to cry victim—claiming that Seattle is their Goliath, and using it as a rallying cry.
Why did the City of Seattle willingly hand the far right a win this weekend?
It helps to understand Mayday USA. On Saturday, hours into the rally, a young woman in a Mayday shirt walked up to me and asked, “Does this shock you?”
That was, most likely, the plan: to bring loud, boisterous, joyous hate speech into progressive areas as a media stunt. Worst case, they can show good, Christian “principled struggle,” bringing the Word to the heathens. Best case, they get a reaction out of Seattle, and can claim that the Christian right is being attacked by “far left trangender radical leftists.”
This tactic is showing its roots. Mayday USA is new, but it has decades of far-right activism behind it. Most notably, it’s supported by former six-term Washington State Representative Matt Shea from Spokane. In 2019, the far-right politician was investigated by the Republican party for his involvement in domestic terrorism as a leader of the Patriot Movement. Shea was involved in training young people to fight a “holy war,” created a pamphlet called Biblical Basis for War, and advocated for replacing the government with a theocracy and “the killing of all males who do not agree.” In 2022, he was caught by Polish authorities bringing Ukrainian orphans out of the country, and trying to place them with American Christian families.
Shea was at the rally on Saturday, representing his Spokane-based church, On Fire Ministries, and making Instagram reels about how beautiful it was that the men were on the front lines, protecting the worshiping women from the counterprotestors. (They were standing behind the cops, alongside their own private security.)
So how was this far-right group granted a 15-hour permit in Capitol Hill?
In a public statement on Saturday night, Mayor Bruce Harrell acknowledged that the “far-right rally was held here…to provoke a reaction by promoting beliefs that are inherently opposed to our city’s values, in the heart of Seattle’s most prominent LGBTQ+ neighborhood.” But neither the Mayor’s office nor the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation have responded to The Stranger’s questions about their decision to grant the permit.
On Saturday, one of the Mayday USA organizers told the Seattle Times that Cal Anderson wasn’t the group’s first choice. They said they’d originally asked to go to Victor Steinbrueck Park by Pike Place Market, but, they claimed, the city said no. (When reached for comment, the Seattle Parks and Recreation said that Mayday USA had first applied for a permit for a street location through the Office of Economic Development. Their first request to Seattle Parks and Recreation, the mayor’s office said, was for Cal Anderson. “We are required to enable the expression of free speech throughout the parks system,” they wrote. “As the park was available and met the size and logistical needs for the event requested, the permit was granted.”)
Whether or not the park was their first choice, the organizers took advantage of their position in Cal Anderson.
In an Instagram reel at the event, Shea and Wenatchee minister Folake Kellogg celebrated being in Capitol Hill. “In 2020, we know what happened on this ground,” Kellogg said, referring to the Black Lives Matter protests. “We are in a spiritual battle. We are holding the ground.”
In the evening, the event pivoted from Jesus jams to religious testimony. One raspy-voiced woman told her life story from the stage: how she was raped and molested, how she turned to drugs and landed in federal prison. She spoke directly to the counterprotesters, parroting an age-old piece of anti-gay propaganda: She understood their pain, that she too had been molested like they all had, that they could find Jesus if they chose him.
While the speakers inflamed the crowd, SPD maintained a physical wall between the alt-right event and the counterprotesters. They put up metal barriers, and for most of the event, maintained a wall of cops as well—with their backs to the stage, trained on the counterprotest.
The barricade created a line that the police could enforce, and the cops appeared to take every opportunity to do so. All 23 arrests were physical and violent. Charlette LeFevre, the director of Capitol Hill Pride, had set up a booth near the fountain to show support for the counterprotesters. The small, greying woman in a high-vis vest paced the barrier, scolding the cops.
“They’re using whatever excuse—just even somebody yelling in their face—to pull them over [the barricade] and arrest,” LaFevre told The Stranger on Saturday. “It’s not illegal to yell in somebody’s face. But I actually saw it happen firsthand.”
The only elected official at the park that day was Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who was working with SPD and city leaders, asking them to shut down the event before it escalated further. (Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who represents Capitol Hill, did not respond to The Stranger’s request for comment before publication, and has not made a statement about the event.)
After SPD finally asked the far right group to shut down around 6:30 p.m., Mayday USA couldn’t help but take a last swipe at the counter protesters. “We got you to come to church,” one of them shouted. “You see how happy we are!”
The cops maintained a stiff physical barrier between the protesters and the Mayday attendees filtering out of the park.
Throughout the weekend, elected officials and campaign hopefuls reprimanded the City and the parks department for permitting the event. The Seattle LGBTQ Commission “condemned” the event. “Eyewitnesses and press reports suggest that SPD escalated tensions instead of protecting community members from the far-right group’s targeted anti-LGBTQ rhetoric,” they wrote, and called for an investigation into SPD’s actions, a review of the permitting process, and “meaningful community engagement.”
Mayday USA used the mayor’s statement correctly identifying them as a far-right extremist group as proof they’d been oppressed by the City of Seattle.
They called for a “Rattle in Seattle”: a protest at City Hall on Tuesday against “the religious bigotry of Mayor Bruce Harrell,” calling for him to “apologize or resign.” “We’ve done 3 Mayday events with perfect peace,” they wrote on Instagram. “But in Seattle, we hit Goliath.”
Vivian McCall contributed additional reporting to this story.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Matt Shea as a US representative. He was a Washington State representative.
You would think Hannah Murphy Winter, as the editor of this online blog, would at least have a passing familiarity with the 1st Amendment.
“When reached for comment, the Seattle Parks and Recreation said that Mayday USA had first applied for a permit for a street location through the Office of Economic Development. Their first request to Seattle Parks and Recreation, the mayor’s office said, was for Cal Anderson. “We are required to enable the expression of free speech throughout the parks system,” they wrote. “As the park was available and met the size and logistical needs for the event requested, the permit was granted.”
Had the city denied the request the city would have been sued. Denying a permit based on the content of the speech would have lost in any District Court, lost at the 9th Circuit, and the ultimate Supreme Court decision would have been 9-0 in favor of MaydayUSA.
Rather than stage a counter-protest (which is exactly what MaydaUSA was hoping for), perhaps it would have been better to just ignore them.
SPD is a terrorist organization.
@1 is correct. They had a right to be there. People had a right to protest sans violence.
Given all of their stated concern for children, did anyone tell them Capitol Hill may well be the residential neighborhood in the entire state with the lowest per-capita number of children? Not many children to save, there! Why, it sounds like there may have been some other reason for them to have chosen Cal Anderson Park!
Video showed antifa type people throwing objects at cops and shoving cops. Sorry but that’s how you get arrested.
Letter Capitol Hill Pride sent May 21st to Seattle Mayor, City Council, City Atty and Chief of Police:
Dear City of Seattle,
It has come to our attention and to the public again the city of Seattle has permitted May Day USA for Cal Anderson Park for Sat. May 24th. We are extremely alarmed that you would permit a known alt-right hate group May Day USA to use and incite their “message” in Cal Anderson Park in the heart of Seattle’s LGBTQAI community.
This is a direct contradiction to the city’s policy to create safe public parks and we ask that you revoke this permit immediately.
It is alarming this group’s background was not reviewed and permitted given their website and obvious campaign whereas excuses of “free speech” and religion don’t apply when these organizations blatantly promote exclusion and have a history of incitement and violence aligning and inviting militia groups. I.E. 2017 Immigration march Westlake Proud Boys, Lynnwood 2023 Sovereign Women and 3% militia.
To allow this group a permit is incredibly irresponsible to the community, a liability to the city with the risk of conflict with our limited police resources and your commitment to uphold diversity.
but is also hugely insulting to the LGBTQAI and Transgender community.
Again, we ask you to revoke this permit and uphold your committment to keeping Seattle a safe community.
We look forward to your public announcement on this issue.
Rather than the vagrants, druggies and weideros that usually take over CA park? I thought the stranger loved a good old fashion protest and demo?
“That was, most likely, the plan: to bring loud, boisterous, joyous hate speech into progressive areas as a media stunt. Worst case, they can show good, Christian “principled struggle,” bringing the Word to the heathens. Best case, they get a reaction out of Seattle, and can claim that the Christian right is being attacked by “far left trangender radical leftists.””
Sounds pretty bad! If only you had felt the same way when Sawant went to Durkan’s house, since that’s way worse than protesting in a public park.
@6 So Capitol Hill Pride was asking the city to deny this permit based on the content of the speech?
Whoa.
There is not a Federal District Judge in the entire country who won’t rule that as a violation of free speech rights. There is also not an Appelate Justice in the country who would overturn the District Judge. And If the Supreme Court even deigned to hear the case they would decide 9-0 against the City. Heck Sonya Sotomayer would probably right the opinion slapping down the city’s attempt to squash free speech rights.
C’mon man. Get your head in the game. Performative stunts and riots aren’t going to help us out here.
….Sonya Sotomayer would probably write the opinion….
Suppose the city had denied the permit and the alt-right group sued the city? What would the city;s defense be? Next time the alt-right comes to town don’t hold a counter protest. Deny them a confrontation that generates news coverage.
@11 You may be a man who leads a life of danger, but you are correct. Deny the confrontation, there is no news.
This ironically named Mayday front is using Oswald Mosley’s tactics of provocation from the so-called Battle of Cable Street, in which the British Union of Fascists (BUF) held rallies, staged marches and promoted support for the German Nazis in the heart of London’s then-Jewish East End.
The Jewish People’s Council organised a petition calling for the march to be banned, which gathered the signatures of 100,000 East Londoners, including the Mayors of the five East London Boroughs (Hackney, Shoreditch, Stepney, Bethnal Green and Poplar) in two days. Home Secretary John Simon denied the request to outlaw the march.
The resulting counter-protests and unrest forced the BUF to abandon much of their planned offense, and those who fought against support of fascism in Britain are considered heroes; their anti-facist chutzpah is viewed even today with nothing but pride.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cable_Street
Good to see that only about 500 people showed up in support. If that’s all the support they can muster, that’s pretty pathetic.
It’s hilarious that these people think they are shocking us. The reality is that they’re the ones who get shocked over things as benign as two men kissing, so no, we’re not shocked, but I bet all of them are.
And to those of us at the Stranger who were outraged by this event, you probably don’t understand our rights as Americans very well. We protest things we don’t agree with. Those protests have led to the advancement of gay rights, the ending of wars, legal weed, etc. The price we pay for this societal avenue of change is letting backwards people protest too. We just don’t care what they say, because after all, there is no unfair god who made some people gay and some not, and those gay people just have a harder time crossing that imaginary “good” bar to achieve some heavenly immortality. It’s just such a stupid story, nobody is going to change their minds to that.
There is approximately a 0% chance anyone was arrested for “yelling”.
@5 Can you describe what “antifa type people” look like exactly?
@14,
“Bail of $20,000 was set for a 28-year-old woman who, according to reports submitted by SPD, hit an officer with a baton and threw a rock with an explosive at an officer.”
That’s not protest or counter-protest. That’s criminal violence.
Interesting that the intolerant hate-rally folks were 100% peaceful, and the ostensibly tolerant counter-protesters had the violent elements.
Source for quotation in @17 is Seattle Times, who are quoting court records.
Why are “Progressives” so violent and hateful?
Of course the police were focused on the counter protestors. They are the ones with the history of intolerance and violence.
A peaceful Christian group, exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech, free association and religious expression were attacked by a group of violent thugs. End of story.
@15 People have been arrested for less.
@16 Antifi type people are the dipsticks who dress completely in black skinny jeans, black shoes, black shirts and hoodies. It’s accessorized either helmets, masks and umbrella. The ultimate tell is their violence and effort to block visual record keeping. For anarchists, they do love strict rules on what to wear when cops are expected.
What a CF.
We know what happens when the opposite of this rally happens – @22 & @20 show up with MSSAs and large dogs. See: Blaine & Sequim.
Tolerance of intolerance is intolerance by proxy, and any event hosting openly fascist speakers (Shea) is a fascist event. You can point out they followed all the rules, like people defending segregation, disenfranchisement, slavery, etc when those were the rules, but you’re still speaking in defence of intolerant fascist losers. I’d rather be cast as a violent criminal than be that, ew.
Still waiting for Progressives to abandon that embarrassing trend of the twenty-tens, wherein Progressive influencers condescendingly explain that Free Speech (“Freeze Peach! lol”) is bad, akshully.
@15 yes police, especially SPD, are traditionally very measured and professional in their response to protest. Zero chance they’d abuse their authority and arrest someone for yelling at or disrespecting them, but make trumped up or actual false affirmations to justify it.
This famous quote describes most of the comments here incredibly well:
“First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate […] who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”
I wish that just ignoring these fascist assholes would work, but you can’t allow them to ever feel a moment of comfort coming into the heart of queer Seattle to spread their hate. And while I don’t trust the narrative that people were arrested only after throwing things at cops, given that the cops were focusing their hostility at the people who live and work in the neighborhood rather than the fascist invaders it’s understandable that some would act out. The better response would have been for the police to protect the community rather than the fascists.
It sounds like if they try this again, we need a bigger counter-protest, and we need to pressure local elected officials to join the counter-protest, and for cops to focus their enforcement on the violent fascist instigators. And if the city refuses, the only option many will see is to throw more punches. These fascists need to feel unwelcome everywhere and anywhere in the city.
“far left trangender radical leftists”
Why the “scare quotes”? Many writers for The Stranger (guest ranters included) literally call themselves “far left trangender radical leftists”, so where is the lie?
“The cops maintained a stiff physical barrier between the protesters and the Mayday attendees filtering out of the park. while cops maintained a firm physical barrier between them and the counterprotesters.” [sic]
Does anyone at The Stranger edit this shit?
“maintained a wall of cops as well—with their backs to the stage, trained on the counterprotest.”
Which makes total sense. There wasn’t any threat of violence coming from the Christians. The cops logically and reasonably faced the people causing the actual problems. DUH!!!!
Has Councilperson Hollingsworth still not made a statement? I agree with #28 that in future, our elected officials should be at the park joining in nonviolent response. We’ll remember you when we vote if even afterwards you aren’t willing to condemn this deliberate provocation.
@30 – this post was written by the “editor-in-chief”. In other words, don’t expect their crappy-ass writing to improve any time soon.
Well, sorry to read that Pride has drifted far from the roots of a literal riot at the Stonewall, and sent a pearl-clutching letter (hat tip @6) which, with the replacement of very few words but no change in tone, could have been written by a proper ma’am on the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Chamber of Commerce in a mid-sized American city of fifty years ago, imploring the local constabulary not to allow teh ehebil gehyz to come in and recruit our town’s innocent children into their destructive lifestyle.
So, Capitol Hill, my proud residence for two decades, walked right into a trap which it could have seen coming from literally hundreds of miles away. Given we can expect bigots to re-run the same playbook again, in expectation of yet another walk-over, what to do next time?
Get about fifteen young ladies and men from the community, half a dozen femmes and half a dozen twinks, with a few slightly huskier (but no Toms of Finland) guys, every last one of whom was raised fundie. Scrub them squeaky-clean, and even arm them with actual Bibles, if deemed prudent. They get there nice and early on Hate Saturday, and volunteer to help out. They talk constantly about how oppressed they feel in Seattle, and how much they loves themselves some Jeebus, for he hath liberated them from that lifestyle. As the event starts, they should all be a little ways back in the crowd.
Once the event gets going, our half-dozen simulated straight couples swap partners to same-sex, and put on a fine, saliva-swapping show of Capitol Hill Pride. The several remaining guys have their phones at the ready. If anyone puts a finger on any of them, that’s misdemeanor assault. Our male couples give the appropriate “hey gurl, hey…” come-ons to other like-gendered members of the crowd, and our video artists remind everyone that this is all about the freedom of expression. Who’s violent now?
Of course, the best version of this requires coordination with (gasp!) like-minded members of the SPD, so the Stranger will reflexively hate it, and try to “out” the plan before it goes into effect; therefore, they’ll have to be left even more clueless.
You’re welcome.
Free speech? yes!
But from 7am to 10pm?
Seattle Parks and Recreation can’t limit the rally permit to 4 hours (or 6 hours) but allowed 15 hours? Jeez after 90 minutes of those nut jobs I’d be speaking in tongues.
Sometimes the best speech is to shut up.
@22 Those people are black bloc, not antifa. Antifa simply means anti-fascist… which i assume almost everyone on this thread actually is… except WereBackBaby and posob. I’m wearing a striped polo shirt and khaki pants right now, actually.
Next time they do one of these we need to just schedule one of the gays eating garlic bread in the park things at the same time and turn them all gay with our delicious butter soaked carbs the way god intended.
Many years ago, I worked at a law firm located in the Hoge building. The old building had windows that opened, and many offices took advantage of this, as the AC didn’t work well in the summer. So, sounds emanating from the sidewalk and street wafted in.
I’ll never forget the 3-4 weeks of union protest happening right across the street, which consisted of people banging on pots or pans (never sure what they were using), screaming, blowing whistles, yelling, and making all sorts of noise that was regarded as speech, while saying nothing other than “Look over here”. I think it was a drywall union protest. It began to slowly drive us all crazy as the noise never let up, and we spent over 40 hours a week in our offices at times. Thankfully, they knocked off by 6pm. We tried earplugs or other ways to escape, but this resulted in missed phone calls and emails went out warning us that ‘missing client calls isn’t professional’.
I tell you all this to say: grow the fuck up. If I can endure nearly a month of noise that was supposed to be speech (someone please tell me what blowing a whistle is supposed to say), distracting me from work, setting my teeth on edge, making clients crazy too as we constantly had to ask “please repeat that as I couldn’t hear you over the noise”, you can suffer a couple of hours of batshit crazy from religious nuts.
@
@1 – agreed, except the group didn’t ask for Cal Anderson; that was entirely on the city. They original asked for a spot near Pike Place Market, and the city refused and offered them Cal Anderson instead.
That aside a LOT of people here need to relearn the lessons from the Westboro Baptist Church, and from Skokie Illinois.
You don’t get to beat up people because you don’t like what they have to say.
You don’t get to throw things at people because you don’t like what they have to say.
You don’t get to be violent, destroy things, or set fire to things because you don’t like what people have to say?
Think you do? Take a civics lesson, and learn what your first amendment RIGHTS are. Note: that’s rights, not privilege.
Don’t like that and still want to act like little violent thugs? Get the hell out of my city.
And no, I don’t agree with their positions, but because I understand my rights in this country – which is still theoretically a free country – I don’t get to act like little spoilt entitled violent children.
Stop acting like violent, totalitarian, authoritarian fascists, and learn your rights.
@24 – you don’t get to fight fascists by becoming fascists. People get to say whatever they like, as long as it’s not directly encouraging credible threats of physical violence.
@40, I agree with everything you wrote except, based on the mayor’s office statement in this article, the first request from this group made to The Parks Department was for Cal Anderson, so if that’s correct, it was a deliberate choice on their part. It was their second choice but still a choice they made. They weren’t forced into it.
@13: You might want to read your source all of the way to the end:
“The Fascists presented themselves as the law-abiding party who were denied free speech by a weak government and police force in the face of mob violence.”
So, not exactly a win for the anti-Fascist side, then.
“Following the battle, the Public Order Act 1936 outlawed the wearing of political uniforms and required organisers of large meetings and demonstrations to obtain police permission.”
IOW, reduction in freedom of expression, and greater police control of demonstrations. Sounds exactly like a program a group like the Fascists could really support!
“Mosley subsequently held a series of rallies around London, there was a large outbreak of anti-Semitic violence in London and other cities, and the BUF increased its membership in the capital city,”
Hard to see any of that as a loss for Fascist goon squads.
“…although their [BUF] activity in Britain was severely limited by the outbreak of the Second World War.”
In June 1940, after Nazi Germany conquered France, and ran British forces completely off the European continent, Hitler offered peace terms to the British Empire. Despite having no way to reverse Germany’s many victories on the ground, PM Winston Churchill (Conservative MP, BTW) ignored all talk of ceasing hostilities. Had there been a less war-happy government in London, peace with Nazi Germany might’ve been concluded, and then the BUF would have been in a very good position indeed. Mosley (former Labor MP, BTW) might even have joined a coalition government.
@40 “a LOT of people here need to relearn the lessons from the Westboro Baptist Church, and from Skokie Illinois.
You don’t get to beat up people because you don’t like what they have to say.”
The lesson of Skokie is that the * government * cannot restrict speech. First Amendment has nothing to do with private individual actions. And I would suggest that, regardless whether it is legally permitted, people of conscience have a moral obligation to beat up, for example, Nazis. Don’t let those motherfuckers have an inch.
The bible-addled nitwits have a right to peaceably assemble, even though their very presence is provocative.
I guess they’re rallying again this evening, in front of City Hall.
Phil in Seattle dear, what is an “antifa type”, and why are you pro-fascist?
@20, You might want to read up on that “peaceful” religious group’s manifesto before going overboard in your defense of them. It doesn’t end well for any man who doesn’t want to live in a theocracy. Look up Matt Shea’s Biblical Basis for War and get back to us.
@44 then, as that’s illegal, enjoy a stay in jail.
You can’t beat people up because you don’t like what they say, end of story. That’s a really big red line you don’t cross.
@40 emails have come to light from the City of Seattle showing that they originally wanted Pike Place, but were told by the city to go to Cal Anderson instead.
https://x.com/russellbjohnson/status/1927360739158659470
@49. They weren’t “told” to go anywhere. They were recommended a couple of different options. Those weren’t even necessarily the only two options, just two suggestions. To hear the religious group and their supporters tell it, they were “directed” (as in forced) to go to Cal Anderson. Their own texts you provided show that was not the case. If they were concerned about their safety at Cal Anderson and for some reason didn’t want to go to South Lake Union, they could have asked for other suggestions. They’re spinning this into an issue that it wasn’t for political purposes so they can claim additional victimhood.