White nationalists interrupted an author’s talk at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, chanting until they were booed out of the room.
Jonathan Metzl, a psychiatrist and director of Vanderbilt’s Center for Medicine, Health and Society, had begun a discussion of his book “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland” on Saturday when he was interrupted by a group of people led by one man with a megaphone.
“You would have the white working class trade their homeland for handouts,” the man said.
“But we, as nationalists and identitarians, can offer the workers of this country a homeland, their birthright, in addition to health care, good jobs and so forth.”
As they were booed by attendees, the white nationalists chanted “This land is our land” until they left the store.
Soooooo I’m at @PoliticsProse for #IndependentBookstoreDay and a group of white nationalists just interrupted an author’s talk on how the politics of racial resentment is killing the heartland. pic.twitter.com/G0tOdE6MIy
— dckath (@dckath) April 27, 2019
So this bullshit just went down today at Politics & Prose. White nationalists disrupting @JonathanMetzl talk on his book Dying of Whiteness. Point made. @PM_Learn pic.twitter.com/nucKlrJ8X2
— Catherine Wigginton (@cewigginton) April 27, 2019
Metzl responded to the incident on Twitter and in an interview Sunday on MSNBC. He noted that one person in attendance Saturday had helped his father’s family escape Nazi Austria.
The sad irony is that there was a man in the audience who had helped my dad and grandparents escape Nazi Austria by Standing up to be their host family – Not five minutes before I had acknowledged him and said this is how great America can be when it is bold and generous
— Jonathan Metzl (@JonathanMetzl) April 27, 2019
.@JonathanMetzl on apparent white nationalists interrupting his book talk on the state of certain health aspects of working class white Americans #AMJoy pic.twitter.com/wklrCLHTUk
— AM Joy w/Joy Reid (@amjoyshow) April 28, 2019
