August 03, 2021 09:12 AM UTC

Colorado GOP Vice-Chair's Most Unfortunate Selfie

•  
• by: Colorado Pols

Westword’s Michael Roberts reports on a controversy brewing surrounding Priscilla Rahn, the vice-chair of the Colorado Republican Party, and a photo you can see above she posted from this weekend’s Black Love Mural Festival in downtown Denver. That’s vice-chair Rahn, who is Black, posing with a group of Denver Police officers in front of a mural created by an artist known as Thyris of Ma’Khia Bryant, a young woman from Ohio killed by police earlier this year. In addition to the line of cops effectively blocking the mural, Rahn is holding a “Thin Blue Line” flag used by police supporters.

With these facts in view, let’s light this powderkeg:

[Thyris]: “Regardless of if you feel her death was justified or not, I don’t understand how you can justify mocking a 16 yr old girl’s death, especially as a teacher of children. This is disgusting. I want to know why you disrespected Ma’Khia and her family. Why would you bring hate to a mural festival literally named ‘The Black Love Mural Festival’? I want an explanation and accountability from the cops in the picture and @rahnforeducation. Why did you do this?”

The text Rahn, who is Black, had penned to accompany her selfie on Twitter took a pro-police angle: “Backing the blue today at Civic Center Park for the annual Law Enforcement Appreciation Day. Thank you to the Denver police. The Republican Party is committed to supporting you and keeping our neighborhoods safe. God Bless You ALL! #denver #leadright #colorado.” Thus far, however, she hasn’t elaborated to Westword about her motivation. Although she left a message on July 26 saying she’d be happy to discuss the situation, she hasn’t responded to a slew of follow-up messages since then…

We’ll start with the basic point, the photo is totally indefensible and despite the good-faith efforts by everyone involved to believe Rahn’s insistence that it was not meant to offend, there’s just no way to get around the gut reaction this image provokes:

After hearing from Rahn, Thyris feels conflicted. “It felt like mockery, and when I went to her Twitter page, it all fit the narrative,” he notes. “She’s a Republican, and there were MAGA hats and her saying things about children and the police. So I can see Priscilla being honest, but it seems like a hell of a coincidence to me. I don’t know if the word is racist, because she’s Black, but when I see a Blue Lives Matter flag, which came after Black Lives Matter, it’s hard for me not to see that as ‘Fuck Black people.'”

This is not the first time that we’ve been forced to reckon with the uncomfortable intersection of race and Republican politics. GOP Rep. Dave Williams of Colorado Springs, a Latino who carved out his political niche with bitter anti-immigrant vitriol, represents another such case of a political figure who capitalizes on the dissonance between their identity and their politics. That is how you get a Black woman taking a selfie with a line of white cops blocking a memorial to a Black teenager killed by police.

Despite the attempt to back away from the obvious, this picture says a lot more than the photographer intended.

For Colorado Republicans, none of it is good.