A giant wooden cross was set on fire in Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois, on 9 June. The burning cross has unequivocal racial connotations in American culture: the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan group used to deploy this method in the US to intimidate people of colour living in their communities.
The violent practice started in the early 20th century with the Klan’s resurgence period under President Woodrow Wilson, but largely subsided after the Civil Rights reforms era in the 1960s.
Therefore, communities of colour in Chicago were understandably disturbed when the cross-burning incident occurred earlier this month, fearing a white supremacist extremist living in their vicinity.
However, when the actual perpetrator was arrested on Monday, 15 June, he turned out to be someone different from what they expected.
The person responsible was 21-year-old Merlin Lu, a 21-year-old Asian man. He is a senior at the University of Illinois Chicago, NBC News reports.
He has already admitted to committing the crime, but claims he did it in protest against President Donald Trump and was unaware of the historical connotations of a burning cross. Lu insisted that ‘my protest has nothing to do with race, nothing to do with gender’.
According to the perp, he placed a red hat on top of the burning cross to symbolize President Trump’s administration.
Regardless of his proclaimed motives, Lu has been charged with four felony and four misdemeanour crimes, a statement by the local police informs.
This story sows further scepticism among the right-leaning public in America about supposed white supremacist hate crimes. The case of actor Jussie Smollett is often brought up. In January 2019 he claimed to have been attacked by a group of Trump-supporting, racist white men also in Chicago, Illinois.
The Empire star stated that they poured bleach on him and put a noose around his neck while shouting racial and homophobic slurs at him. However, police investigation found that his ‘attackers’ were actually two Nigerian brothers hired by Smollett to stage a fake hate crime for publicity.
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