Olympic Times

Lewis County Republican Party Chairman Fred Rider said the city of Seattle’s request for white people to complete racial sensitivity training should apply to all employees regardless of race.

“I’m from a small town and when I meet people, I love them no matter who they are one way or the other,” Rider told the Olympic Times. “I don't think I need to be taught racial sensitivity but if you're going to teach it to white people, you need to teach it to black people, red people, yellow people, all people.” 

Rider responded to a June 17 tweet on Twitter by Karlyn Borysenko stating, “Fun fact: The city of Seattle is asking its white employees to voluntarily spend their day off in a training about their internalized racial superiority. I’ve got the documentation on it.”

“I work with my crew and we have people of color working for us,” said Rider in an interview. “We get along just fine.”

Based on @DrKarlynB’s tweet, Rider said everybody needs to come together.

“They need everybody not just white people and not just black people,” Rider said. “Everybody needs to sit down at the table and come up with a plan to determine how are we going to get along and what we are going to do.”

Borysenko’s tweet comes on the heels of protesters occupying a six-block radius in Seattle called Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) where police officers have not been allowed entry since June 8, according to media reports. 

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan vowed to disband the group after two shootings last week resulted in at least one fatality.

“That’s her job to enforce the law and protect property but they haven't done a very good job of it,” said Rider. “The next step is the governor and after that it's the president but my understanding is President Trump doesn't have the authority to intervene without the invitation of Gov. Inslee and he’ll probably never get that from our governor.” 

The occupation in Seattle emerged after the nation erupted into “Hands Up, Don't Shoot” protests led by Black Lives Matter, an international human rights organization that demanded the arrest of Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer who pinned George Floyd, an unarmed black man, to the ground with his knee and strangled him to death May 25. 

“I applaud these people for demonstrating and trying to make the social changes that we need,” Rider said. “I don't applaud the burning and the looting and I honestly don't know who's doing that because I personally believe that there were a lot of sincere people out there making the statement that we need to address these issues. We don't have these problems where I live but things are different in big cities. That’s the reason we live in a county with 7,500 people.”

Chauvin was ultimately arrested and charged with murder on the third day of rallies, some of which have turned into episodes of looting. President Trump and other government officials said the looting was instigated by Antifa, a far-left, antifascist, network of activists who believe more aggressive resistance to the Nazis in pre-World War II Germany would have kept Adolf Hitler from coming into power, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

On June 1, Business Insider reported that the extreme right-wing group, Identity Evropa, called for violence and looting in white neighborhoods on Twitter under the guise of being Antifa members. 

“Personally, I'd like to see Gov. Inslee end CHOP,” Rider said. “I'm not saying we send troops in but there has to be a way to end this peacefully. The people who own those buildings, businesses and live there, they need their freedoms back.”