MAGA turns n-word-shouting woman into folk hero - and blames Texas stabbing case for outpouring of support

A Minnesota woman who apparently called a five-year-old Black child the n-word, and then repeated that racial slur multiple times in a viral video while defending her actions, has raised over $700,000 and counting as she has become a cultural folk-hero to much of the American far-right.

The crowdfunding campaign for Shiloh Hendrix, which she initially posted after she shot to infamy over her confrontation with a Somali-American man in a playground, has taken off after the online right viewed it as a form of backlash over the funds raised in support of Karmelo Anthony.

Anthony, a Black high school student, has been charged with first-degree murder over the stabbing death of white teenager Austin Metcalf at a track meet. The case has drawn a lot of attention in conservative circles, especially after Anthony’s legal defense raised over half a million dollars on the crowdfunding app GiveSendGo.

Besides using the Hendrix incident as a way to exhibit their own form of “vice signaling” over the Anthony case, a large portion of the MAGA crowd has also seen their support of her as part of their fight against “anti-white racism” and the “cancel culture” mob.

“I’m glad she raised half a million dollars. I hope she raises half a million more,” Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh tweeted this week, sharing a video that featured a 20-minute monologue on why he backs Hendrix.

In the video, which was filmed by 30-year-old Sharmake Omar in a Minnesota public park, Hendrix admits that she called a young Somali boy the n-word because “he took my son’s stuff.” She then goes on to repeat the slur multiple times before seemingly justifying her actions during the filmed confrontation with Omar.

“If that's what he's going to act like,” Hendrix says when asked by Omar why she used the n-word to describe the child. Omar told NBC News that the child is on the autism spectrum and that the parents, whom he knows, have expressed support in filing charges against Hendrix, and a local chapter of the NAACP has raised more than $300,000 for the family since the video went viral. Local police, meanwhile, have said they completed an investigation of the incident.

“I called the kid out for what he was,” Hendrix wrote in her fundraising plea, adding that she’s been doxxed. “I am asking for your help to assist in protecting my family. I fear that we must relocate.”

“Like other viral-video incidents, a lot of the facts aren’t clear. The man who shot the video claimed the child Hendrix allegedly accosted is autistic. Some of Hendrix’s supporters, meanwhile, have suggested the child is actually quite older, comparing the child’s height with the height of some playground equipment,” The Bulwark’s Will Sommer wrote. “They argue that the child is roughly 10, which apparently would be a far more defensible age to call the boy a racial slur.”

Media critic Parker Molloy argued in her The Present Age newsletter that the right-wing wagon-circling around Hendrix was “the most grotesque example I've seen recently of what some people call ‘vice signaling’ — the conservative movement's twisted mirror image of virtue signaling, where people donate money specifically to show support for reprehensible behavior.”

“We saw similar dynamics with Kyle Rittenhouse, Daniel Penny, and others who've become right-wing causes célèbre,” she added. “The playbook is simple: do or say something awful, get rightfully called out for it, claim victimhood, and watch the money roll in from people who want to show their support for what you did while pretending it's about ‘free speech’ or ‘fighting cancel culture.’”

Some of the most notorious voices on the right, such as white supremacist and Trump dinner guest Nick Fuentes, have explicitly invoked the Anthony fundraiser while voicing their support for Hendrix. “Black people just raised $500,000 for a cold-blooded killer who stabbed a white teenager to death,” he posted. “So I don’t want to hear ONE WORD about the Shiloh Hendrix fundraiser. Either everybody gets to be tribal or nobody does.”

MAGA podcaster Tim Pool said that while calling children racial slurs is “crass and crude,” the support for Hendrix shows “white guilt” is over. “She’s making money,” he added. “This sends a message to other white people: Stop taking racial abuse.”

While other social media provocateurs sounded off and said they backed Hendrix “on principle” to fight “gay race communism,” Walsh – the creative voice and star behind the hit right-wing documentary Am I Racist? – provided Hendrix’s campaign a massive boost while delivering his audience a justification for supporting her.

“The latest race-baiting story followed the cancel culture script right up until the twist ending. Shiloh Hendrix didn’t apologize,” Walsh wrote on Facebook, celebrating the amount of money she raised.

“Yes, Shiloh said something offensive. No one’s excusing it. But she didn’t deserve to be treated like a domestic terrorist,” he continued. “And that’s what her supporters understood. That’s why they gave. Because they weren’t just donating to a person — they were drawing a line in the sand. They saw the pitchforks coming out again and decided it was time to start swinging back.”

In his podcast episode about Hendrix and the positive reaction she’s received from the right, Walsh repeatedly said this was all about destroying the “cancel culture” mob once and for all. Yet, while repeatedly downplaying the racial slur she used, Walsh himself wouldn’t actually bring himself to say the word out loud – and tried to explain his reasoning.

“If Black people want white people to not say the word, then they need to not say it. If you say it, then everyone else can say it. Point blank, it’s that simple. That’s how life works. Deal with it,” he exclaimed.

“It’s just a word. It’s a vulgar word,” Walsh added. “It’s a rude word. It’s a word that Black people shouldn’t say for the same reason they shouldn’t use any other vulgarity. I’m using n-word right now instead of using the actual word, for the same reason I would use f-word or c-word instead of those actual words.”

Still, the rise of Hendrix as a MAGA folk hero has made some conservative pundits a bit uneasy. Former college swimmer turned anti-trans activist Riley Gaines, for instance, asked if the massive fundraising haul was a joke before noting that the right didn’t “need a white Karmelo Anthony.” She also wondered “what’s the goal in rewarding” Hendrix.

Others, like The Babylon Bee’s Seth Dillon, expressed concern about the motivations behind many of those amplifying Walsh’s support for Hendrix. “For them, it's not about the end of cancel culture, but the success of tribal whiteness that this case represents and which they're pretending Matt has endorsed,” Dillon noted.

GiveSendGo, a so-called “Christian” platform that has become the “go-to page for Trumpist rage,” finally decided to step in after both the Anthony and Hendrix donation pages received a flood of offensive posts in recent days.

“At GiveSendGo, we recently disabled comments on the fundraising campaigns for Karmelo Anthony and Shiloh Hendrix due to the unacceptable volume of racist and derogatory remarks,” the platform’s co-founder Jacob Wells tweeted on Friday. “At the time comments were turned off, both campaigns had raised approximately $500,000 with around 15,000 donors each.”

Stating that the comments posted don’t represent “values of hope, compassion, and fairness,” he said that the company would allow both campaigns to collect funds and ensure they are delivered to the recipients.

“We took action to stop the spread of divisive rhetoric while ensuring the campaigns continue to serve their intended purpose,” he concluded. “We call for respectful dialogue and understanding, even in challenging situations.”