For the last few years, political conversations between family have been known to be polarizing and contentious at times. For Helena Duke, participating in Black Lives Matter protests caused her mother Therese (herself a Donald Trump loyalist) to kick her out of the family home “multiple times” for her views and for “going to BLM protests.”
hi mom remember the time you told me I shouldn’t go to BLM protests bc they could get violent…this you? https://t.co/9ZkbAq0ehO
— Helena Duke (@duke_helena) January 7, 2021
Imagine her own surprise when Helena’s cousin sent her a video of the chaos in the streets at the conspiracy theory-sparked Stop The Steal rally, and she was able to clearly see her mother Therese, in addition to her aunt Annie Lorenz, and her uncle Richard Lorenz as part of a group of white people who confronted African-American security guard Ashanti Smith who had hit Therese in the face after Therese had tried to grab Smith’s cell phone. Subsequent footage shows Therese’s face covered in blood after the Smith defended herself.
Hi this is the liberal lesbian of the family who has been kicked out multiple times for her views and for going to BLM protests to care what happens to me so:
Mom: Therese Duke
Uncle: Richard Lorenz
Aunt: Annie Lorenz pic.twitter.com/cuBAPJ3GJA— Helena Duke (@duke_helena) January 7, 2021
After viewing the video, Helena realized that she had been lied to, as her mother had initially told her that she was taking her aunt for “a procedure.” Duke told BuzzFeed News “It was very surreal because it was an insane video, first of all, and then it was the revelation that, Oh, that’s my mother. That’s her.” Helena quickly decided to tackle the issue head on, tweeting her mother “hi mom remember the time you told me I shouldn’t go to BLM protests bc they could get violent…this you?” she wrote in one tweet. in another pointedly said “Hi this is the liberal lesbian of the family who has been kicked out multiple times for her views and for going to BLM protests to care what happens to me so:..”
The reaction both from and towards the elder Duke was swift. UMass Memorial Medical Center tweeted the message below stating “the employee in question is no longer a part of of organization”. (Smith has been suspended without pay from her own job and hast set up a GoFundMe for legal fees, according to the New York Post.) Helena has only heard from her mother once, who asked her to remove the tweets. She has now been cut off from her family financially, having to resort to setting up a GoFundMe in an effort to continue her college studies, saying in part that she wants to eventually go to law school and “make the world a better place.”
— UMass Memorial Health (@umassmemorial) January 8, 2021
Since the Capitol Riot, we’ve heard many stories of attendees being indoctrinated into this down the rabbit hole type of thinking; Therese Duke, according to Helena is no exception. She told The Advocate about her previously lifelong Democrat mother “It was unsettling seeing how quickly she had changed to a radically right ideology. The things that she was saying really didn’t make sense,” she said. “A lot of them were conspiracy theories, almost a delusional kind of mindset. And I think it was just her belief system entirely was focused around what President Trump was saying.”
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