Brittany Packnett has visited the White House several times and President Barack Obama recently praised her. She also thinks President-elect Donald Trump is a fascist and that we’re in a “white supremacy renaissance.”
Packnett was heavily involved in the Ferguson protests and is part of the Black Lives Matter movement. She gained prominence out of this role and helped launch Campaign Zero, which aims to reduce police violence. Her endorsement of Hillary Clinton was revealed in Elle and she has visited the White House more than a dozen times, including at least five times with President Obama.
WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 18: U.S. President Barack Obama (C) speaks about race relations while flanked by Brittany Packnett (L), and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, February 18, 2016 in Washington, DC. President Obama met with African American faith and civil rights leaders before an event to celebrate Black History Month. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
In a recent interview with Ta-Nehsi Coates, the black activist writer who supports reparations, Obama said, “I thought Brittany Packnett, who was one of the Ferguson activists, really interesting, smart young lady, really impressive—you might want to talk with her.”
But while Packnett has been embraced by the mainstream, her ideas remain radical. Packnett has tweeted that Donald Trump’s primary victory of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio in the Sunshine State meant that “white supremacy is doing quite well in America.”
In March, Packnett described the prospect of Trump winning the presidency as the potential for “racism, fascism and hate to sit so openly and supported in the White House.” And just about a week before that comment she compared Trump to the terrorist attacks in Paris that left more than a hundred dead.
“After the Paris attacks, Muslims worldwide were ‘required’ to disavow the acts of a few. I’ve not seen many white folks disavow Trump,” Packnett wrote. One of Obama’s favorite Black Lives Matter activists has also previously lamented that Iowa is the first primary. Her complaint? Iowa is a very white state.
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Following Trump’s election, Packnett blamed the result on white people and told them they need to change. She even wrote that the election results made her “physically ill.” Outside of believing that it is “en vogue to be racist,” Packnett has laid out some policy solutions through the Campaign Zero platform.
These include decriminalizing or de-prioritizing the enforcement of public alcohol consumption, loitering, trespassing, disorderly conduct, and disturbing the peace, as well as creating quotas so police departments have sufficient women and “people of color,” and having police undergo training in implicit bias.
Another co-founder of Campaign Zero is Deray McKesson, who has let it be known he supports reparations. He wrote on Twitter, “Let’s be clear — reparations is the least that can done to atone for this country’s particularity evil history.” Packnett did not respond to a press inquiry about whether she supports reparations or whether she agrees with McKesson that police never have justification to kill.