Chicago cross-burning feared to be hateful racist threat turns out to be idiotic anti-Trump protest: Saw the Wikipedia page

A Chicago cross-burning presumed to be the work of a racist menace turned out to be an anti-Trump protest — and the birdbrain responsible for it insisted he had no idea what he was doing.The towering cross was seen engulfed in flames in Grant Park on June 9, with horrified onlookers filming the vile sight that looked straight out of Jim Crow America — and left many fearful a hateful cretin was lurking in their midst.Racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan — infamous for burning crosses to menace black people — and other white nationalists were immediately suspected of the burning, with the FBI even dispatching investigators to probe the apparent hate crime.A photo of the suspect was also quickly released, and appeared to show a shirtless Asian man running from the scene while covered in soot who officials spent days searching for.But that man apparently emerged on Tuesday, revealing himself in an NBC 5 interview to be University of Illinois senior Merlin Lu, who insisted he was simply trying to protest President Trump — and that race was nowhere on his mind when he sparked ne of the nation’s most notorious hate images.“My protest has nothing to do with race, nothing to with gender,” Lu told the outlet, explaining he wanted to protest “by myself” and the burning cross “just came to my head.”“I did know about this historical relevance beforehand, but I didn’t know the severity, how racially motivated it may seem from what I did,” he said.“In no way possible was that a hate crime.

I understand why it was interpreted that way, and I apologize for that, but no, the intent was not there.”Pressed by NBC 5 on how he made it through four years in college without realizing how hateful burning crosses were, Lu admitted the extent of his research was reading a Wikipedia page.“I just saw the Wikipedia page with the movie with the, like, I think it’s called like ‘Under One Nation’ or something like that,” he said, misidentifying the infam...