National Geographic author falsely claims that Kyle Rittenhouse killed 'two Black men' in new book

A National Geographic author falsely claimed in her new book that Kyle Rittenhouse killed "two Black men." In her book The Good Kings, Egyptologist Kara Cooney wrote, "...consider Kyle Rittenhouse, who used his semiautomatic weapon to kill two Black men in Kenosha, Wisconsin while waging a glorious war on behalf of his inherited White power."

Rittenhouse shot three white men on the night of August 25, 2020, in Kenosha, Wisc., killing two. A jury concluded that he shot them in self-defense. Hours of video evidence was shown that backed his claim, as well as eye-witnesses who testified that the men shot had threatened and advanced on the teen.

The glaring error from Cooney's book was brought to the attention of Twitter by Kara McKinney, of OAN's Tipping Point. She wrote that the text appeared in the last chapter of Cooney's book, and showed that Cooney is "not the brightest bulb and it shows." McKinney found another error in the book as well, when Cooney said that noted Civil Rights activist and organizer Rosa Parks sat in the "White section" of a bus in Montgomery, Ala. But Parks' protest, instead, was to refuse to give up her seat to a white passenger.

In November, Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all counts by a jury in the charges of first-degree reckless homicide in the death of Joseph Rosenbaum, first-degree intentional homicide in the death of Anthony Huber, first-degree attempted intentional homicide for injuring Gaige Grosskreutz, and two counts of first-degree recklessly endangering safety. Cooney's book uses Rittenhouse to make her claims about white patriarchal hegemonic rule of the United States.

The claim that Rittenhouse shot black men was echoed by international media outlets as well and stemmed from corporate media outlets endlessly writing that Rittenhouse shot BLM protestors, leading to the assumption that those men were black.

Cooney concluded the paragraph by saying, "Fear has gripped the patriarchy, and the threat of righteous violence- or the lethal use of it- is the patriarchy’s response."

Rittenhouse was found to have acted in self-defense when he was pursued by a mob of angry rioters bearing weapons, as he and one of the men he shot testified.

The three men shot by Rittenhouse on the night of August 25, 2020, were all white. The case was widely perceived by progressive media as one having racial implications, though Rittenhouse

In the early fall of 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden slammed Rittenhouse as a "white supremacist" during a campaign ad. There was no evidence of this, yet many repeated the claim.

Oblivious to the facts of the case, Cooney added, "That’s not to mention the White people who rallied behind him to post his bail."

Cooney, in her book about Egyptian Pharaohs, claims that "Patriarchal anger exists in a purely binary space in which the male of the species has been the good king for so long that he sees no other way." The book is about "absolute power in ancient Egypt and the modern world." It was published by National Geographic in 2021.

National  Geographic has been funding research projects since 1888. In the first chapter, Cooney claims that she is a "recovering Egyptologist." She notes that she's moving on from the study because she had a realization that it was something of "an abusive relationship." She said that "suddenly," she "can't help but view my once beloved Egyptian kings... in light of the testosterone-soaked power politics of the patriarchal system in which" she lives.