Home ›
Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
If you have an email ending in @hotmail.com, @live.com or @outlook.com (or any other Microsoft-related domain), please consider changing it to another email provider; Microsoft decided to instantly block the server's IP, so emails can't be sent to these addresses.
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
If you use an @yahoo.com email or any related Yahoo services, they have blocked us also due to "user complaints"
-UE
Comments
This is a powerful read: http://kazerad.tumblr.com/post/95781560733/empowerment
Seemed okay at first, and the reaction to Tom Siddell was shitty behaviour, but the writer lost me at this point:
Because violence solves everything, doesn't it? It doesn't help that the Michael Brown shooting is still in the public consciousness. Also, it's telling that the first thing the writer thinks of is not keeping your home locked, valuables hidden, or installing an alarm system, but pulling out a lethal weapon.
Gun culture aside, this sentence indicates the essay's just-world fallacy indulgence which sabotages the point trying to be made.
So, a single guy grinded me from level 1 to level 19 in Realm of the Mad God and gave me 8 Dex Potions just so I could point him to where a Lich was
^^Those killings happen every few days, so there's never a time in which such an example wouldn't be loaded by race(though with regards to citizens, Stand Your Ground laws actually help black people more in court). I think his message is overall good for people with a certain psychological profile: I like to be in control, so it appeals to me, I guess.
>a single guy grinded me
That went into a completely different direction than I thought it would go.
Well, then my experience is different. I find the US gun culture abhorrent and the fact that killings happens about every 28 hours is a consequence of the "shoot first" mentality. The general message comes off to me as rugged individualism, which I already recognized as a myth even before the appeal to gun culture, since some are more equal than others. And the awful part of the message is that it leads to crap like Michael Brown being automatically blamed for supposedly causing his own death even though he was unarmed.
Rugged pioneer individualism is probably the stupidest US fantasy there is.
Aside from that, though, there's also a very security-oriented mindset. "Why do you want to have a gun?" "Just in case the bad guy who comes barging in has one too!"
When the guns are so plentiful you aren't really left with too many choices.
I, too, when I read that article, thought about the safety matters rather than guns, but the fact that the guy chose pepper gas as his example didn't so rub me in the wrong way. I guess there can be a middle ground before we start blaming the victim and stuff. Nobody's going to say the thief is excused because of what you did, but you really should have left the car locked.
I just realized that in physical terms it's correct to say that the moon is falling up.
About the on-going topic, I do get the sensation that in discussions about social justice there's sometimes an implicit promotion of learned helplessness when the topic of victim blaming gets taken a bit too far and talks about measures to take become a no-no, even in a purely practical sense.
But I think that article downplays the resources people have to act with; to use his example, it's easy for him to say that the victim, passerby and voter had different options to take and at least one must've had a good outcome, but none of them is really in a position to know what would've happened if the victim had resisted (getting killed is a good possibility), or if the passerby wouldn't become a co-victim after witnessing the crime or the would-be mayor wouldn't perform worse, a good reason to not get elected in the first place. Ultimately, due to the limited information and capacity for analysis, the best option is often not the right one and at that point I don't think it's reasonable to blame that person even one bit.
Honestly, I wouldn't have minded if that particular example suggested stuff that actually prevents robberies such as locking your home. But a lot of times, the advice on measures to take is misleading, unhelpful, and potentially dangerous. Like you said, pulling out pepper spray or a gun makes you more likely to get killed.
Also, I'd like to see an example of learned helplessness due to victim blaming aversion. I don't doubt that it is a thing, but I'm not sure if that isn't just some fringe philosophy.
Ehh, I'm not actually aware of anybody who's fallen to learned helplessness because of that, either way I don't think that's the intention.
So, I went to a family meeting. One of the stories-slash-jokes told by the obligatory wacky uncle:
I am confused so I will instead respond with:
Fuck Off Fuck On, it's the Fucker
I tried to use font size as a visual shorthand for the sound of man's voice getting louder and louder as he's getting closer to you. Looks like it didn't work.
Just to let everyone know, if my posting seems more agitated these days, it's because I'm still coping with my explosion of emotions following the Michael Brown shooting, the resulting Ferguson aftermath, ignorant victim blaming following the shooting and protests, and any delusion of "racism is over" being totally shattered. Also, even though my background is Asian, I still feel a strong emotional investment in the issue since while we don't have it nearly as bad as black people, I can empathize with being stereotyped and othered.
*hugs*
The idea that racism was somehow over when a black or mixed-race person was elected POTUS is complete bunk. If anything, it just gave racism more of a raison d'etre.
Irdgck: I don't get the joke at all. So the guy is getting closer while saying fuck off?
That sucks *hugs*
RedEyedAbyss:
My mouse's failing, seems like. I click once and get a double-click. Kinda annoying when you want to close a single tab, go a single page back... you know the trade.
Ica: I guess, works in telling. Heh. Picture hearing quiet and distant "Fuck off!", then louder and closer, then again, then the guy with the pan reaches the place you're in, you ask him what's the matter, and he screams "Fuck off!" at you, and then you know where did the others come from.
The others: what's the stuff like, from the insider's perspective? Hard to get the whole emotional picture from here. The dry facts, as can be gleamed from the local media, seem like some dude was making trouble, some cop got triggerhappy, and a riot ensued. I'm sympathetic, but I already spend too much time in the 'Net.
Come to think of it, I remember we've had some cases vaguely similar to this one. Once it was that a cop beat a kid to death and claimed he just ran into a lamppost, another time some thugs were accidentally shot with live ammo during a riot. Except, the first time involved no riot that I know of, and the other started with thugs rioting and then someone got shot.
A riot didn't ensue, at least not right away. People were peacefully mourning the dead, and the cops decided to respond as though it were a riot. This led to (still largely peaceful) protests, to which the cops responded with more violence, and after a few incidents of looting effectively they put the town under martial law, tear gassing citizens and reporters, making arbitrary arrests, etc. All while continuing to insist that there was no problem with abuse of police power in the area, and refusing to make any real investigation into the original shooting.This sounds hella different, I've got to say. As well as, being caused mostly by the cops' heavy-handedness (edit: just so I won't be misunderstood: abuse of power included). Which seems not to be the entire picture. Where does the racism factor in? I've got the comfort that I can shrug and assume I'm not in place to have any opinions, but since you guys are at hand I can at least ask around.
Oh, and by the way. Knowing how split on ideological issues USA is, is there some media craziness going on? You know, pompous pundits n' shizzle.
Michael Brown was black, like most people who get killed by cops in the US. Many of the other cops involved are white as well, while nearly all of the mourners and protesters who were tear gassed are black.That's before getting into the way parts of the media have reported things. There's lots of focus on how Brown was "troubled" (as evidenced by the fact that he was an amateur rapper and at some point in his life posed for a photo that made him look slightly intimidating). There were a bunch of comparison images around (which I can't find now) showing the NYT's article on him side-by-side with their ones about white serial killers that did their best to humanize them and focus on how shocked their family and friends were.
Yes, that much I know. But I was thinking, I don't fully get why is there that much fuss. As far as I see it, the African-American community (or the "black" side) is convinced the police (or the "white" side) is prejudiced against them for racial reasons. So I was curious, is that the heart of the matter, or was there some overt racism involved. Cop shoots a kid, bad. Klansman cop shoots a black kid, bad and obvious. Cop shoots a black kid, bad and there's the nation-wide fuss because people argue whether or not would he shoot a white kid. This isn't exactly the issue that I'm intimately delved in, so I have a bit of a hard time. About the closest in here that I can think of are the dealings with the Roma people, but they aren't that demographically significant.
edit: the above was posted before I noticed the edited part. As for the shot guy himself, the media here reported that some shop's cameras recorded him attempting a robbery or something like that, not long before that cop shot him.
I can't remember the source and all, but whether or not Michael Brown was seen trying to rob a store was completely irrelevant to why he was shot, since the cop who shot him didn't actually know about that, or something.
I think this was meant to support the cop's story that he assaulted him or some shit like that. Can't exactly say I'm all for shooting folks resisting arrest, but at least that sounds like rational line of reasoning. I mean, may get more folks believe your story. Shooting a dude in a struggle is marginally better than shooting him just so, and the dude who's been known for misbehavin' struggling with a cop is marginally likelier than him struggling just so.
Ah, here it is.
So yeah, doesn't seem like the cop actually shot him for any crime, not to mention how said robbery might not have happened anyway.
Personally, I had been waiting for the opportunity to say that the police's actions during the protests were utter bullshit.
@lrdgck re mouse: I've been having this weird thing where if I smack my left mouse button too hard, I can somehow trigger the right mouse to be depressed at the same time. This is relevant while playing 100% Orange Juice, as I've had experiences where I've selected a card to play and cancelled card selection at the same time, which seems to result in me displaying the card then promptly discarding it with no effects on the game.
(Sorry to interrupt the discussion about the Ferguson events.)
Woo. I am alive again.
Welcome back! How has life been for you? good? bad? excellent? horrible?
I don't know, I just know I love the gamergate drama and am not paying attention to my life because of it. But hey, INTERNET DRAMA, saucy and me like it.