Wow! I haven’t been sent so much hate mail since I mangled a cracker. It seems that one of the great American holies is celebrity culture: don’t you dare say anything that comes across as callous about a beloved comedian. My favorite so far was an email that accused me of being a “Jew ghoul”, and then went into detail about the autopsy report because it showed that Robin Williams “suffered like Christ.” That’s the problem, really: it’s fine that you liked and respected the man — I did, too — but the obsessive fascination of our media with every detail of a celebrity’s pain is disturbing. There are helicopters flying over Williams’ house and media vans parked outside it, as if something important will happen there any time, while Ferguson, Missouri is under a police-ordered blackout. There are other celebrities lining up in front of cameras to talk about how wonderful Robin Williams was, while police in body armor, carrying shotguns and batons, are lining up to march down the streets of Ferguson. And damn few people seem to be able to see the stark contrast, much less care about it.
Here are a few intelligent comments on the subject. First is carlie.
I am reacting really strongly to this particular subject, I think, because I watched it play out on twitter last night. I follow a lot of people who are really up on the news as it happens, and the juxtaposition of people giving heartfelt tributes to Williams, people giving legitimately important information about depression, and people showing the absolute breakdown in Ferguson, was incredibly disconcerting. When you see a tweet that’s a freaking animated picture of a genie hugging Aladdin, and you genuinely tear up over it, and then the next thing you see is a picture taken an hour prior of policemen with dogs and riot gear ganging up on one unarmed young man begging for peace and justice, well, it kind of puts things in perspective in a really stark way.
Unfortunately, where you’ll see the real drama playing out is on twitter, with residents sharing the nightmare. When I just checked CNN, the stories were about the aforementioned Williams autopsy report (WHY? Also, why is Williams insta-autopsied and the full report released to the press, while the official Mike Brown autopsy report is suppressed, so the parents will have to get a second, independent autopsy done?), and a long video of a string of Famous People (Mel freakin’ Gibson!) queuing up to talk about how much they loved Robin Williams. Press priorities, you know.
And here’sTony! The Queer Shoop. You might be able to tell that he’s a little bit angry.
This country is starting to scare me to a greater level than it had before. I live in Florida, home of George Fucking Zimmerman. Do you see my gravatar? I’m a man of color. I’m just they type of person that Zimmerman would probably distrust. I’m just the type of person that the police would probably not be terribly nice to. I’m the kind of person people would be suspicious of. I’m the kind of person who the justice system typically treats horrifically.
For the first time in fucking I don’t know how long, I’ve met a guy who is pretty cool. He lives 10 minutes from me. I’ve been single for so fucking long that I have forgotten what it’s like to date or even be in a relationship. I’d pretty much given up hope of ever having the chance to fall in love with someone.
What does this have to do with this thread?
I don’t have a car.
I walk to his house. Often in the evening.
When I leave at night, IT’S FUCKING AT NIGHT. In fucking Florida. The fucking bible belt. Where they already don’t like black people. Then I’m gay on top of that. And an atheist? That’s a fucking trifecta for some people.
The first night we hung out, I walked home. That was before I knew about Mike Brown. I read about that after I got home that night actually. That kinda freaked me out, but I did the same thing a lot of people in this country did, and treated it like an isolated incident. As I thought about it more, I realized that it’s not isolated. Yes, it’s one incident, but it’s part of something bigger, far worse, and a great deal scarier.
Trayvon Martin was just walking home with skittles and a fucking iced tea. He was killed for nothing, bc of a racist scumbag who should be in prison. I’ve walked to the store at night before. I’ve worn a brightly colored tee shirt, and shorts. I’ve carried my cellphone and wallet at all times. Why? Because in the back of my mind, I have to worry about the possibility that someone will want to shoot me because I’m a person of color. Nevermind that I don’t own a gun, and don’t want to. Nevermind that I’ve never been in a fight in my life. Nevermind that I’m not an aggressive person prone to violence. Nevermind that I have a hard time hurting a roach, let alone another human being. No, nevermind all that. There are people out there that wish I were dead, or would take the opportunity to kill me for nothing.
And you know what? That scares me. That horrifies me. Not so much that it’s going to paralyze me, bc dammit I’m not going to live my life frozen by fear, unable to do anything.
But I should be able to live my life and not worry about the possibility of being shot and killed. I should be able to have the same equal opportunity to go through life with the same possibility of a fulfilling existence as white people.
But I can’t.
I can’t because I was born a different color.
And now, in this country, this land of supposed freedom and equality…this land that says everyone was born equal and free, we have a police state that is brutalizing black people. Young and old. We have a government that looks the other way at this ongoting civil rights travesty. We have media that doesn’t want to even tackle stories like this, and when they do, they treat them like isolated incidents. They don’t treat them like symptoms of a deeper problem…when they even document them.
So that brings us to Mike Brown and Robin Williams. I’ve said it so many fucking times in this thread and I’ll say it again:
I’m sorry Robin Williams died. I’m sorry his family and friends are grieving. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, no matter how much I despise them. I wish our mental healthcare system were significantly better. I wish there were no stigma attached to mental illness. Do you get this people? Do you understand that I’m not minimizing what happened to Robin Williams? I hope to fucking god you do because I’m sick and fucking tired of saying it.
But, compare his death, and how it is treated in the media. Compare that to how black people across this country feel. FOR FUCKS SAKE, COMPARE IT TO WHAT I’VE JUST DESCRIBED.
I’m fucking shaking right now and crying because I can’t believe people have so spectacularly missed the point of this post, and it has really hit home tonight, the third day in a row that I’ve gotten to go on a date with the same guy. He drove me home bc even he realizes that it can be dangerous out there at night for certain people with a certain skin color. I appreciate that he chose to do that, even though I would never ask him to do it. I don’t want to be an imposition on anyone.
Don’t I deserve to be able to walk home at night without the worry of being harassed or worry about facing threats from racist assholes? Doesn’t every black person? Doesn’t every single person who is oppressed or discriminated against?
IF SO, THEN WHY WON’T THE MEDIA GIVE A FUCKING SHIT ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON?
Why is my life…why are the lives of black and brown people across the US..across the planet even…why are they treated like they aren’t of worth? Why are we dehumanized and treated like second class citizens?
Why?
And why can’t we have a discussion in this country about this?
Can someone, one you people who are berating PZ for bringing this up…can one of you explain that to me?
GODFUCKING DAMMIT!
Yes I’m crying and shaking still. I guess it doesn’t matter to some people, because I’m just a person of color. Fuck.
Reality should be more important to atheists than some fantasy on the screen. It doesn’t seem to be working out that way.
ceesays is also rather unhappy.
You’re all sitting here talking about mike brown, but I’ve got some more fuckign names for you while you’re all booing the derailing nitwit with the tone argument. Sit all your asses down. Open your ears, and hear me.
Mike Brown was a 17 black boy who was killed by police while he was unarmed. I’m aware that most of you had heard about him before this post.
He died two days ago.
John Crawford was an unarmed 22 year old black man who was killed by police while shopping in a wal-mart, a hotspot for white people to slouch around wearing the latest all american fashion – assault rifles. Perhaps you heard of him. Perhaps the name is fuzzily familiar.
He died on August the 8th.
Perhaps you’ve even heard of Ezell Ford, a 24 year old black man who was killed by police while he was walking along 65th street, some TWO HUNDRED blocks north of where a shooting had been reported. He was lying on the ground and obeying police orders when he was killed by police.
He died on August the 13th. oh look.
That’s today.
you all going to be paying attention when the next unarmed black man dies to police on the 15th? you gonna remember their names when there’s another black person lying dead in the street, killed by police on the 17th? are you going to remember eric garner’s name? you wondering who eric garner is?
It’s not just mike brown. It’s name after name after name, and it’s been going on for years. YEARS. somebody black is KILLED by police in america once every 28 hours, and you’re upset because you have depression and how could anyone dare point out that the media grabbing onto Robin William’s suicide is a political move rooted deep into anti-blackness.
Well. I have mental illnesses too. And Robin Williams – he was famous. He was rich. He had treatment. More treatment than I could ever obtain for my comorbid bipolar disorder and PTSD. And if he couldn’t beat it, why should I even bother?
And if I did beat it, what kind of a life do I get with this skin? because black women get murdered by police. did you hear about the black grandmother who was nearly beaten to death by a cop? did you hear about that? Did you hear about the young pregnant woman in ferguson who was bodyslammed?
Did you hear that it’s so bad that black people don’t want to have children, because look at the world they’d be bring their kids into? Did you hear any of that?
Look, I’m sorry Robin Williams is dead. I admired him a great deal. I loved his HBO improv performance. I watched Mork and Mindy. I watched The Dead Poets Society and Patch Adams and Death to Smoochy. I’m sorry he killed himself, both because I can’t stop imagining how deep the pain has to go to actually go through with it. Williams’s death has conviced me that I have a terminal disease from which there is no cure, and I will die from it. Maybe not today. But I know how I’m going to die. It got him, it’ll get me too. That’s just how it is.
But PZ is right. News media is using his death as a way to turn a blind eye to Mike brown and all the other dead black people they ignore or blame for their deaths.
Oh, and you thought the If I was gunned down photo meme was funny?
Oh.
Would you mind terribly if I don’t feel safe around you at all? because that photo meme made me want to smash things and weep, because that’s the joke, you see. We’re never allowed to be human. Not even when we’re innocent. Not even when we’re murder victims, because we are not human.
I don’t know what to say. Grief, horror … I am so, so sorry.
Hugs from across the pond, if they are welcome.
I think I’m done with all of it for a bit.
Tony, ceesays… you are both loved. Never forget that.
PZ, thanks for highlighting it. I don’t entirely agree with the way you worded your last post, but I agree with your point and it needed to be brought up.
I really hate the whole fucking world right now.
Another good comment from the other thread, from Nich:
But on the other hand, we already knew that even atheists have sacred cows. Look at the way every single time some big-name older white male celebrity atheist turns out to have a serious problem with sexual harassment, there’s a rush of people defending them.
Or the way, over on Friendly Atheist, there’s a rush to defend Richard Dawkins. It’s mildly interesting: the people who hold him in esteem seem to overwhelmingly be the people who came to atheism because of his books; those of us who either were already atheists before reading his books, or were not converted by them, really aren’t all that upset.
#notallpeoplewhocametoatheismbecauseofricharddawkins
Sorry. Had to. You’re right, of course, but there are some on this side who came to atheism at least in part because of “The God Delusion”… I’m one of them… and I can’t fucking stand Richard Dawkins anymore.
Fair enough.
(Personally, I became an atheist, eventually, because of a process which started when I read Richard Mitchell’s The Graves of Academe, which isn’t about religion at all. He made a point, somewhere in that cranky book, that the people who created the U.S. version of democracy certainly did not take it for granted that democracy was necessarily superior to every other form of government, and spent a lot of time building a case for it and a defense against the more obvious counterarguments. The idea of effectively brainwashing children into patriotism, he says, is actually doing a disservice to democracy — and is only necessary if you either don’t really believe that democracy is the best form of government, so that children will disagree with it after being taught, or else think the children are too stupid to understand the arguments. The notion that you should have reasons to support things eventually led me to question my religion, and after a period of trying to pretend it made sense, and looking at other religions, I gave up and admitted that religion simply cannot be defended in any reasonable way.)
Thanks for signal boosting those comments PZ. They need to be seen. Virtual hugs to everyone who wants one. This is some fucked up shit going on here and we have atheism’s biggest names acting like the real injustice is diverting their precious attention away from Robin Williams.
@The Vicar
My process involves Bill Hicks, a Led Zeppelin forum, a Harry Potter forum, and “The God Delusion”. And Richard Dawkins was a “Sacred Cow” of mine for a long time. That started to change with “Dear Muslima”…
Let’s not go down this track anymore, however, on this post/thread. I’d be happy to share in the Lounge when I wake up, if you’re actually interested, but not here.
Somewhat related is the following article in today’s Granuid, which, at least in the UK on-line edition, has front-“page” articles not only on Mr Brown’s apparent extrajudicial execution and Mr William’s apparent self-execution, but also the ISIS crazies in Iraq, the Gaza Concentration Camp, the first ever female winner of the Fields Prize in Mathematics, and a variety of other things. In Gaza, Ebola, Iraq … are we approaching disaster overload? poopyhead’s complaint about priorities is (somewhat) discussed, albeit using other examples:
Ms Cocking may have put her finger on one part of the skewed priorities: It’s hard to deal with seemingly-intractable problems, like the reasons (probably) behind the continued killings of people like Mr Brown and Mr Martin, or the (largely unreported at all) near-famine situation in South Sudan.
All of which are either entirely man-made or severely exacerbated by human actions.
Finding out Robin died was an unexpected gut punch – I don’t know why, but I was close to tears the rest of the day. It felt like a part of my childhood had died.
Despite these emotions, I still understood exactly what PZ was getting at with the original post and I agreed wholeheartedly.
I couldn’t believe the army of tone trolls that infested the comments and tarnished everything.
I don’t understand how anyone can excuse this. Not being aware of it, maybe, although I’m gonna be pretty suspicious.
Shit’s fucked up. been fucked up for quite some time. This is just the latest bit.
The cops straight up murdered a fuckin person for goddamn jaywalkin, and people are rushing to defend them.
Then the cops leave the victim’s body to bleed out and bake in the summer sun for a few hours. How is this explainable other then as a message to the community?
The community has a prayer vigil, and the cops show up with riot gear, dogs, and fucking tanks. They then spend the next couple days terrorizing the community (yeah, it’s fucking terrorism, by the textbook definition), excluding reporters, assaulting citizens on their own fucking property.
shit’s way past out of hand. I don’t know what the solution is, but to be honest, and I’m somewhat loathe to admit it, but I don’t think I’d be upset to see these so-called “peace officers” find some really unpleasant futures awaiting them. Granted, what I’ve seen of the U.S. “justice system”, I doubt I have to worry about that actually happening.
There is no way to make this comment that isn’t a derail (however slight) from the important and clear main topic, i.e. That of the deplorable use of Robin Williams’ death by the bulk of the US media to avoid examination/coverage of the serious issues in Ferguson and the terrible injustice perpetrated on, and institutional ignorance-sanctioned murder of, people of colour by police. However, I think there is a legitimate criticism that needs to be highlighted, however minor.
1) PZ’s point in the original post, and this one is absolutely correct: either deliberately or due to a complete lack of proper priorities regarding racial discrimination and serious social injustices, the US media are using the death of Robin Williams as rhetorical gambit in such a manner that it distracts from, and obscures, the huge injustices in the Mike Brown case. And, as eloquently mentioned above, the fact that Mike Brown is far from a rarity and the murder of people of colour by police in the US ostensibly for incredibly minor or even non-existent crimes is an epidemic. The subsequent treatment of people of colour by authorities and media is a stark demonstration of the violent bigotry that people of colour routinely face.
2) For the purposes of this criticism the fact that Robin Williams is a (beloved) celebrity, white, male or even dead is irrelevant. If Robin Williams had simply dropped down dead as a result of a heart attack for example, I would not be writing this comment. I would, as is hope is obvious from above, be supporting the tenor of PZ’s previous post 100% instead of 99%.
3) As I hope is obvious my criticism is in regards to the manner of Williams’ death and how both the media and (perhaps inadvertently) PZ are using this as a rhetorical gambit. The fact that the media are largely using Williams’ death as a distraction to do something I strongly disagree with (avoid serious injustices due to institutional ignorance and racism) and PZ is using Williams’ death to highlight that self same thing, and it’s avoidance elsewhere, something I agree with and support in principle, is immaterial. It’s the fact that Robin Williams died by suicide that is the basis of why I am criticising PZ’s (and yes also the media’s, obviously) use of his death as rhetorical gambit.
4) We often say/read/hear that someone’s rape (for example) is not your teaching moment. That using the severe trauma of another person as a rhetorical gambit, issues of taste (which I could not care less about) aside, can, in some cases, have consequences that fall beyond what using other tragedies and traumas as rhetorical gambits or teaching moments does. Like rape, the use of which plays into extant rape culture and can be deeply harmful because of that, the use of a suicide in or as a rhetorical gambit also has effects beyond that. Haven’t we just had an cast iron illustration of how even well structured, simplistic logical points can be ruined by choice of illustrative example/rhetorical gambit and how that choice can be deliberately/inadvertently harmful from Richard Dawkins? I’m not sure another, which this is I’m afraid, is needed.
Now I don’t think PZ used William’s suicide deliberately as part of his rhetorical gambit, although he did reference it sarcastically, which even though it’s obvious sarcasm, is dangerous as I’ll illustrate. Williams’ death alone would have sufficed for the purposes of PZ’s rhetorical gambit, and as I said, this comment would not exist if Williams had died from anything other than suicide.
5) Here are the Samaritans guidelines on reporting suicide. I know this is a blog not a media outlet, and since I am at my parents’ house on holiday right now and confronted by the Daily Mail I know there are much worse culprits than PZ, but I mention this because I think PZ is a reasonable, rational and above all REACHABLE person. The Daily Mail? Not so much.
As I said above, Williams death alone is sufficient to make the rhetorical gambits of both the media and PZ work. As I said above it’s perfectly fine, in my view, to exploit a “mere” death (and yes, obviously no death is “mere”) to highlight the greater violence, injustice and systematic horrors suffered by people of colour. A global “find and replace” swapping suicide for death (and obvious tidying) would solve that problem instantly.
The second, and for me larger, issue with PZ’s original piece is the sarcastic referral to Williams doing anyone/anything a favour. Obviously this is sarcasm, and there is no day on which I will ever object to THAT! However that piece of sarcasm, even obvious as it is, refers to Williams doing someone or something a favour by dying by suicide. That plays into, completely unintentionally I am sure, a very dangerous mindset that is very, very common amongst people who are contemplating suicide or who are experiencing suicidal ideation: that their death by suicide would be in some fashion a net positive.
I’ll stress again: I don’t believe PZ did this deliberately, and I don’t believe that even though this was obvious sarcasm it fails to reference this problematic and very, very dangerous idea.
So, in light of the Samaritans’ guideline for reporting on suicide linked above, and with what I hope is gentle and nuanced criticism that unfortunately is at a tangent to the very, very serious main thread of this discussion, could I please ask that PZ modify the original post accordingly and could individual commenters also try to exercise a little caution around discussion/mention of suicide. I know I’ve fallen foul of these mistakes in the past and will again in the future I’m sure, but equally it would be a real help if we could all try to up our respective games on this subject given the extensive evidence that how suicide is prominently discussed is so demonstrably linked to increased incidence of suicide.
Suicide is present in all groups of people, of all backgrounds, creeds, colours, sexes, sexualities, genders, privileges and politics. I hope people will indulge this departure from the genuinely very serious and horrific direction of these posts and comments to highlight another genuinely serious and horrific social phenomenon, albeit a minor instance thereof.
Thanks
Louis
I, for one, appreciate your comment, Louis. I don’t fault PZ for his post at all, yet suicide is a fraught topic. Two people close to me have been suicidal and have attempted suicide–no, not a “cry for help,” but serious attempts. Both of them felt they would only be doing people a favor by choosing suicide. I have very complicated feelings around this topic.
That said, I must say that I found Jerry Coyne’s comments on PZ’s post quite awful. It’s as if he were deliberately misconstruing PZ’s point in order to bash him. I continue to read WEIT, but I often object to things he says. However, disagreeing can get you banned in a heartbeat from ever commenting again, even if you disagree respectfully and without vitriol or profanity. His blog, his rules, sure, but he sure seems thin-skinned at times. Anyway, I really take issue with his apparent inability to grok what PZ was getting at in his post. The media really does look for ways to distract public attention from deeply problematic fissures in the social fabric. It’s no coincidence that a wealthy, famous white man gets the spotlight while the death of just another person of color hardly gets a mention.
Louis – thanks for that, it was really well-done and your point was clear. Where I might quibble is that the statement “someone’s rape isn’t your teaching moment” is absolutely true, but I don’t see PZ as using Williams’ death as a teaching moment, but him complaining about the media using Williams’ death for their own ratings and to avoid reporting on more complex, difficult topics. The media aren’t doing a very good job of taking on the important aspects of dealing with depression, either, so the fact that they’re being exploitative is in my mind clearly separated from Williams’ death and depression. I can see how others might see the weighting differently.
PZ, thanks for highlighting Tony’s comment. That was the most powerful thing I read in the entire thread (not to belittle any others, there were many, many that were powerful).
I second carlie’s statement about Tony’s comment.
Also I really appreciated the comment by ceesays.
This is the pettiest little self-absorbed thing, but to clarify: my animated pic reference in my comment wasn’t about the awful tweet that the Motion Picture Academy sent out. I hadn’t seen that one; there was another one going around of a different point in the movie that I was referencing. Just to be clear that I wasn’t endorsing that Academy tweet.
Apparently, the Bundy Bridage has shown up in Missouri. To protect the Wal*Marts from looters – a high school ‘friend’ who’s in the Promise Keepers posted a photo on FaceBook.
Louis, in #11 you write “the deplorable use of Robin Williams’ death by the bulk of the US media to avoid examination/coverage of the serious issues in Ferguson.” You’re implying, I think, that it’s an active decision on the part of the news media to downplay Ferguson. I think it’s more profit – related.
Up until somewhat recently, network news organizations were not seen as profit centers – which explains why news coverage used to be a lot more, well, newsworthy. Now they’re ratings-driven and responsible for ad revenue, they’re much more likely to deliver lowest-common-denominator pap (or, in the case of channels like Fox and MSNBC, content targeted to their audience, which I think explains why Maddow talks about it). It’s definitely a huge problem in American public discourse, but I think the problem is a byproduct of how these organizations are set up. I also don’t know what the solution is, other than governmental regulations requiring broadcast (but not cable, I guess) networks to have news sections that aren’t profit-generating.
Oh, forgot the link: http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102153/The-Transformation-of-Network-News.aspx
I didn’t read the comments on the first post because I thought the point PZ made was so self-evident, there would be no disagreement. Guess I was wrong.
I won’t read them now so thanks for highlighting some brilliant comments in this thread. ceesays’s post is particularly well-written and on-point. The second last line caught me off-guard though. I can’t imagine anyone finding #iftheygunnedmedown funny or humourous. It is a brilliant illustration of how black victims are depicted by the mainstream media.
I really appreciate these important conversations, and I appreciate PZ’s OP and this one, and the thoughtful comments from many people in this community. I’ve come away from these discussions better equipped to speak up on these issues.
There’s another aspect, as well: private vs. public events.
Mr. Williams’ death was a private act. Yes, he was a public figure, but his death is mainly a personal and family tragedy. I find it appalling and embarassing that the MSM pores over every detail of his death and digs and digs for more. Helicpoters over his house? Sick. Cannot we afford some privacy to the grieving family? Yes, the circumstances of his life and death can provide an opportunity for thoughtful discussion of mental health issues and our care system, but the sensational coverage (do we really need to hear about the autopsy report?!) is disturbing and greedy.
Mr. Brown’s death happened in public, brought about by public officials acting in their official capacity, and this alone should merit high scrutiny by the media. The fact that this was yet another case of a black man killled by white police officers under highly suspicious circumstances — I am so ashamed and sad that I can’t even finish that sentence. Isn’t it obvious that we have a huge problem here? And that these are not isolated incidents, but an increasingly widespread and common pattern? It seems that this would be a topic of intense, ongoing interest to investigative journalists.
Of course the MSM goes for ratings and advertising dollars, and that governs their story choices to a large degree. But it’s public taste and interest that drive those advertisers and editors, and they are simply giving the public what they want: celebrity news (especially anything “scandalous,” such as suicide!) instead of sad news (many people of color in this country live in a police state and are terrorized and terrified). I am ashamed and very sad.
Sigh. In that last quoted comment, I was pretty much the only one mentioning the If They Gunned Me Down meme. I didn’t say I found it personally funny, I said it was humorous, because it is trying to use humor. It is using dark humor as a weapon to criticize the media’s racial bias in choices for which picture they will display for black victims. But I will admit that smashing things and weeping is one of the proper responses to the horrible state of affairs that it is referring to.
Cross-posting on several threads. Antonio French, alderman, who covered Ferguson last night on Twitter, from one of his re-tweets:
Meanwhile, @AntonioFrench’s Twitter followers are 20k+ due to his on-the-ground witness in #Ferguson. If all gave $5: http://www.thenorthcampus.org
It’s an education initiative for kids.
I just still am terrified that the USA is like this. Not only are people routinely shot over their skin colour, but they’re shot by the bloody police and the media isn’t horrified by this situation. It’s really really scary that not only do the police carry lethal weaponry, but they and random neighbourhood vigilantes can kill people of colour just for walking down the street. It doesn’t even seem like it has any effect on the individual officers or the police itself at all.
How in the world is this supposed to make sense. Police over here don’t even have lethal weaponry, and they’re supposed to be extremely careful with using even stun guns (since they can be dangerous as well), yet this can keep happen and be a routine in the US. I just want to shout at this until it stops being so unimportant that people are killed and the victim painted as the evil party. What the #ifTheyGunnedMeDown thing shows should not be so accurate, it should not be so normal for the media reaction to be to take the most stereotypical or othering picture they can find to represent murder victims. Just… No. It should be the norm to support people, especially when there has been murders, not this.
Thanks for highlighting this, PZ, and thanks for speaking about your own experiences and the situation, Tony and the rest. I really wish I could do more than despair about how horrible the world is. My support to everybody who has to live with this kind of thing.
I’m surprised nobody’s raised the super-important point about how we shouldn’t just assume that people of colour face discrimination, and that a true skeptic would wait for evidence before making such an assertion… before going on to proclaim that all o’ them darkies have smaller brains and are criminals anyway, and none of the evidence of discrimination is evidence of discrimination, but merely indicative of their own choices.
I have to echo Louis, @11 about the original post – it was a good point, and I agree with it, but it wasn’t as carefully made as I might have hoped. I realise that it was written by an understandably angry PZ, but… well, I’ve been fortunate enough that I’ve only felt truly suicidal on two occasions, but at those times, I was pretty much unable to see anything but the worst interpretation of anything anyone said, and I could easily have missed the sarcasm that so clearly drips from certain phrases. Obviously we can’t always avoid making missteps and risking harm where we mean well, but… yeah anything about suicide being a favour, even when it’s fairly clearly not actually supporting that message, can be easily misunderstood, and I don’t think this is a situation where the onus should be on the people who might misunderstand to be sure they’re not missing important context.
I can also see the resemblance between that post and Dawkins’ “this is worse than that” commentary, though I’d point out that, in this case, it’s not a random comment which attempts to draw a stark line through a very wide, very grey area, but a criticism of various media sources covering a personal tragedy while completely ignoring a national tragedy.
For what it is worth, anteprepro #21, I got your point. I think PZ’s sarcasm in the initial post misfired a bit and everybody has been walking on eggshells since.
The comments here so far have been clear and thoughtful – my thanks to Louis; that was so well put.
I am still in physical shock after seeing some of the photos. Police in camouflage, military style uniforms? Gunned up to a level WAY beyond what I have seen in images from Afghanistan or Iraq?
I had no idea things had gone that far in the US.
Very scary.
Our state run 24hour TV channel has had zero coverage of this – sure it’s a ‘local issue’ in another country – but locking a whole town down isn’t newsworthy? At all? The reports over here (scarce as they are) pretty much sum it up as: a kid got shot after struggling to try and get a cop’s gun and subsequent riot controlled by the police.
Thanks for highlighting those comments, PZed, and other commenters for the thoughtful and valuable comments on this one.
Sikivu Hutchinson, at Black Skeptics here on FtB, had a very powerful short post on the topic as well.
I thought there were minor issues where yoir intent wasn’t clear to people who don’t know you, PZed, but I think your main point about the vapid, breathless, wall-to-wall coverage of celebrity news, ahead of a serious assault on civil liberties and Black bodies by a government which is explicitly supposed to be of/by/for the people*, is crucial, and I’m glad you made it.
* But apparently only if they’ve got the complexion to deserve the protection.
Meanwhile in Ferguson, Missouri:
OK, so they found his gun. The story continues however with:
What is the difference between Ferguson and Cairo?
I don’t know either.
Jeff Hess
Have Coffee Will Write
I just have to add this to the story.
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2014/08/12/westlake-mall-cop-ignores-agitator-maces-african-american-bystander-at-israel-protest
One could say thankfull, the mall cop did not have a gun.
This country is so polarized that no one on either side can talk sense anymore. While it is true that cops like to shoot black people it is also true that they like to shoot, taser, beat up, white people, brown people, anyone really who is not a member of the precious 1% or does not wear the sacred blue uniform. Making it a racial issue is wrong. If you talk to many of us white liberals you will find that we are sick and tired of blacks whining about racism. Black people commit racial crimes against whites all the time and no one makes a fuss. Jesse and Al aren’t marching about the knockdown game going on on big cities, or about white women who are raped by black gangs. The Trayvon Martin case is a perfect example of how the news media caters top this nonsense – they showed a picture of him as an angelic looking 12 year old instead of the much bigger thug he was at 17. All articles were slanted to make him look like the innocent victim.
Bottom line on race – the most persecuted group in history has been the Jews, culminating in the Holocaust within living memory. Yet in every society where they live the, Jewish culture focuses on education and accomplishment. In contrast, in every society on this earth where blacks live their culture shies away from education and accomplishment, and reveals a culture with little impulse control or sense of responsibility.
[Bye. –pzm]
Ferguson has enough firepower to not have to worry about what the international community thinks of it and will never have UN troops involved.
David Butler, please provide citations for every claim you made in #29. “That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”.
A Hermit, and everyone, can we please not bring the details of Mr. Williams’ death here? There is no good end to be served by doing so, and the details are available to anyone who wants them, all over the news (kinda the point). I’ve been carefully avoiding mass media reports on his death, because I actively do not want to know how he did it, or whether he’d had drugs or alcohol, or anything else. Let the man have some dignity and respect in this thread, if nowhere else on the Internet? Please?
The problem with PZ’s post is that it sounded a lot as if he was saying “I am the other hundreds of thousands of people who died today other than Robin f****** Williams”. That kind of comment is something you would expect to see in the blogs of The Amazing Atheist or Thunderf00t, not in this blog.
David Butler, what colour is the sky on your planet? The planet where racist scum like you think you are “liberal”?
Sorry about#35, I didn’t see that PZ had cleaned out the mess already.
Please, there are two threads on this topic currently active. Might I suggest that the older thread be used to discuss perceived problems with its OP, and this one for the situation in Ferguson and the bias in media reporting regarding that situation?
Sorry Daz, I erred on side of preferring the less established thread for my comment thinking that it would be more of a distraction in the older one. I think there is no “right” place to bring up what is essentially a derailment, hence why I was loathe to do so. Especially given the seriousness of the main topic at hand.
Louis
This is the lounge. Anyone else who brings up a subject that already has two active threads dedicated to it and is better suited to Thunderdome will get the banhammer.
Following up on hyphenman’s article at #27:
Note that the Ferguson residential neighborhood is a series of cul-de-sacs and Florrisant Street is the only main road leading in or out. Blocking Florrisant Street means barricading these people into (or out of) their homes. Source – Washington Post
Louis, no need to apologise. Twas only a suggestion. It just seemed to me that the original OP’s thread was the more apt place to discuss things people find problematical with it.
PZ
Umm? That Yorkshire ale…
Sorry Caitie. I’m a bit of a mess right now. I’ll shut up and go away now.
@ David Butler No. 29
Writing as a Jew who counts survivors and the children of survivors among his friends I just want to say, there is no one-up-man-ship to be played here.
Jeff
@ dianne No. 31
Wouldn’t sky-blue helmets on American streets be a glorious sight?
Jeff
@Daz, 42
Hey, I don’t know about you, but I’m taking advantage!
*picks a suitably cozy-looking sofa and curls up*
A Hermit, not my intent at all, and I’m sorry I spoke so poorly that I gave that impression. I just really want to avoid focusing on the details of his death, because if I’m finding them potentially triggering, I can only imagine how bad it is for someone prone to suicidality. So if you’d said, “The manner of his death was particularly relevant to me,” you still make your point, and we don’t have to pry into the details. Does that help make it more clear? I’m sorry that I made you feel unwelcome.
My (serious, chronic) depression is completely unassociated with suicidality; as I tried to say a couple of times in the other thread, depression and suicidality are NOT the same thing – there are plenty of suicidal people who are not depressed, and by far the majority of depressed people are not suicidal. “Depression” is an actual diagnosis, and not just a generic word for “sadness” or “despair”, and conflating the two is potentially quite damaging to both groups, making it so depressed people aren’t taken seriously if we’re not suicidal, and suicidal people aren’t taken seriously if they’re not depressed. While I could, at least theoretically, die of self-neglect, active suicidality and ideation are simply not part of my experience of depression, nor of many people.
Of course, many people are in the overlap part of the Venn, and probably Mr. Williams is in there too. But if we’re going to have that serious discussion of suicide and depression, we need to start by recognizing that there are two topics there, which have some relation, but are not the same thing.
@ Pteryxx No. 40
That reminds me of the bridge to Gretna in New Orleans and the the world’s largest outdoor prison aka Gaza.
When is a concentration camp not a concentration camp?
I don’t know either.
Jeff
Roundup of articles, linkdumps, and photosets on Ferguson via the Feminist Batwoman tumblr.
News and article linkdump
Police used tear gas, rubber bullets, and wooden baton rounds against protesters
Remember the names of Black girls and women
(cont’d…)
I brought up Michael Brown every time someone talked to me about Robin Williams yesterday. And how his suicide displaced that story from the news. Only one person showed some interest in Michael Brown the rest continued to talk about how terrible suicide is for a family, and movies in general.
That’s what media bias does to people who are not aware of media bias. Even if you point it out to them.
Talking bias in information here:
The number of victims In the ongoing civil war in Congo alone are about equal to the number of victims in the holocaust.
During the Belgian occupation of Congo, from the 1880s to 1900s, about 10 Million people were killed and many more mutilated, raped, and otherwise tortured.
There are only estimates how many people died during the slave trade area from Africa to the Americas. It were many Millions.
We “Jews” are aware of history and don’t appreciate it when it is used out of context. Since there is actually no point in comparing cruelty and numbers of victims, please don’t bring it up in the future. Not just because you might end up being wrong.
You just take away from the debate what is happening right now in this country. What is wrong with the police, what is wrong with the media, what is wrong with the society, how can we improve. That is more important than digging in history without intend to improve the future.
The rest of the link roundup:
Photos and tweets of police brutality in Ferguson
Tweets on the blocking and blackout
Anon doxxing.
This just happened in Seattle.
Pteryxx,
While I agree that the deaths of black men are tragic independent of whether they planned to go to college, the college plans of Michael Brown make him a sympathetic symbol. It shows that you can do everything right as a young, black man, and still your life is cheap within our nation.
Indeed, a black man can be elected to the highest office in the land and still be denied the respect given to every past occupant of that office. Frankly, it never would have occurred to me to attempt to shout down any President during an address to a Joint Session of Congress–not even Bush I, whose legitimacy I still do not recognize. What hope does a black man have in this country, when the occupant of the highest office in the land is shown such disrespect merely because he is black. This country is hopeless. It may be time to leave and allow it to become the third world cesspit its citizens seem to desire.
I believe that if the media felt compelled to cover Ferguson, it would be Katrina all over again. They’d find Superdome horror stories. We are not going to get all the news, nor objective analysis of the implications, no matter what. No matter what else is going on the screens, the plain unvarnished truth is not. This is not a free country, it’s a free market. Not the same thing at all, no matter what the owners tell you.
What has this got to do with Robin Williams? Nothing. It was just P.Z.’s original post that said it did.
Yes, it has to do with news from Ferguson being shoved to the back seat due to a celebrity death becoming the lead story, when it should be a nice remembrance story for the last segment. Why do some people have trouble seeing that?
No, a_ray, it’s not okay. The respectability politics dance is about trying to find reasons to justify killing Black people. It doesn’t matter if Michael Brown was an extorting bully and thug: it doesn’t justify his extrajudicial execution. Period.
There is no justification, short of an immediate threat to someone’s safety, for shooting a person, and “an immediate threat” is hardly defined by “hands up, don’t shoot!”.
Don’t do the respectability politics thing. Some Black voices on the topic:
http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/08/things-stop-distracted-black-person-gets-murdered-police/
http://www.gradientlair.com/post/94595384853/naacp-should-already-know-that-the-politics-of
Just don’t do that. It is completely fucking irrelevant, and only plays into the hands of the racists who want to dismiss executions of Black people by finding some excuse. Don’t.
I should be clear, I have no reason to believe Michael Brown (or Ezell Ford, today’s extrajudicial execution of a Black man) was in any way a good or bad person; the point is simply that it’s completely irrelevant, and a sop to the racists to even discuss it.
The Genocide Convention defines genocide as…
Racial profiling, disproportionate sentencing including the application of the death penalty, police brutality and murder, institutionalized discrimination, systemic inequality in matters of health and quality of life, changes in voting laws and redistricting to try to minimize Black votes, disproportionate rates of being the victims of violent crimes, involuntary sterilizations and contraceptives with serious side-effects offered without proper counseling, high maternal and infant mortality, children disappearing into the foster care system instead of being placed within their own communities, etc.
Some things have gotten better since We Charge Genocide, but mostly they’ve just gotten a little less official.
The cry rings true 57 years later:
That document is a few years old, though. (And is worded poorly. That’s 7.8% of all white people fall below the poverty line, not 7.8% of all people below the poverty line are white. Same thing with the other figures.) This table has data from 2012 and puts the US poverty rates at 35% for Blacks, 33% for Hispanics, and 13% for White non-Hispanics. It also glosses over instances where African American women are specifically suffering:
And let us not forget that hate violence disproportionately targets trans* women of color, most especially African American women.
The victims of racism are not just straight cis men, terrible as the things done against them are. As I’ve said before, the people most hurt by racist white feminists are women of color and the people most hurt by misogynist people of color are…women of color. The whole picture needs to be taken into account, so all the injustice can be faced and dismantled.
Much like the poll tax, ever-changing literacy tests, and other clever bits of racism, white supremacy long ago figured out the best way to be racist is by targeting POC without explicitly naming them. That history is well-known and yet somehow we have blinders up against it today.
Things may be more subtle–it’s not like the police have a written policy stating they want to kill Black people, right?–but they are still terrible.
stevenjohnson2:
It’s not about feeling compelled. It’s about recognizing that the murder of Mike Brown is horrible and indicative of a deeper, more widespread problem in the US-take a look at the comment by ceesays. I don’t want the media to *be* compelled. I want them to *feel* compelled to treat the civil rights violations of black Americans-and women, and hispanics, and those with mental illnesses, and LGBT individuals, and people who are mentally or physically disabled-as the newsworthy material they *should* be.
Hey, cell phones are dangerous! Let someone use their cell phone and your chances of conducting your massacre quietly and without the attention of the rest of the world go right out the window. I’m sure the police in Ferguson are more scared of cell phones than guns right now.
Louis@11:
Thank you for that comment. It was well stated, nuanced criticism, and one that I not only understand, but support.
http://agoodcartoon.tumblr.com/post/94570717060/secotm-a-dead-white-person-is-more-important
Anyone who thinks that being sufficiently respectable will make Black people safe from attack for their Blackness needs to explain the rabid snarling attack dogs who constantly make horrific verbal attacks on Mr. Obama and his family – some of whom are elected members of national legistlative bodies, others of whom are ostensibly “journalists”.
The man’s a graduate of Columbia and Harvard Law, and is President of the whole fucking country, and he’s still not respectable enough to be free of racist attack. There is no level of respectable that can keep Black people safe from white supremacy. The only thing that will keep Black people safe from white supremacy is white people not espousing and promoting white supremacy. Anything else is blaming the victim.
When looking at the news, especially in the US, I am often left thinking about Edward R. Murrow’s famous speech before attendees of the RTNDA convention in 1958, the Wires & Lights in a Box’ Speech. His message seem quite relevant.
CaitieCat
QFT
I would only add that white supremacy influences non-white people as well. In an NDN activism community I frequent, I was horrified to see anti-Black slurs pop up when Pharrell wore a headdress. (The moderator quickly deleted those comments and banned the posters and made a notice about how racism against anyone was unacceptable.) Because all of us, regardless of our ethnic background, are at risk of internalizing white supremacism, we all have a duty to not support it and try to dismantle it where we can in our own lives. In the same way that women can be misogynists and defend patriarchy, POC can be tricked into perpetuating white supremacy. This doesn’t mean internalizing white supremacism makes you at fault for your own victimization; it only makes you at fault for any harm you inflict on others.
But white people will always have the greatest power and privilege in this system.
Often by the same people who loudly and proudly proclaimed that criticizing a white president was a form of treason. Another piece echoing your comments, CaitieCat:
Thanks for posting those comments in the OP, PZ. I too had issues with the way you framed yesterday’s OP (though I certainly agreed with the overall point) but Louis summed them well, so I will thank him for that and not say any more about it.
CaitieCat:
Quoted for goddam truth.
Mellow Monkey:
They also have the greatest responsibility to dismantle that system (which I’m sure you know, I just wanted to point it out for people out there who aren’t aware of this).
Tony and Ceesays comments both moved me to tears.
Lately I cringe when I hear people speaking about the “wonderful” freedoms and exceptionalism of this country.
This is NOT a free country when a gay man of color must be afraid of walking home from a date.
This is NOT a free country when a woman of color must fear for her life the way that Ceesays describes.
This is NOT a free country when anyone who is not white and male must be constantly on guard for their safety, and can’t even trust the police officers who are supposed to be keeping us safe.
The militarization of police forces in this country is very, very scary. Those police soldiers shoot first, then ask questions.
Too many innocent people are suffering because of this. I even worry in my own home, and I’m especially fearful for my dog. There have been more and more reports of these highly militarized swat teams here in Texas battering their way into private homes and automatically shooting any dogs in the home before they find that they have raided the wrong address.
My dog is a highly trained service animal, but I’m sure that the police here would shoot him before finding that out.
I read yesterday that the police in a nearby town shot a stray dog that had wandered into a Walmart. What if that was a family pet who had gotten out and was lost? No one and nothing is given the benefit of the doubt anymore.
Today in the US we have to worry about the safety of our young people, our pets and ourselves no matter where we (or they) are.
Absolutely, Tony!, and thank you for stating that clearly.
Internalized white supremacism in non-white people is going to cause harm, but it’s either on the individual level or in support of existing white power structures. Without white people continuing to support and benefit from white supremacism, such bias has little power of its own.
@68:
I read a few days ago an article about police stopping a person who was driving and deciding to arrest them for some minor thing* (I think having a prescription narcotic, in the original bottle, with his name and his doctor’s name on it). The person had his 15 year old chihuahua, who was blind from cataracts, in the car with him. The police simply dumped the dog on the side of the road rather than even bother to take it to the SPCA. Now, I know chihuahuas can be mean little dogs, but really? He was too scared of a 15 year old blind chihuahua to even take it to animal control? WTF?
*Random point about my own prejudices: I don’t like cars. I favor stricter laws on dangerous driving. I rarely side with the person who was driving in a dispute. So if I say it was a minor thing that shouldn’t have led to an arrest, it was a minor little thing that shouldn’t have led to an arrest.
As someone who is currently suffering a severe depressive episode, I found Robin Williams’ death disconcerting. I have long looked to others who have held a light up to depression and raised awareness of mental illness; I have long looked up to others who have helped remove some of the mystery and the stigma surrounding depression, and in small ways help me understand my own condition. In times when suicide has for me seemed like a good option – like a quick shower that will wash away the clinging sadness, blackening despair, confusion and pain – I have looked at people like Robin Williams, who have spoken of their struggles and their ability to cope, and thought to myself “They made it. I can make it.” In those times, such as most of this past week, including the weekend when I watched one of his movies and thought about perseverance, people like him – and many unknowns and non-celebrities – have made me hopeful.
And when I saw the headlines on Monday night, although the first feeling was shock that someone so much a feature of mainstream entertainment and so admired had died so unexpectedly, this very rapidly became a realisation that “He didn’t make it. He didn’t make it.” This person with all the support, adoration, resources, talent, whatever… didn’t make it. In a week when my main thought was “I want everything to just stop!”, accompanied by fantasies of slipping into eternal sleep, this did not bring me hope. This made me feel terribly sick in my stomach.
I agreed with the topic and message of PZ’s post on how the death of a celebrity is treated by media and politicians, compared to how certain other recent deaths – deaths that are indicative of a deeply disturbing and ongoing human rights crisis in the US – are treated. Or, more correctly, how they are ignored and shooed away into dusty corners where people prefer not to look. I get his point, and applaud him for raising it. The title “Robin Williams brings joy to the hearts of journalists and politicians once again” struck me as seeming unintentionally dismissive, of the manner in which the death occurred, of its personal impact on affected family and friends, and of the mental illness that likely caused it. But the message of the post is clearly not that, and very correct, and ceesays words on the other thread have affected me more than all of these other points.
ceesays, when you say “…if he couldn’t beat it, why should I even bother?” I was there with you. But when you list the names of those who were murdered, those for whom – whatever they may have suffered in their day-to-day lives – there is no treatment, no support, no remedy, no national outpouring of concern or condolence, no tears on Hollywood Boulevard (like one oblivious twit shown on BBC, blubbing “today the comedy died”), and when you speak of your own experience, you made me angry, and made me think “that’s why I should bother.” Because notwithstanding my depression, I enjoy life in a position and country and time of immense privilege and boundless capacity to live the life I want to, to walk streets unmolested because of who I am, and to have my voice heard every day, my opinions and needs acknowledged by society, my murder not ignored, my existence not treated as so much less than, my suffering not overlooked and inconsequential and not “just the way things are”. And if I took the choice today to make everything stop – to take that quick shower and wash away the hurt and despair and sickness that stains me – it is then that perhaps I would, in my own mind, validate most fully my feelings of insignificance and worthlessness. If I go, I can do nothing, be nothing. Your difficulties and disenfranchisement are alien and baffling and so utterly wrong to me. But you do still bother, and you do still persevere, and you move me and make me think “I can make it.” My path is carpet, yours is more broken glass, yet you walk it. As much as on the Mike Browns, John Crawford et al, more light should be shone on people like you, on your experiences, on your terrible fears, on your needs. A lot less on celebrity. You are “more than”, in so many ways.
I waffle. Sorry… TLDR: thank you ceesays, for perspective, and motivation. Here is a hug. I wish for a day when you will feel at least as safe as I always do, even in my darkest moments, simply because I am a white male.
Thank you also to PZ for starting the discussion.
*EDIT: Tony, you too.
Gods, this is getting worse:
No Fly Zone?
This isn’t the US military battling terrorist forces in Afghanistan!
I get the impression that the police don’t want people knowing whats going on in Ferguson:
CatieCat,
I was not justifying the treatment given to Brown’s college plans. I was merely pointing out the motivation. Indeed, my point was that even if a black man gets elected President, he will be denied the full respect and privilege of that office. Obama is about as conservative and restrained a leader as possible, and yet he terrifies the white, rightwing nutjobs into a frothing frenzy. I quote the main point of my post again:
“What hope does a black man have in this country, when the occupant of the highest office in the land is shown such disrespect merely because he is black.”
This country is hopeless.
a_ray:
I get the point CaitieCat was making though. The particulars shouldn’t matter.
The so-called level of respectability is often used as a justification for claiming that black people had it coming. Look at this very thread in the comment by David Butler @29, who tries to paint Trayvon Martin in a bad light, as if to show that Zimmerman was justified in killing him. Because he wasn’t respectable enough.
So-called respectability shouldn’t be brought into this discussion because no matter what one’s occupation or status, no one should be gunned down.
…was this police helicopter supposedly fired upon from another aircraft? If not, what does that have to do with establishing a no-fly zone?
From the same article:
best response I saw from Twitter (which I can’t find now, figures) was something like “They think black folks are going to unleash all those assault copters we’ve been hiding?”
I get the nauseating impression that more than one someone, somewhere, looked at the monstrous travesties going on in Fergusson, then looked at Robin William’s tragic suicide, and cynically uttered the now infamously immortal words;
‘A good day to bury bad news’.
The cold cynicism and disregard for human suffering should be horrifying, but instead it has become so expected it is almost banal, and that is the most depressing thing of all.
@ catiecat;
QFT.
@54, “Yes, it has to do with news from Ferguson being shoved to the back seat due to a celebrity death becoming the lead story, when it should be a nice remembrance story for the last segment. Why do some people have trouble seeing that?”
For the good and simple reason that there is every reason to think Ferguson would be shoved to the back seat and falsified to the greatest extent possible.
@58, “It’s not about feeling compelled. It’s about recognizing that the murder of Mike Brown is horrible and indicative of a deeper, more widespread problem in the US-take a look at the comment by ceesays. I don’t want the media to *be* compelled. I want them to *feel* compelled to treat the civil rights violations of black Americans-and women, and hispanics, and those with mental illnesses, and LGBT individuals, and people who are mentally or physically disabled-as the newsworthy material they *should* be.”
The essential purpose of the police is to protect the property of the owners by policing the non-owners. That’s why their media are not going to recognize civil rights as equal to, much less more important than, property rights. Their media will never recognize business as usual as unjust. And this will continue until the media are no longer theirs. Blaming the mass of people for being so contemptible as to get caught up in celebrity worship is missing the real target I think. If you accept that the media shouldn’t be compelled, then you’ve already agreed with them on the essential points. After all, is business as usual really news? No. Only the occasional despairing outburst of resistance that has to be belittled or slandered counts as news.
I have very little I can add to this conversation, except my love and sympathy to all the people hurting right now.
However, I do think there is one constructive step we all could take: Send a message to your state and federal representatives that you want funding to equip all police patrols with dashboard cams and even personal cams. I know that racist cops can disable the equipment, but if it becomes the norm for video of police actions to be available, it will become harder for miscreants to fail to provide their own videos.
from RHRealityCheck:
Tony,
I not only get Catie-Cat’s point, I agree with it. The whole thing reminds me of the black general (Colin Powell, perhaps?) in “Mars Attacks,” who is on the phone to his wife telling her about how his “get along and go along” approach has worked so well, just before the Martians say “Ack, Ack,” and evaporate him.
I watched the whole process unfold with Obama–how the Rethuglicans were initially so careful and timid. Then Joe Wilson got away with trashing the decorum of a Presidential address to Congress and the long knives were drawn. Ultimately, Obama gets no credit for his achievements (which are not inconsiderable). Hell, he doesn’t even get blamed for anything he’s done, since the Rethugs and the press don’t even bother with the truth anymore.
I watched the evolution of the Trayvon Martin murder from outrage and revulsion to ultimate justification and finally just more lies fomenting fear of young, black men.
And the press is complicit. Ultimately, I think the problem is that journalists no longer want to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, because they have become comfortable (and fat and complacent), themselves. PZ and others have to either bring in Kim Kardashian’s sideboob or the suicide of a beloved entertainer to penetrate complacency.
Ultimately, I as a white, older, cis, straight male scientist don’t know what to do anymore. Nothing seems to penetrate to the conscience of the nation anymore. It is getting to the point where only a sociopath can tolerate living here.
It’s a problem in Canada, as well, though likely not to the same degree.
Anecdotal, I know, but my partner and I are friends with a couple, one of which is a member of the Canadian armed forces. His unit was in High River, Alberta, after the severe flooding last summer, supporting the RCMP who were ostensibly ‘securing’ homes that residents had to evacuate, looking for people who’d stayed behind (and also their guns). He claims that the RCMP would order a door kicked down, to which his unit would respond “No, look, there’s an open window. No need to break anything,” and the RCMP would go ahead and kick down the door anyway. His unit was some pissed off, but for whatever reason they were ordered to support the RCMP, not countermand them. Of course, he’s been on peacekeeping missions, so he knows why it’s not in his best interest to treat civilians like kids to be bullied for their lunch money.
I can’t verify his version, but the kicked down doors certainly happened.
And again, on the politics of respectability: Canadians are known* for rioting at the drop of a puck (Seriously, when we’re not rioting over non-whites and immigrants, we’re rioting over hockey playoffs). Yet we’re never described as savage and feral beasts. Why do we get a pass, when we’re not so respectable?
*Maybe not exactly known for it, but we should be. We do it a lot.
Two more shootings in Ferguson last night:
St. Louis Post Dispatch article.
The social habits, expectations, excuses for minimization and distraction, and other things that prevent us from addressing the suffering of many minority groups and it’s sources have a common core of instincts. The garbage that I saw in the media racial bias thread (I won’t call it the RW thread) has the same sort of shape all over. I’m signal boosting on Facebook and it’s been months since I used it regularly.
RE: Depression. I do not see how PZ’s post handled depression badly (including how comments above apply to the post), but I’m willing to hear people out in the Thunderdome or the Lounge. I only let the F-bomb Brony out of his cage when situations like that thread occur and he is sleeping now.
You could have made all your points without being a prick, but then, I suspect you can’t. It’s who you are and no one should be surprised. But tell me, PZ Meyers, what is your white, wealthy ass going to do, other than type at a keyboard or attend a conference?
Police shot and killed an unarmed man in Salt Lake City:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58287556-78/taylor-lake-police-salt.html.csp
Some freshly posted reaction to PZ’s original post from JT Eberhard for your perusal
I think the problem is that you can make all the points that you have made without the need to bring in Robin Williams and the media coverage of his death.
Breaking via Twitter and St Louis local reporting – the Ferguson police department first official press release. (twitter link to image) GlobalGrind article with text
Police versus a peaceful protestor
I think it important to remember, that when the police report ‘masked people’, they are often wearing a mask because the police have been using tear gas. Just one more way to villainize the protesters.
ceesays:
It isn’t. You don’t have a disease, terminal or otherwise. Your suffering has real social and experiential causes. It’s not a disease, disorder, or chemical imbalance. That’s a terrible lie that disrespects your experience and steals your hope, and the people who continue to spread it are acting immorally. People need to stop perpetuating this harmful falsehood.
At this point, I really don’t believe anything the cops say. Masked people, shots fired at helicopters, armed people shooting at them. I doubt it.
And, if the police weren’t doing anything wrong, why don’t they let the journalists in?
Democracy Now! reported that Michael Brown’s mother’s efforts to get information about her son and his death were met with stonewalling, rudeness, and cursing.
Citation that PZ is wealthy, given the pay scale for associate professors at state teaching universities? If you lie and hyperbole about that, what chance of there being any truth in your posts?
Source for my #95: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/12/the_killing_of_michael_brown_missouri
And how would YOU have done that? Easy to criticize, harder to come up with solutions. Which you don’t offer, just criticism.
JT Eberhard has shown a pattern off co opting minority issues for his own self aggrandizement. He has no credibility on this issue.
@ falstaff
Prick is subjective. For example I find you to be a prick for ignoring endemic racism. Reasons for finding someone a prick are what matter.
I find that a person with privilege that risks their privilege by helping those with less in social activities (conferences, writing) to be quite brave actually.
But since these are simple statements that could literally be applied to anyone else with no loss of content when you switch the “white, wealthy” to one’s favorite method of poisoning wells I can’t say they are useful to me at all.
You mean whit* JT Eberhard who goes to conferences and lectures black women on how they’re supposed to respond to racism, JT Eberhard?
If JT Eberhard’s post is anything but “We’re all allies, so I have absolutely no criticisms of PZ Myers whatsoever”, he’s welcome to fuck his useless self.
falstaff @ 86, perhaps you could take a moment out for thinking, then write what you think about Tony’s post, and Ceesays’ post. Then what you think about events in Ferguson. I’ve been following Antonio French on twitter, and #Ferguson.* What have you been doing, besides littering nasty comments about PZ?
*I never thought anything would make me get a twitter account, but Ferguson did.
For those who may have missed these excellent articles linked in the other thread:
http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/america-is-not-for-black-people-1620169913/+GregHoward1
http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2014/08/things-stop-distracted-black-person-gets-murdered-police/
It’s very predictable.
And then in the comments its all ‘how dare PZ use Robin Williams to make a point and upset us!’
I thought skepticism meant everything was up for debate and if you have an emotional reaction then you lose? Hmm. So hard to keep track.
Huge thanks for shifting my attention to the MO situation. I agree with Louis that it could have been handled slightly better (THE REAL POINT THAT THERE IS A FUCKING RACE WAR GOING ON IN MO IS STILL IMPORTANT AND I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS RANK PEDANTRY FOR THE MOST PART), but unlike Dawkins, the poopyhead has a habit of recognizing issues and correcting them.
This shit really makes me wonder about people who seem to think “racism is over.” Yeah. Nope. US is still pretty shitty for anyone not: White, Rich, AND Christian
but Xaivius,
According to JT
, so you better not make that observation. /snark
But back to reality, Antonio French is still tweeting from MO, and Mother Jones has an interesting article up regarding Anonymous’s OP Ferguson.
SallyStrange @ 97, thanks for that link.
It’s still hard to choke down that the media is being so damn blasé about this.
Calling them “cops” would have been much more concise.
Yakikus@105
Whoa. It smells like appropriation and straight up clueless asshole over there. No thank. I swear I saw someone in the comments come super close to calling him a ‘brave hero’.
FAKE EDIT:
OH FER FUCKS SAKE
Justice isn’t here right now.
Thank you Tony! and ceesays. Thank you PZ for highlighting those comments. Can you bring back the Molly awards, or maybe talk Tony! and ceesays into starting the two newest FTB blogs?
Don’t Shoot!
Following the scant info on the murder of Ezell Ford now. I feel so sick.
Jeff S @ 88
I can paraphrase JT’s post without even looking at it: [insert a load of clueless, privilege-blind, masturbatory tripe here]. You know how I know that? Because it applies to everything JT writes that isn’t about either religion or specifically his own mental illness and the only reason it doesn’t apply to what he says about religion is that he’s just parroting arguments made by much less ignorant people.
sambarge (#19)
Not only have people found it funny, there have been a number of white people making “satirical” versions starring themselves.
The real deal makes me cry because it shows how personal it is for black people. How much they have to live with this consciousness that they could be murdered by cops at any time and then demonized afterward. Nobody should have to live that way.
Fox News has been consistent is demonstrating how NOT to report on the killing of a young black man. Fox News contributor Todd Starnes has come up with yet one more way to be an asshole:
Daily Kos link.
In addition, Starnes noted a “pattern” of Obama decrying the deaths of other unarmed black men. As Daily Kos noted:
A. Noyd:
Yes. What also struck me was a lot of young people in casual or party clothes, clothing which would be considered perfectly okay, if they just had white skin. It seriously drives home the bias we’re all drowning in.
Inaji
Yeah. A visual point about that is made quite well in this Tumblr post.
A Jezebel article touched on it as well.
I should really stop reading the comments over there, but really, claiming that you are moderating heavily to “prevent a war”? Hyperbole much?
Yazikus, you never know when literal lynchings and witch hunts are going to happen online.
I once had a close encounter with a couple of deputies in St Charles county, just across the river. I would not trust them very far.
Speaking of how people are dressed, why are the cops dressed like soldiers?
Menyambal:
Because they’ve gone military rogue. They have tanks and helicopters, too. Read here: http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/america-is-not-for-black-people-1620169913/+GregHoward1
it strikes me as sad, and odd that we have a lot of time in a news hour.
We can cover both Robin Williams passing and the ongoing tragedy that’s happening to people of color. Not just black men and women, but latinos and asians too.
As someone who is both extremely depressed and of color, it really rends my heart to see this happen.
upthread:
Are you sure?
the parallels are rather striking, and not just in the duds.
Police in Ferguson Fire Tear Gas on Protesters Standing in Their Own Backyard
I can’t speak for everywhere, but the local Internet news coverage here in Washington has been fairly light on Williams, but the coverage on KOMO online looked like this:
8/11 – One article on Williams re: his death on the “front page”
8/11 – Two articles on Ferguson, one on the “front page” and a second, separate article on the “front page” of National/World news
8/12 – One article on Williams in Entertainment re: unreleased films
8/12 – One article on “front page” of National/World news
I also can’t speak for everyone, but Robin Williams was a cultural icon for me. I grew up, more or less, with the guy. He made me laugh and sometimes in this world, that’s enough to earn people’s gratitude. His death has served as a jumping off place for bloggers and others to talk about mental illness and you’d agree, I think, that that’s a discussion worth having.
Your initial post, for better or worse, smacks of the “Dear Muslima” letter–“There’s an atrocity over here! Why are you paying attention to that over there?!?” We can’t care about both? I can’t be sorry for the one and outraged by the other? I can’t work for justice on the one hand while mourning on the other? Perhaps I should get a refund from Doctors Without Borders for sending in a donation while mourning my father’s death.
As for that “63 year old white comedian”:
“Yeatts said Williams also performed shows in 2007 and 2008, raising nearly $50,000 for the organization, just as the economy was collapsing and need was skyrocketing. Never once did Williams ask for any recognition.” – http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2014/08/13/robin-williams-food-bank/13988945/
That “rich white guy” did shows at the Showbox in Seattle. All of his earnings there were donated to the Seattle Food bank (that’s the “organization” mentioned above). Sounds like he was trying to make things better. Concentrate your ire on the media, the audience that demands that sort of news, the lack of funding into better understanding mental illness, the vultures that demand celebrity autopsy reports and maybe treat someone who made people laugh, who tried to help out those less fortunate and his illness didn’t grant him the luxury of living with a little less contempt.
Ferguson cops gassing people last night: https://twitter.com/kodacohen/status/499431877032570881/photo/1
Taiki, both Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow were able to to cover both stories on Monday night. And Chris Hayes was able to fit an interview of the young man who was with Micheal Brown when he was murdered. So, yeah, it can be done. But most of the nes producers do not want to do so.
The ACLU published a detailed report on the militarization of police forces across the US, and the effect that is having on communities.
https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/jus14-warcomeshome-report-web-rel1.pdf
I saw this coming over a decade ago.
The 1% are afraid of you. This is the result.
canonicalkoi, if all you want to do is memorialize Williams and scold PZ, take it to the previous thread. In this thread, why don’t try for something substantial and coherent commentary on Tony’s post (in the OP), or Ceesays’ post (in the OP)? Or perhaps you have something relevant to say about events in Ferguson, or the shooting of Ezell Ford, another unarmed, young black man, coming within days of Mike Brown’s murder. Or how about the death of John Crawford, gunned down in a Walmart?
Perhaps you could share your insights on yesterday, a day when a police force went rogue and shut down a whole town.
Ferguson cops have now decided to interview the key witness to Mike Brown’s shooting, five fucking days after his death.
Info from Antonio French’s twitter feed.
WTF? Sorry, I’ve got nothing else. Just WHAT.THE.FUCK?
Fuck it. I’m posting what I wrote in the other thread, because people are seriously wearing on me.
canonicalkoi, that piece was not an attack on Robin Williams. It was pointing out that the news of a murder, a police fueled riot and paramilitary occupation of a town in the US is being pushed aside for the coverage of a suicide of a celebrity.
And, and I have just pointed out, it is possible to cover both.
But, hey, let’s throw scorn at PZ Myers instead of, say, Bill Fucking O’Reilly and his lecturing of the parents of Micheal Brown.
And for those of you stupid enough to declare that Williams’ wasn’t a wealthy man: https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2014/08/12/robin-williams-brings-joy-to-the-hearts-of-journalists-and-politicians-once-again/comment-page-2/#comment-834703
A Noyd.
FUCK. THEM.
Holy shit. It has been around for, what, three days at most, and already privileged white assholes are shitting it up or outright mocking what should be a witty commentary on American racism? Satirizing satire? Turning anti-racism right back into normal racism?
God fucking dammit. The stupidity and underlying bigotry of privileged little shits in this country are just too much to fucking bear sometimes.
This is a followup to Pteryxx’s link in comment #51.
Daily Kos link.
canonicalkoi (#126)
Why couldn’t Brown’s murder serve as a jumping off place for a discussion of mental illness? If you don’t know how the two are connected, even with Tony and ceesays’ comments in the OP, then you’re just proving how deficient the sort of discussions of mental illness that you find comfortable are.
Lynna:
Just went and read the stories. Jesus wept. Jesus fuckin’ wept. Then vomited.
I noted the cop in that video fully enabled the mall cop to do something I never thought mall cops could do.
kidnap someone.
because basically, that IS what this mall cop did. went into public ground where there was a protest going on, assaulted a person with pepper spray, then abducted them into private property (the mall).
if that is legal now in the US, you guys are seriously, seriously fucked.
It means private security can abuse your rights as they please, and with full support from government infrastructure.
you think having a bunch of corrupt cops is bad…. now you’ve got “Blackwater” to deal with.
It really is a war on terrorism. And the 1% has decided YOU are the terrorists.
My heart goes out to all of you who are directly affected by this horrible situation. From my position of safety, I have been watching the unfolding of recent events in the USA with mounting horror. The police, armed and dressed like an invading army, apparently randomly and without penalty arresting and shooting the very people they are supposed to be protecting.
There is no answer to any of the “Why?!” questions going through my head.
I briefly thought it was almost a civil war – but what kind of civil war is it when one side has all the power, all the weapons, all the rights – and enough influence over enough of the media to spin it that the hostilities are the fault of the victims?
For those people who want to get OUTRAGED about people being insensitive about Robin Williams’ death, perhaps the best target isn’t PZ for his criticism of the media’s priorities, but rather at whoever was involved in this:
http://www.avclub.com/article/robin-williams-daughter-posts-lovely-tribute-besie-208098?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:1:Default
Sounds like you’re talking about the situation in the Ukraine, doesn’t it?
or Egypt.
or Syria.
or…
There’s no link yet that I could find, but I thought everyone should know that This Week in Blackness is heading out to Missouri to try and get views on the ground. Follow them on Twitter and YouTube and the main site to see updates. They should be in tomorrow afternoon.
(cross-posting this on both threads)
This is a great roundup of articles and tweets: http://rebelmetropolis.org/be-proud-americans-still-know-how-to-riot/
Pteryxx @77
Here’s the tweet you were looking for:
I’m seeing the argument made that this isn’t relevant to the atheist blogosphere because it doesn’t have anything to do with religion, and I have to say, not true. Both Rev.’s Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson have gone to the community to lend their voices. Where is the secular support for communities like Ferguson? Why aren’t our ‘thought-leaders’ headed that way to console Michael’s family? This is going down right now and it is damn on-point for the atheist community.
Yazikus, I would rather that atheists and secular humanists help out in the name of humanity and social justice instead of scoring points for ATHEISM.
And, frankly, I would rather that many self appointed leaders of atheist thought say nothing because many of them are racists and/or supporters of authoritarian actions.
Yazikus:
You’d think it was damn important to all people.
When the dust settles, Mike Brown will be memorialised by the media and the establishment as the catalyst for violent disorder. People will wring their hands and call for dialogue to understand why the black community is so uniquely full of violent rage.
And they will forget that Mike Brown was a person and not an icon. And they will not see that anger is an appropriate response to murderous injustice. And they will not understand that the rage is exactly what they would feel if faced with same constant threat.
Photographs of people who should be remembered as victims of a racist, violent, and corrupt state, quickly become shorthand for what is wrong with black people, as the focus shifts in the media to the critical questions of did he come from a broken home?; did he have a criminal record? ; did he graduate?; did he have a job? ; was he scary-looking-black?; did he love his mother? ; was he poor?
And none of it to understand the man, but to decide which archetype he fitted into. And to avoid asking whether any of that matters to racist police officers whose instinct is to kill black people at slightest provocation.
falstaff @86:
says the idiot using a gendered slur who can’t even get the name of the blog host correct.
SC:
Please don’t do this here and now.
Goodbye Enemy Janine,
If I didn’t convey that I agree with you completely, blame it on my poor writing. This article is heart breaking http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/13/parents-show-up-atstlouisproteststosaythatcouldhavebeenmyson.html and this is such a widespread problem in many communities. I just wish people would stop making excuses and take notice.
–
Inaji, I wish that it were. It is rage-making and heart-breaking all at once. I wondered upthread, but maybe I missed it, are there any ways we can support those communities now? Are they in need of funds? (Not that you would know specifically, but maybe had seen something I missed).
you’re not a doctor. your delusions about medical research don’t count.
you’re just as dangerous to people who suffer depression as homeopaths are to people suffering from curable cancer.
Yazikus:
Yes, there are funds for Mike Brown’s parents, and for a school project of Antonio French’s. You can find most of them linked on Antonio French’s twitter feed.
canonicalkoi:
It is. Shame the mainstream media isn’t having that discussion. They’re focused on the celebrity aspect of Robin Williams, rather than the very real problems he was dealing with.
For that matter, why aren’t you talking about this here, rather than criticizing PZ who’s entire point was that the media is giving a disproportionate amount of attention to the death of a celebrity while ignoring the militarization of law enforcement and the systematic ongoing racism faced by African Americans at the hands of the police in the US?
For the billionth time, PZ’s post isn’t ‘Dear Muslima’. He’s not dismissing the death of Robin Williams. He’s not saying the media *shouldn’t* cover it. It could be argued that he’s saying that the death of a celebrity, no matter how tragic, doesn’t trump the ongoing discrimination, oppression and disenfranchisment of a minority group in the US, which is something that’s been going on for centuries. Is a celebrities’ death equal to that?
yazikus:
::rolls eyes::
Of course, because religion is the biggest problem in the world and if we get rid of that, there’s nothing else to worry about and we all get mansions and paid 4 bazillion dollars a month and everyone has fresh linen scented shit.
Tony,
Yeppers, I guess that is all we need to do. I saw someone get banned because in gently and politely pointing out that several of the blogs calling our PZ had yet to write an article about Michael Brown, and the blogger felt that this was a shaming tactic (trying to force him to blog about things he did not want to blog about), and banned him.
Yazikus:
FFS, we can’t even get people commenting in the two threads here to talk about Mike Brown and Ferguson! I’ve about typed my fingers off saying the same fucking thing over and over, and so has Tony and a few others.
Weapons drawn at today’s daylight protest. Snipers. Swat. Tanks. A fucktonne of cops playing soldier.
SWAT overlooks protesters.
Happening right now in Ferguson.
State Sen @MariaChappelleN: If they’re going to tear gas us, let them do it in the light of day.“
Inaji:
There’s been a few times when I almost threw up my hands (and obviously once, when I did; although it really was time to go to sleep), but I kept going because this pushback needs to happen. Obviously I’m not the only one, there are many other people here and in the Robin Williams thread who are reiterating the point, but it does get to you at some point (and I know you’ve been doing stuff like this longer than I have, so I can only imagine how frustrated you are). Today, for the first time in more than 2 months I’ve had some very good luck come my way. Luck that I needed. I am grateful for that, but this still needs to be done.
People need to understand the extent to which racism permeates the US.
People need to understand that people who are not white deal with institutionalized racism on an exceedingly regular basis.
People need to understand that the things minorities deal with are life shattering and that they’re part of ongoing struggles just to live.
People need to see us-black people, LGBT people, women, hispanics, asians, people with disabilities-they need to see us as human.
The media and society at large needs to portray all of us as humans who have rights.
They need to give attention to our struggles.
The need to treat us like we matter.
Right now, the way things are, our stories don’t matter. When they’re discussed, they’re giving short shrift. This fucking pisses me off. It makes me want to puke. And I’m not talking about just the axis of discrimination that I face. Yes, those affect me in many ways, but I’m only one of many who are affected by bigotry and discrimination. There are others who experience things just as bad, and many, many more who face far worse. There are many people who are not heard. There are many people that want, and need to be heard.
And they fucking damn well deserve to be heard and treated like human beings.
This country needs to wake up and recognize this, and I damn well feel it is my duty to help out however I can.
(I know Inaji knows, but the anger in the above post is not directed at her. It’s an expression of my rage at the status quo, using her comments as a springboard to discuss my feelings.)
Holy Shit. The police are actively blocking cars from entering Ferguson right now (from Inaji’s links).
PZ
You’re confusing the hell out of me.
How did you want and expect people to react to your “Robin Williams brings joy to the hearts of journalists and politicians once again” post?
Are you saying that isn’t the case? But… that’s what the advertising flyer I got in the mail said. Damn, all these years…
Good thing the authorities in Ferguson are doing all they can to protect one of their murdering cops.
The police started the riot in Ferguson and it is the police who keep fueling the flames.
Inaji:
I’m still fucking shocked that there are SWAT teams there. Military grade weapons. Snipers. WTF?!
BTW, is there a rough estimate of the number of protesters?
Hey, I could be wrong, but seemed a pretty clear indictment of the media to me. As to how to react to that… there’s a million things you could do.
you chose to post your confusions here though.
interesting reaction.
Because that is the most important issue being discussed here.
*eyeroll*
If atheists, as atheists, are only supposed to talk about atheism, then what possible good would it do the world to make more of them?
It appears the media have been misspelling new navelgazeism all along.
She looks so dangerous.
Daniel Schealler @ 163, please, do not fucking start again. Can we not have one fucking thread where we don’t have people moaning about PZ or Williams? As I wrote in the other thread:
Why are you continuing to talk about PZ instead of talking about the deaths of POC at the hands of police? Why in the fuck aren’t you talking about what happened and is happening in Ferguson? What is wrong with you that you would rather obsess over PZ and Williams instead of talk about the implications of the increasing militarization of police forces and the appalling actions they have been taking all over the country? FFS, why aren’t you paying attention?
@Gppdbue Enemyu Janine
Post Title: “Even atheists have sacred cows”.
How people reacted to people to react to the “Robin Williams brings joy to the hearts of journalists and politicians once again” post is the topic of this post.
Had the post of this title been: “Ferguson and the media’s complicity in celebrity culture” then you might have a point.
Roll your eyes as much as you want. If PZ continues to frame the issue of Ferguson and the media’s complicity in celebrity culture by making his posts about other things then don’t get snarky when some people focus on those other things.
I’m sticking within the bounds of how PZ framed this issue. If you don’t like that framing, take it up with PZ, not me.
Janine @ 170:
Jesus. I’m shaking just looking at all those weapons and the people prepared to use them. Fuck, how can anyone ever feel safe? If I ever have to be within 20 yards of a cop, I’d probably piss myself.
Daniel:
Perhaps in the way that many of us *have* responded. Surely you’ve read the comments in both threads. I get that the reactions haven’t all been the same, but some people have managed to understand what PZs’ point was (and among them are some people who have even criticized the way he went about it, but haven’t lost sight of the point he was making–see Louis for instance).
The police set fires. it’s firefighters who are tasked with putting them out.
Sure, they’ll side with property over people. But they’ll happily sacrifice property if it means killing people.
Tony:
You and me both. I can hardly believe my eyes. The townspeople of Ferguson have a hell of a lot of courage. Oh, Antonio French tweeted that he was barred from the Prosecutor’s press conference because he was official media. He’s an alderman, and a formal journalist, but nope, he’s not allowed in.
I don’t know, I’ll see if #Ferguson has anything. Protests aren’t just in Ferguson, they’re taking place in nearby towns like Clayton, too.
careful; public urination is an arrestable offense in many counties.
http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defense/sex-crimes/public-urination-law-penalty.htm
From a police bullhorn in Ferguson.
Good to know.
no….
you’re sticking within the bounds of how you decided he framed this issue.
others decided differently, yet you continue to ignore their PoV.
one has to wonder WHAT THE FUCK YOUR POINT REALLY IS.
just your ability to feel safe doing so.
sorry, but when you use a giant APC, with a cop in military fatigues sporting a sniper rifle or machine gun sitting on top….
that’s intimidation turned into terrorism.
Daniel Schealler, blow it out your ass.
Seriously, I do not give a flying fuck about your willful confusion.
You can go elsewhere to find people who are condemning PZ about what an inhumane monster he is. They are rather easy to find.
Salty Current @ 93
Why on earth would you think now is an appropriate moment to mount that hobbyhorse?
Police have moved tank and repositioned to face protesters on sidewalk across the street.
Main roads blocked off. Found a back way. I’m back at the QT in #Ferguson
An insanity of cops.
It’s amazing the difference in direction the police force has taken here in New Zealand.
Instead of their entire focus being on intimidation the public into coercion, they do the exact opposite and try to defuse situations.
they don’t dress like the military, most don’t even carry a firearm, let alone use them.
the US had more police shootings in the last 10 days, alone, than the entire country of New Zealand has had in the last 20 YEARS.
people in the US have put up with this intimidation approach for long enough, really. It needs to be changed root and stem.
Normally, I hate children being used for photos like these no matter what the political meaning is…
but, dammit, the troops are in their neighborhood.
like a murder of crows?
Ichthyic:
Yeah, it is. That alone is bad enough. On top of that, though, is the ugly fact that this has now been going on for five fucking days. And in those five days, not one response from our Prez, outside a tepid statement. No national guard to put the cops down. No Federal response, putting those cops on a leash. Nope, nothing.
the thin blue line has gone khaki…
We cannot guarantee your safety. We will not be answering 911 calls.
Ichthyic:
Yes.
they left out a couple of words there…
fixed.
Daniel:
You don’t see how American obsession with celebrity culture blinds people to ongoing atrocities and civil rights violations?
You don’t see how many, many people care more about celebrities than the ongoing systematic oppression of minority groups?
This problem of celebrity culture didn’t just crop up overnight. Myself, I’ve been wondering about it for years. Why does the media care so much about the royal wedding or the royal baby or the Kardashians? I find it odd to care so deeply about the intimate lives of people I will never meet like Kim Kardashian, but I accept that there are people out there that have different interests (big shock there). My problem is that the media is saturated with stories of celebrities to the detriment of stories that impact and affect millions of Americans.
• Marriage equality is a topic that affects millions of Americans directly (and indirectly affects many more inasmuch as our allies care about and support us). Now I’m not saying the media doesn’t cover marriage equality stories, but what about the deeper message being sent about the denial of rights for lesbians and gays. Where is the discussion about what it means to deny queer people their rights? Shouldn’t *that* denial of basic rights warrant more time than the most recent time Lindsay Lohan was released from rehab?
• There is ongoing brutalization of trans women and trans men across the country and the entire planet. When these stories are reported (which is rare in mainstream media), they’re treated as isolated stories. Where is the media discussion of the rights of trans women and trans men? Not just the murders (they need to tell these stories too, of course), but what these murders mean. How they affect a community. Where is the discussion of the right to self-determination of all human beings? Where is the discussion of why it’s a good idea to remember that cis women aren’t the only ones with uteruses?
• Abortion rights. When they’re discussed in the media, where is the depth? Where is the mention that the right of women to have access to abortion is a right they all have? Where is the discussion that women, like men, have full bodily autonomy and have the right to make decisions about their bodies and no one has the right to infringe on that right? The abortion discussion in the media stops without digging deeper…without engaging the fundamental rights being denied women.
• what about the separation of church and state? This is mentioned in the media from time to time, but where is the analysis behind it? Where is the attempt to educate the ignorant fools who don’t understand it? Where is the attempt to explain how vitally important it is to people who believe in gods and those that don’t?
When the media discusses these issues, they often do not offer up an in-depth discussion. They skim the surface. There are human beings that are directly affected by each of these human rights denials. There are human beings who are suffering right now across the country and this entire planet. The discussion of human rights violations should not begin and end with one story. For all that it is extremely tragic that Mike Brown was murdered (and it is a huge tragedy), there is a deeper, and more profound story there. There is a story of racism. There is a story of institutionalized, systemic oppression of a minority group stretching back for centuries. There is a story of the hugely disproportionate incarceration rate of blacks compared to the rest of the population. There is so much more depth to the struggles of black people in the US. The dots are there. They are easily connected.
Yet the media would rather focus on the lives of celebrities than connect the dots that would allow people to see how badly minorities are treated in the United States. Yes, they may think it’s about their viewers and it probably is. Yes, they may think its about money and it probably is. But it’s also about whom they value. It’s about which people they think are more newsworthy. It’s about their priorities.
PZ’s two posts are pointing out that their priorities are fucked up, and people like you (whom I normally enjoy reading commments by) are missing the point time and time again. Please stop dodging and ducking the point. Let it hit you square in the noggin. Please, please, please GET IT.
At this point, if it meant the lives of ONE person in this country would benefit from it, I would BEG people to get the point.
A scene from a McDonald’s in Ferguson.
Anthony K (#175)
I’m so mad I only learned about the MOVE bombing a few months ago.
Janine:
What in the godsdamn fuckety fuck fuck is going on there? This can’t be happening. It’s happening. Right now.
In talking about this issue last night with my partner, she brought up the idea that likely one of the big driving forces in how the US is so different from most of the rest of the Western world in how their police forces are trained and utilized is likely due to the ever increasing gun culture the US sports.
Cops know that a majority of people in the US favor every motherfucker and their grandma being able to carry around assault weapons. Their escalation in the application of deadly force at least in part may be a response to that.
And why is that?
Are those people not worth responding to?
Are their lives not worth saving?
It seems that journalists are being arrested.
I’d like an answer to that, too. Why in hell aren’t most Americans asking that question, yelling that question?
Tony, I would assume because all personal are already on the street, creating the problems that people would call 911 for.
Here two good pics of the same event Inaji provided links to a few dozen comments ago:
“A massive SWAT team just showed up to peaceful demonstration in #ferguson https://vine.co/v/MYH3tmYBn9X ”
https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/499689438092726273
“I counted 70+ SWAT officers. Guns trained on crowds. Insanity.”
https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/499691017533403137
This is fucking obscene. Why isn’t this all over the news?
Everyone of these cops should be dismissed and charged. Fuck, those whole departments should be dismantled.
They are holding a whole damned neighborhood hostage and terrorizing residents for what? Not being fearful enough?
PZ seems entirely oblivious just like Dawkins when it comes to rape. Keep digging that hole deeper.
scourge99:
Please read my comment @193. It deals with the issue of celebrity culture in the US. Then perhaps you could read the rest of the thread.
someone in the tweet stream there said that you don’t have to show your ID to cops on request because “this is america”.
wrong.
At this point, I do believe that ALL states in the US have laws on the books requiring citizens to show proper ID on request by police.
Been that way in most states I’m aware of for a LONG time now. It was even used in the 70s to break up protests, though here it is likely going to be used to first find out what the reporters have seen or heard, and then to likely figure out who needs to be told to shut up.
Ichthyic @ 197, the militarization of police forces started with the ‘war on drugs’. The feds handed out all this serious gear to one force after another, which they started using, because they had to justify having it. That was the beginning of the crumbling clusterfuck we are watching right now.
I will leave this here without comment. Afraid I will say something to inflammatory.
Compared to your obvious obliviousness since you haven’t read and understood the posts. You are in illiterate, presuppositional, and stupid idjit.
Janine at 199: Yep. It looks like it was most likely the two reporters, Ryan Reilly and Wesley Lowery. Their last tweets were 20 minutes ago, and tweet about seeing two arrested reporters coming out of the same McDonald’s they were posting from was made 15 minutes ago. Jesus fucking Christ. This shit is unreal. I literally cannot believe that something like this is happening.
scourge99
Fuck off slyme. You are using THE KING’s newest talking point.
@Goodbye Enemy Janine, @Ichthyic, @Inaji, @anyone else who responded to me since I started writing this
Fact: PZ was intentionally offensive talking about Robin William’s death in the previous post.
Fact: PZ opened this post by talking about how other people responded to his post about Robin William’s death by pointing out how offended they were. He gave several examples of such responses.
PZ is framing this issue in such a way as to draw focus away from the very thing that you’re all angry at me for taking focus away from.
Please be consistent. If you’re angry at me for drawing focus, then you should be angry at PZ too.
PZ is either this on purpose, which makes him (in this localized instance only) an asshole.
Or he’s doing it unintentionally, which makes him (in this localized instance only) a correctable dumbass.
If PZ and the rest of you don’t like how people are following the red flag of PZ’s misdirection rather than the more important issue of Ferguson, then PZ should stop misdirecting people and actually focus on the actual issues of what’s going on in Ferguson.
I asked the question earlier not because I was JAQing of, but because in my first draft I of that comment I wrote up something more like this, but realized that I might be missing something on PZ’s end. So I sought clarification before jumping to conclusions.
But this is clearly distressing all of you too much given the context of what’s going on in Ferguson. Which is totally understandable.
As I don’t want to cause you any more distress than I already have, I’ll stop.
…btw, the issue of whether it was constitutional (see 4th amendment) for states to pass laws requiring ID to be shown on request was decided by SCOTUS in … 2004.
-wiki
The world changed in 2001, but it wasn’t because of the “terrorists”. It was because of the threats to security the 1% were feeling.
And we all just let it happen, because we were too afraid and confused to do anything to stop it.
shock and awe indeed.
Anteprepro:
Oh gods. Why is this not being stopped? This keeps escalating…sooner or later, one of those toy soldiers is going to open fire.
For that matter, what exactly is PZ oblivious to? He hasn’t dismissed the death of Robin Williams. He hasn’t told people they can’t care about the death of a famous celebrity. He’s criticizing the media attention. That’s a far cry from what Dawkins did.
FFS people, employ that skepticism this community values so much. Use those critical thinking skills. Look at what PZ wrote: all of it. Stop focusing on one or two things and look at the big picture.
Once again, more than a few of us have criticized PZ for the insensitivity in his OP, but that doesn’t change the message; criticize him for that all you want, just as Louis did, but recognize his larger point. Engage that.
(that’s another difference between Dawkins’ ‘Dear Muslima’ and PZ’s posts. PZ isn’t trying to dismiss the concerns of a group of oppressed people. He’s trying to signal boost the concerns of a group of oppressed people by saying “HEY MEDIA?! This shit is important too!”)
…says the man holding the pick-axe.
Daniel:
whether or not you respond, I hope you’ll read my comment @193. It directly addresses your problems with PZ’s posts (if I’ve interpreted them correctly), and shows why PZ’s tactics are appropriate.
“Papers, please.”
you have a very odd definition of the word “fact”, since there is nothing of the sort in this post by PZ. The exampes were not of people who were offended by PZ, at all.
Your PoV is whack.
better get that checked.
now run along, fuckwit.
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm
Citation needed. Your assertions are dismissed.
Nope, you refuse to see the truth which is YOU ARE WRONG, and you are doing nothing but mental masturbation to refuse to acknowledge you can be and are wrong.
Daniel:
I’m not angry at you.
I’m frustrated that you’re stuck on one point and missing the bigger picture and the deeper message.
Daniel Schealler, what part of I do not give a fuck what you have to say did you not understand.
Will not read.
And please kindly crawl out the window when you leave.
Snipers rifles aimed at unarmed American citizens right now in St. Louis, MO. #Ferguson
I’m going to backtrack on that a bit, and assume you ignored 99% of what was posted in this OP to focus instead on:
In which case, my response still stands, with correction noted.
your PoV is whack.
Daniel Schealler @212
Why should I be angry at PZ? Okay, he said something a bit inelegantly but that doesn’t raise my anger. You, on the other hand, have been whining about PZ being “offensive.” Tone trolling is much more likely to get me angry than writing a clumsy sentence. Your post @212 is just one long justification for your tone trolling.
Thank you for finally shutting up.
Yeah, PZ, why are you so oblivious to the fact that every year, there are 237,868 cases of Sad About Robin Williams? This translates into 17.7 million American women and 2.78 million men.
Scourge99, have you reported your case of Sad About Robin Williams to the authorities? There are a whole bunch in Ferguson, Missouri, standing by right now to serve and protect you.
Daniel:
I’m angry with you because you insist on obsessing over PZ, and one more time:
Why are you continuing to talk about PZ instead of talking about the deaths of POC at the hands of police? Why in the fuck aren’t you talking about what happened and is happening in Ferguson? What is wrong with you that you would rather obsess over PZ and Williams instead of talk about the implications of the increasing militarization of police forces and the appalling actions they have been taking all over the country? FFS, why aren’t you paying attention?
Meanwhile in Mainstream Media:
On yahoo.com, in the list of news items, Ferguson is the 21st item, beat out by “beauty pageant contestant insurance fraud” twice for some reason.
On CNN, it is the third of nine Editor’s Choice items, beaten by Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall, but beating Justin Bieber and “Polar Bear”.
On MSNBC.com, this is their top item: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/ferguson-police-chief-people-just-want-continue-fight.
On NBC News, out of the top items I can see on the page, the first was Robin Williams. There was also an article about Iraq, about a 5 day ceasefire between Israel and Palestine, an article about Hillary and Obama “hugging it out”, and below all that an article about Ferguson: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown-shooting/michael-brown-death-ferguson-police-chief-asks-calm-n179936
(Beware it has an autoplaying video. Also, it appears to be just uncritically regurgitating a police representative’s word on the matter)
Fox News has absolutely nothing about it on their front page. Because Fox News.
And the story is third in a list of headlines on ABC news website, with other major headlines involving Iraq and Ebola.
Tony! The Queer Shoop:
The media makes money by attracting viewers. Not just because they report the news. They are going to report what they think the people are most interested in hearing about.
Most people aren’t interested in reading about another minority getting killed (possibly murdered) by police. They are more interested in hearing about how an actor who has produced well known and liked movies through the decades has died.
You can whine and moan about how there are far more important and worthwhile stories all you want. And you’d be right. But it doesn’t change the reality of the situation at all.
For some reason, I keep wanting to compare what is going on in Ferguson to the bombing of Tulsa in 1921.
There’s a dystopic video game with that very title available on Steam right now. For some strange reason, it’s set in a stylised Soviet state in the 1980s instead of modern-day USA. Suppressing freedom of movement and association must only be bad if it’s done by someone wearing an уша́нка.
And the slyme comes back with some “hard truths”.
Just go away. There is a pit where people will admire your insights.
My partner and I were just discussing that image. He made a reference to dystopian novels/movies like Catching Fire. Seems like dystopian sci-fi is what happens when white fictional people experience what real brown people experience. This shit is happening right fucking now.
Good. Obama could have mentioned this immediately; that he was instructing the US attorney’s office to investigate.
but, opportunity missed.
one can only hope not deliberately.
scourge99:
So…what? We should throw our hands up in the air and not try to make the world a better place? No one should try to signal boost and raise the consciousness of others? We should just accept the status quo and not make any effort to change things?
Wow, you are a privileged asshole.
Some of us don’t like the state of things. Some of us think they suck. Some of us think it’s a worthwhile goal to TRY to do something to help the plight of others.
Since you’re content to sit back and do nothing while your fellow humans suffer, please take this opportunity to fuck off to infinity and beyond you callous asspimple.
Also: You can find a news story about Ferguson on CBS News’s front page if you scroll halfway down it.
And, I did not see this coming: nothing on BBC’s main front page. Even though it does have SEVERAL articles about Robin Williams. However, if you look specifically at the US news, there are two articles about Ferguson right at the top.
Verdict: Media is paying a little attention but is doing a shit job of giving this the attention it deserves, as we all suspected.
Just caught this via my twitter feed: livestream from Ferguson.
Welp, I guess the atheist movement can pack up. Most people are interested in being religious.
scourge99:
Really, why are you here?
You’ve already criticized PZ. You’ve already shown you either don’t get, or don’t accept his point.
You’ve shown that you don’t care about the subject of the militarization of an American city.
You’ve shown that the status quo is something that we should all just “deal with”.
Your point has been made. No need to add another word.
Although, I’d really love it if you read PZ’s post for comprehension, and if you read the tweets people have posted, and read my comment in the OP, and you read carlie’s, comment in the OP, and you read ceesays’ comment and realized that what we are talking about is of grave importance. I’d love it if you apologized for your insensitivity in the face of the ongoing denial of civil rights of your fellow humans. I’d love it if you realized that you’re not living up to the values of humanism. I’d love it if you decided to be a decent human being.
Don’t worry, I’m not holding my breath.
Janine – I just learned about the Tulsa town burning a few days ago, the very day that Mike Brown was killed. I listened to the story on a podcast in the morning, then turned on twitter in the evening and saw things unfolding. It really did a number on my brain, let me tell you.
Bull-fucking-shit. The media make the news. A good storyteller can make people interested in any story, you just have to know how to tell it. Do not blame viewers for what the media does.
If there are 70+ cops (SWAT or otherwise) in Ferguson, that means they’re being imported from elsewhere or are ad-hoc cops. Ferguson PD only has about 50 sworn.
The Ferguson Chief gave a (truly impressive) presser not long ago where he expressed astonishment that the Black community doesn’t trust the cops. He also replied to a question from a member of the Missouri state legislature if they were going to get gassed again with “I hope not.”
Jebus.
Anteprepro:
I, I don’t understand…I don’t understand what is going on. I don’t understand why facism has rolled up, swallowed a town, and beauty pageant fraud and dead celebs are more important? Oh, we are so fucked.
Shorter scourge99 @230
Changing peoples’ attitudes is too hard. We should be thankful for the scraps of gossip and chit-chat the media tosses to us.
Tony! The Queer Shoop:
No one asked you to bend over and take it Tony. But you are comically mistaken if you think you are doing ANYTHING productive posting in the comments section of a blog amongst a horde of trolls and imbeciles. At the very most you’re preaching to the choir.
[BYE. –pzm]
Also: the SWAT team arrested a pair of journalists (@WesleyLowery and @ryanjreilly), roughed them up, and then released them.
The Ferguson CoP was asked to comment on this.
His response (AND I AM NOT JOKING) was to say, “Oh, God.”
Just trying to change some minds, I would guess. C’est la vie is for black folks, apparently.
It doesn’t change the reality that is happening in Ferguson with you vapid RW economics either. News organizations should be about the news. Which is why they should be non-profit centers, run for the public good. You can always switch to Entertainment Tonight for your fare.
scourge99: That line is such bullshit. To some degree the media needs to focus on what people care about to keep their interest. To another degree, the media actually does the opposite, and their focus on stories actively shapes the things that people care about. And above it all, the news media by ethical demands needs to balance those two. They cannot be a propaganda network like Fox News, spinning and actively trying to shape public opinion. Nor can they can be shameless panderers, trying to get ratings and not caring about anything but that. The news media are vital. They need to be truthful. Because they are valuable and trusted resources, informing the general public. If they exploit that fact, in either direction, they cause tremendous social damage. Which is why they NEED to be criticized when they are not properly doing their job.
scourge99 @ 245
That just begs the question of “Well then why the fuck are YOU here?” Go away and do something productive then, if this is such a waste of time. Fucking transparent puddle of slyme.
Detained and released.
For what it’s worth, MSNBC has been giving a good deal of coverage to the horribleness in Ferguson during the last several hours since I turned them on.
You know, when the daughters were wee little things, I taught them to smile and wave at the nice policemen when they saw them. I sure wouldn’t do that now, because someone might just take it amiss. And I’m white, and middle-class. What is happening to this country, and how can we make it better?
The Stasi loved people like scourge99.
<blockquote cite="But you are comically mistaken if you think you are doing ANYTHING productive posting in the comments section of a blog amongst a horde of trolls and imbeciles.
Because it is unpossible that people could be learning details they did not know before or even having their opinions changed.
Just go away you waste of slyme.
OK, since you brought it up….
Hey, fuckwit:
What WOULD change the reality of the situation, and WHY THE FUCK do you not think it worth discussing here?
I expect a big silence in response, because I’m pretty sure you don’t give a shit.
sigh
<blockquote cite="But you are comically mistaken if you think you are doing ANYTHING productive posting in the comments section of a blog amongst a horde of trolls and imbeciles.
Because it is unpossible that people could be learning details they did not know before or even having their opinions changed.
Just go away you waste of slyme.
I give up.
And you’re here because…
Let me transcribe the twitter tale of the arrested reporters:
https://twitter.com/WesleyLowery
“Was arrested. Also Ryan Reilly of Huff Po. Assaulted and arrested.
Officers decided we weren’t living McDonalds quickly enough, shouldn’t have been taping them
Released without any charges, no paperwork whatsoever
Refusing to give us names of any of the officers
Officers slammed me into a fountain soda machine because I was confused about which door they were asking me to walk out of
Was waiting to be taken away, large black man SCREAMING for help in back of police truck
They refused his several calls for paramedics
“I’m dying. I’m dying. Please call help he screamed”. They mocked him.
Detained, booked, given answers to no questions. Then just let out….
Got no explanation at any point why in custody other than “trespassing” – at a mcdonalds where we were customers”
Responding in this way, you are a dick on Dawkins level.
It appears Scourge99 is nothing but another loud-mouthed illiterate unthinking sloganeering liberturd, who doesn’t give a shit about anyone other than themselves. Typical of the breed. BORING.
hmm. so what would happen if the governor called up the National Guard… and had them send the cops home.
Also he says “I’m emotional but need to note: Ryan and I are fine. Have seen people in Ferguson hurt by gas/ rubber bullets. This isn’t that”
Ryan Reilly says: https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly
“Unfortunately my last vine featuring the officer who assaulted me was deleted when other my phone died”
Ichthyic,
If there was some easy way I could change the perception of millions of Americans I’d be making billions owning my own marketing or lobbying firm.
I’m not a billionaire. So what’s that tell you?
God, journalists, why do you even cover this shit? You’re sadly mistaken if you think you’re doing anything but preaching to the choir. In other news, the Vietnam War enters its 59th year, but we won’t bore you with the details.
We don’t use sexist slurs here, so try something else, like more than one sentence, and actually knowing what you are talking about before posting, so you can discuss and evidence your views. Otherwise, your unevidenced assertions will be dismissed as fuckwittery.
scourge99:
No one needs to ask me for me to want to do my part to make a better world.
Also, no one needs to ask me to bend over and take it up the ass, because I’m a gay man who likes getting fucked. You can take you damn homophobic comment and get the fuck out now you shithead.
I notice you didn’t even address the meat of my comments.
And to think I actually hoped, for one second that you’d decide to be a better person. But no, you’d rather just enjoy your privilege and continue shitting on all the people around you struggling for scraps. You’re a disgusting, horrible little troll.
And unless you’re fucking psychic, how would you know how much success I (or anyone else) is having? You don’t know who else is reading these comments. You don’t know how many lurkers are reading. You don’t know how many people are on the fence about PZs comments. You don’t know a damn thing. You’re projecting.
Again, WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU HERE?
You clearly aren’t here to add anything of substance. You’ve said your piece. Why hang around?
HAd you said anything like this to my face I would break your nose on behalf of my wife, who suffers form depression, and for whom Williams was a hero in the way he handled his illness over time.
…and that’s why you’re an impediment to actual human beings. Get the fuck out of people’s way, you goddamn living speedbump.
And we welcome yet an other know nothing troll.
Hello, jkpzel! How the fuck are ya!
jkozel:
Vapid response that shows commenter doesn’t understand the point of the post, as well as showing that the commenter hasn’t read the thread #654
jkozel, your toxic masculinity and threats of violence do whatever point you were trying to make no favors.
Oh, he an internet tough guy!
That is so fucking interesting!
tell me, have you applied for local law enforcement positions in your area?
you sound perfect for the job.
Violent imagery.
Lovely.
You’re scum.
Why do you think I find your evidenceless claims dismissable? Because we’ve seen it hundreds of times from PZ haters, they will lie and bullshit at the drop of hat. Evidence, or shut the fuck up.
heh.
on that note. I have had about all I can take of this subject for one day.
Police: Backup 25 feet now.
Dunno if this was in one of the Twitter feeds already linked: Badass throwing a flaming can of tear gas back at the cops
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Ichthyic (#206)
Not exactly. At least in Washington State, you have to identify yourself when the police demand you do so, which can be as little telling them your name. They even have to specifically demand you identify yourself; just demanding you show them your ID isn’t good enough. Although, if you’ve been arrested, they can take measures to identify you if you won’t show them or don’t have ID.
Really, come to think of it, “I will commit violence against you for doing something that slightly upset my poor wittle defenseless life” really is a disturbingly common meme. It’s a macho bullshit twofer: making sure that it is clear that the woman lacks agency and needs to be defended by the man, and ensuring that man is displaying dominance in The One True Macho Fashion, i.e. punches and kicks.
life —–> wife.
Yeah, the Slyme is pouring out of this one.
ooh. that’s a keeper. very powerful image that.
Anteprepro:
No. Oh no. This is so bad.
anteprepro:
The violent imagery shown by our recent troll is indicative of one of the many problems in the US: violence as a means of conflict resolution. The troll thinks that would resolve anything, and thinks making the threat is in any way a good thing. Rather than engage PZ in a respectable manner, xe would rather, if they were face to face, employ tactics that would escalate a situation, rather than de-escalate it. Gosh, where do we see shit like that happening?
My ghast is well and truly flabbered.
HuffPo is paying attention now that one of their reporters was arrested. I don’t know what to make of the fact that I’m having to go to Twitter (yes, I’m a late adopter of that platform) and HuffPo to see what’s going on.
Tony! Thank you for all you’ve written on this.
jkozel:
Thanks for providing an example of the type of empathy deficient, dimwitted asshole who has decided to blithely ignore fascism happening right fucking now in the town of Ferguson. You’re a champ.
If you did this in front of my face, I’d triple suplex you. Then I’d take out my nunchuks, which have machetes in them, and carefully place them in my utility belt, because I still had some hand-to-hand ninja shit to lay on you. But then I’d take my utility belt right off, because it gets in the way when I do a flying dropkick from a hundred meters away, which I can do because I train a lot. In fact, while you were unconscious, I’d probably order a large pizza because I have to consume a lot of calories due to my high metabolism due to my intense training regime. But while I was waiting for that pizza, if you woke up, I’d put you in a reverse chokehold. It seems like that wouldn’t be a thing, and in fact would make me vulnerable, but that’s where you’d be mistaken. In fact, you’ve fallen right into my trap. Because I’m the only person besides my sensei who knows how to get in and out of a reverse chokehold. And that’s when I’d really open up my can of whoopass, of which I carry many on my utility belt, because you never know when you’re going to need more than one and sometimes they come slightly less than full from the factory.
Tony! :
Participation here is voluntary. And I don’t need to explain myself. But i often respond to thoughtful and intelligent responses should you or anyone have any. Your litany of accusations about my beliefs and motivations is undeserving.
@Tony
I responded to your 193 comment over at the Thunderdome if you’re interested. Don’t want to detract further here.
Oh, and then a sniper on a tank aimed at me when I tried to ask a question about what roads were open. That happened.
And while I was typing my previous post
Anne #252
My parents taught me this too. The single time I’ve been pulled over by a cop was immediately after I’d gotten my license (at 17) was driving through a residential neighborhood and I saw a cop I thought I might recognize from my church. So I smiled and waved.
He did a U-turn and followed me with just his lights to see how long it would take me to notice he was back there. Pulled me over and then made up some bullshit about thinking my license plate tags were out of date. Then he left. That was when I learned that eye contact with cops was a *bad* thing.
Liars and bullshitters are so predictable….
scourge99:
No it isn’t. It’s highly deserved. You make yourself out a liar as well, in regard to responding to thoughtful, intelligent comments. There have been plenty of them in this thread. Hell, they’re right there in the OP, by Carlie, Tony, and Ceesays. But now, you wander in, take a shit on the floor, and want thoughtful responses. Not terribly bright, are you?
Actually, you do. To us.
In other words, correct and on target, but show you in the proper bad light. Typical of a liberturd.
scourge 99 then
scourage 99 now
So this is a place of trolls and imbeciles. A place where posting is unproductive. Where there is no point in saying what we are saying.
And from this we can draw no conclusions about why you are posting in this place despite finding it useless. No, certainly not. And we cannot expect you to disclose why you are bothering, because of course not. And we certainly shouldn’t accuse you of anything, because that would be rude, and would we ever be rude to such a civil and intellectual fellow as yourself.
Really, scourge, your comments are a waste of space. Go masturbate in private, no one cares to watch.
One of the reporters arrested works for the Washington Post. Someone pointed out that WaPo has had reporters arrested on the line of duty twice this year:
(1) In Tehran, Iran.
and
(2) In Ferguson, Missouri.
Interesting juxtaposition, there.
Reading and listening to all that I can, I can only conclude that the Ferguson PD genuinely believed that they could kill Mike Brown and face zero consequences. After all, they’d done the like many times before. They are now enraged that this time it’s different.
I haven’t caught up on the thread yet (or the news) but I just saw Rachel Maddow interviewing Wesley Lowery, the Washington Post reporter, who was just arrested in Ferguson for not decamping quickly enough when they shut down the McDonald’s that was serving as a station area for the local journalists. He said with all due respect to Maddow, he’d rather be back on the street covering the protests than speaking to her about himself and his situation.
…Scuse me, I have something in my eye…
Have to love it when a fucking shit throwing troll whose first appearance was to throw a fit whines about the lack of intelligent response.
Pathetic.
I thought this was humorous. From Chris Kluwe on Twitter:
Also poignant: people quoting the phrase “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”
Antonio French @AntonioFrench · 59s
Police helicopter in the air. Occasionally shines light on the crowd.
Antonio French @AntonioFrench · 1m
People running! Tear gas!
https://twitter.com/AntonioFrench
I wish I was not having to do this sporadically. The illogic is running hot and cold. I’ll get my favorite one for now.
@ scourge99
Digging a hole with respect to whom? Dawkins was digging a hole with respect to rape victims. PZ is digging a hole with respect to people feeling a loss of privilege coming on that want to dictate community values. How about no.
To extend the example provided by Anthony K, religion makes money by telling people what they want to hear, not because they care about reality. They are going to parrot back what they thing the people are most interested in hearing.
Most people aren’t interested in reading about another atheist being oppressed killed (possibly harassed) by religious folks. They are more interested in hearing about how an atheists are evil people causing all of society’s problems instead of religious irrationality.
You can whine and moan about how there are far more important and worthwhile reasons to accept reality all you want. And you’d be right. But it doesn’t change the reality of the situation at all.
The more I look, the more religious you fuckers are.
Item number 3847 for why atheism needs social justice. You are just fine using a phrase like that and don’t give a crap if you are talking to a gay person. And how often do you negate your own points? Clearly if there are trolls in here there is more than the choir. You would not be afraid that there is an audience here would you? So fucking transparent monkey chess is.
That you are as persuasive as venereal disease and that people you try to persuade tend to see that you just want people to do what you want at any cost since your arguments are shit.
Advocates that do not explain themselves essentially want people to believe them “just because”. There’s that religious mindset again. If at some point I see thoughtfulness or intelligence out of you I am sure you will receive the same in return. Anyone using terms like “bend over and take it” in a place where LBGT advocates advocate is asking to have their beliefs and motivations examined. You have no one to blame but yourself.
There isn’t anything on WaPo’s homepage about having a reporter arrested. I thought they were both HuffPo.
And I just did a blog post about this, short though it is and added the #Ferguson hashtag since G+ has started collating blog articles with them. Went over to my G+ profile to make sure the hashtag was there. It’s not.
Even in a theocratic plutocracy like the US, arresting journalists like this can’t be good. You at least have to keep up the appearance of a free press. They’re allowed to fall asleep on the job, as we’ve seen for the last how many decades, but it’s not on point to simply lock them up. Missouri’s clearly being run by mooks, but don’t you have a federal military that gets welcomed as liberators? How crazy does this have to get before the national guard takes control away from these deranged and dangerous buffoons?
And now more media are paying attention, now that some of their own have been affected.
What was that about them only covering the things the people want them to cover again?
Nope. They report what they want to report.
All these douchenozzles jumping in to post a quick rant about “HOW DARE YOU PZ, RW IS AWESOME!” paints such a stark contrast to the majority of the rest of the discussion, which is updates on the Ferguson situation (thanks a ton for keeping up with those link-posters).
Carlie:
Yes. And we should not have to keep saying so.
Once again, I really have no idea what to say here.
But, please, read it.
#303, Rawnaeris
Gawker has a piece on the arrest, and it’s worth reading the tweets by Matt Pearce, LA Times talking to the Chief of Police. It seems unclear who’s running this show now.
Since 2006, police have acquired 860+ armored vehicles, 94k machine guns.
Are there links to those tweets from Gaza?
That broke me. Gotta take a break for a bit.
now, substitute RW=Rebecca Watson… and watch the troll heads assplode.
Janine:
*speechless*
wow. RT @TallyAnnaE: People in #Gaza are tweeting information on how to handle tear gas to the citizens of #Ferguson. Mind blown. #MikeBrown
Maddow and Guardian reporters are backing up the tear gas being fired into the protesters.
For anyone who has not seen it, the BBC had a fantastic doco on this:
“Final warning.” https://vine.co/v/MYdnKL60qxj
MSNBC’s reporter says people have no clear route by which TO disperse. He said a bottle or something was thrown, police announced “This is no longer a peaceful protest” and within seconds, tear gas and what he suspects were rubber bullets started flying into the crowd.
Antonio French followed up on the events Inaji mentioned in 301:
“This is no longer a peaceful assembly. Go home or be subject to arrest,” says the loudspeaker. ”
And finally this ominous tweet: https://twitter.com/AntonioFrench/status/499737919457083393
Simply quoting: “Final warning”.
Did I mention I am well past the point where I say “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore”?
MSNBC just lost contact with their reporter. Someone on the phone said ‘Oh shit!’ and then silence.
Stun grenades are being fired into the crowd, says MSNBC’s reporter, back on his phone apparently.
Pteryxx: I’m guessing it has something to do with whatever we are seeing in this Vine
https://twitter.com/AntonioFrench/status/499739343863701504
Jesus, look at these two vines. It is like straight out of a horror movie. By fucking god.
https://vine.co/v/MYdr9vud3vW
https://vine.co/v/MYd6zbTx5gZ
This is happening NOW
Inaji
Thank you for all of the updates from twitter.
Those people… with guns pointed at them. Right now. I’ve no words… only shock, disgust, and anger.
Happening now in #Ferguson https://vine.co/v/MYd6ULIAvUD
There was no official curfew. Just a polite warning to end the protests before sunset.
They’ve turned Ferguson into a fully militarized sundown town.
That’s fucking unreal.
Such visceral imagery.
Where are the fucking libertarians and right wingers now? Hey, caesar here’s an actual abuse of government power. Here’s your chance to actually see how the rights of Americans are being violated. Here is the tyranny of the state.
But now that the government is actually abusing its power for all to see, in public, where is their outcry? Where are their cries of injustice and governmental assault on civil liberties?
Meanwhile we have people like scourge99 who are just fine with all this…who criticize people who speak out against this shit. It definitely shows the priorities of people like that. And they aren’t concerned with being humanists.
Someone on MSNBC asked a St. Louis reporter straight out why the police thought they even had the authority to institute a curfew. No answer, but the reporter said that the police believe they’re doing a good job of controlling things and accommodating protesters during the day. (the reporter could barely choke that out over his incredulity)
TheAnonMessage @TheAnonMessage 29m
A water bottle was thrown towards police, who are wearing MILITARIZED RIOT GEAR, and they strike back with everything they have. #Ferguson
Unconsciously realizing they were always nothing more than authoritarian dupes?
don’t worry, this won’t affect them at all. They’ll just tune it out, or pretend it was a mass riot that needed to be put down because… property rights.
So Antonio French was updating his Twitter almost every 30 seconds with Vines of footage of tear gas and SWAT COPZ right outside of his car window. His twitter hasn’t been updated in over eight minutes now….
At least one member of the twenty four hour news cycle gets it, Chris Hayes.
Solution I’m considering is to just go there tomorrow and do the show live from the site of the protests.
This is an absurd level of violence being unleashed on protesters. They’re talking about bringing in the national guard for people standing and chanting. It’s the same shit all over again.
Definitely, if the NG is brought in, it should be to arrest the police for causing a riot.
anteprepro @332:
Uh oh.
Fuck. I hope nothings happened to him or any of the other protesters.
The police appear to be aiming the bright spotlights of their roadblock vehicle *at MSNBC’s live news camera*. Along with several officers on foot.
Media apparently being told to turn off cameras.
same as it ever was.
for those too young to remember, I HIGHLY recommend this documentary on the student protests in Berkeley in the 60s/70s.
You simply… MUST WATCH THIS if you want to understand even the last 50 years of this history in the US.
qwints:
The NG needs to be brought in to shut down that insanity of police, and restore rights to the citizens of Ferguson. This is fascism. Fascism on our very own doorstep.
Anteprepro:
I know. I’m scared.
Rawnaeris (#303)
Wesley Lowery is one of the two who were arrested, and he’s with the WaPo.
In addition to everything else, they are using a powerful loud siren as well:
https://twitter.com/HayesBrown/status/499740879050248193
And Tony, I hope so too. For some reason I am betting on “arrested” though, at this point.
… also features a guest shot by then governor Ronald Reagan. Please PLEASE watch his responses to what happened with People’s Park. it’s quintessential to understanding how RWAs think and react to issues, and it will never, ever change.
I thought I saw LRADs mounted on some of those military-style vehicles.
Is anyone else worried that the #ferguson feed just went quiet? I was like 60 new tweets every fifteen seconds earlier, and now, just two in the last twenty minutes. I can’t even imagine what those brave people are going through.
They are using LRADs.
Apparently, yazikus, the cops are firing tear gas and rubber bullets indiscriminately into the crowd (and into homes/yards) and blasting the LRADs.
According to the KARG radio reporter currently live on MSNBC, the police are now moving down the neighborhood street, driving scattered individuals before them with tear gas. They ordered all journalists to shut down their cameras and some, including this reporter, did not comply.
A person quoted in the OP said that Williams’ death has caused them to lose much hope because they believe they have a terminal illness. If they had said something similar referring to a religious belief or one based in some notion you and others here recognize as pseudoscience, you would see the urgency and the need to address it. Please recognize at least the possibility that you might be doing the wrong thing by trying to silence me.
“They are firing tear gas directly into the yards of these houses.” MSNBC
-Mario Savio, 1964
MSNBC is talking live to people there.
LOL
I don’t even…
LOL
Please recognize the possibility you could be wrong too, and not give gratuitous and possibly damaging medical advice.
Protesters, journalists all retreating as police advance down the street, firing tear gas and flash bangs
https://twitter.com/acarvin/status/499746503737761792
One man jumps on camera: they’ve blocked access to my house. What am I supposed to do?
https://twitter.com/acarvin/status/499746685216907264
FYI – https://proxy.freethought.online/lousycanuck/2014/08/13/rachel-maddow-on-the-record-of-racial-disparity-in-ferguson/
“Let’s make the jail cells more colorful.” This is how this police department operates.
Ichthyic and SC, if you two are going to start up, please respect those of us in this thread trying to focus on Ferguson, and take anything else to thunderdome, please.
SaltyCurrent, if you really want to play it like that, please take your remarks to the Lounge, where I will ask you to explain what you mean, but Tony! was and is correct: This is not the place to be trying to argue with me over my realization about how i’m going to die.
Right now, we’re doing something else here. Please respect that.
Only live stream I can find.
http://fox2now.com/on-air/live-streaming-2/?utm_content=buffera5149&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
of course, because I didn’t have anything at all to say about Ferguson… oh wait.
yeah, DON’T blame me for something SC is pulling.
just… don’t.
FUCK FOX NEWS!
FUCK FOX NEWS!
FUCK FOX NEWS!
And then the Ferguson police chief who lied about a curfew appears on Fox News with Sean Hannity. Any questions?
Hey, let’s have have Bill Fucking O’Reilly lecture the parents of Micheal Brown again!
Missouri governor says he’s “praying” over situation in #Ferguson, Missouri – http://on.ksdk.com/1kCzXfJ
link is busted Janine.
Tony! Thank you for all that you have written the last few days … and ever. And to others, thanks, too.
Ichthyic:
I didn’t, I made a polite request. If you’re going to respond, please do it outside this thread, okay? It would really be appreciated.
Good idea in a tweet from Sharlene King: “Now would be a good time for all of us to pick up our phones: @GovJayNixon (573) 751-4141 #Ferguson”
In addition to Antonio going silent, so has Conetta: https://twitter.com/BmoreConetta
Wesley the arrested reporter is still tweeting but is apparently not at the scene. and Ryan the other arrested reporter seems to mostly just be retweeting right now and apparently is dealing with interviews and so on.
Anteprepro:
Oh shit. Just keeps getting worse, and a governor thinks prayer is the answer.
Ichthyic, that was supposed to be a link to a tweet by Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs.
An educational twitpic: https://twitter.com/TheAnonMessage/status/499747991230894080/photo/1
Take this with a pillar of salt, but they’re on scene:
http://www.ustream.tv/realalexjones
I’m not “playing” anything. I’m concerned about the hopelessness in your comment, it called for the truth, and I make no apologies for that. Your realization isn’t a realization: there’s no disease or disorder of depression, terminal or otherwise. That information is important, hopeful, and true. Nor do I apologize for responding to a comment (yours) in the OP.
That’s my last comment here. I’ll post some references in Thunderdome for you or anyone else interested.
51 minutes ago, Conetta tweeted:
There was a response:
It looks like a lot of people are gleeful over the situation in Ferguson.
you could have just said, “I await you in the lounge so we can discuss it,” but naw.
Anteprepro:
It’s too bad those who need that education most will ignore it.
I found this short article on a blog written by a Unitarian seminary student — she raises the same news coverage issues that PZ Myers raised earlier:
SC:
I’ve already acknowledged in the past that I think our points are valid.
My problem with them being brought up in this thread is this discussion is already being taken off track by people who are complaining that PZ is an insensitive asshole. There are many people who are misreading PZ’s post and there are trolls dropping their turds all through the thread. One of my main goals has been to keep the original message as clear as possible (which has had the effect of me feeling like a broken record, but whatever). I’ve read enough of your feelings on mental illness to have some idea of how important the subject is to you, and I just kindly ask you to not discuss it in this thread.
Incredible image of protester engulfed by tear gas in #Ferguson tonight.
ceesays:
OT: the Lounge is the social thread at Pharyngula, but it’s a place PZ wants to keep things on a relatively polite and kind. Given the nature of the topic SC is discussing, the Thunderdome (no holds barred, be rude, mean all you want) is the better place.
****
That’s all I’m going to say about this, bc I agree with Inaji
Screen cap of flash grenade thrown at #Ferguson protesters (KSDK)
Inaji, it is depressing as shit if you read the right-wingers that toss out their occasional misinformed nonsense into the #ferguson feed, or responding to others talking about it. Pretty much all defending the police, whether it was the killer or the ones cracking down on protestors now. Luckily there….aren’t actually that many of them. At least not that I see. Twitter is a strange place so I might not be looking in the right place to find where the trolls grow.
Also…a while ago: I’m not even sure we can get back in to #Ferguson. I asked a cop about road access and had a Sniper rifle pointed at my chest…
https://twitter.com/elonjames/status/499740581128454146
BREAKING PHOTO: Riot police fire tear gas canisters on Aljazeera news crew in Ferguson.
All of you on Twitter, thanks. I’ve been passing a lot of these links on to my Facebook page, and I’ve included them on my blog as well.
Behold our progress.
MM:
One of the comments there:
MSNBC reporter describing how police fired tear gas directly at media cameras and trucks (including the Aljazeera crew above), then approached their abandoned cameras and pointed them at the ground.
Background. I’ll just leave this here: Ferguson police department diversity questioned
of all the things that really make me boiling mad…
it was the Governor saying he was praying over the issue.
fuck me, but that’s nutz.
yeah… perhaps the issues need to be fixed FIRST, rather than just thinking “ooh, we can just hire black people and the problems will magically disappear!”
Pteryxx:
Gee, that’s so surprising.
sarcasmOh yeah, prayer.
*That’s* a great help.
The Governor must really not want to do anything useful.
(I wonder what he’s praying *for*. A resolution to the situation that favors the police probably. Grrr.)
Ichthyic: it’s yet another symptom of a thoroughly rotten culture inside that police department.
Ichthyic:
Yeah, there’s a call out on twitter for people to contact him. Anteprepro has details on it @ 367
I’m still thinking, as I suggested way upthread, that the governor should have called out the national guard, and sent the local police HOME. that would have actually helped defuse the situation between the residents and the police at least, if not actually deal with the overall issues directly.
Now it’s too late.
but I’m sure the governor got a lot of publicity for his reelection campaign by mentioning how much he was praying for a resolution.
useless fucker.
that’s a 40 dollar phone call from here, unfortunately :(
No greater failure than prayer.
Ichthyic:
The link I posted about that, every commenter was obviously exasperated over the prayer business, and the gov was receiving more contempt than anything.
…I did this instead:
https://governor.mo.gov/get-involved/contact-the-governors-office
Still silence from Antonio French’s feed.
Wesley Lowery of WaPo, via MSNBC, says they can hear protesters chanting “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” outside the police station where he still is. As soon as his phone is charged he’s going back out. He says, I know the Post has my back. How must this be for ordinary black citizens getting arrested tonight? (paraphrased, I’m no live-captioner.)
The letter I sent to the governor:
I’m trying to track the tag myself now, and it seems that Antonio french was arrested.
The governor just sent out a tweet saying he’s cancelling his appearances tomorrow to attend to Ferguson, and a statement will follow. (via MSNBC screenshot)
Ichthyic:
Thanks. I sent this:
Ceesays:
Fuck. I was afraid of that. I hope with all my heart he comes through this safely.
Seems that Antonio French was arrested.
Just fucking lovely.
Pteryxx:
Oh, well that will only be a mere six days after the murder. So nice of him to bother, eh?
Maddow is now live for round 2.
Maddow starting off by pointing out the Bundy protesters pointed assault rifles *at officers* and officers responded by de-escalating the situation. Indeed.
Ichthyic:
Thanks for the suggestion to email the Governor. I followed your lead.
My letter to the Governor:
yeah, I only wish I didn’t misspell Ferguson in that.
*doh*
Maddow says they have been reaching out to local officials and nobody is willing to talk to them.
Pteryxx @409:
DAMN.
That is so on point.
*headdesk*
In Ferguson, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery gives account of his arrest
Alice Speri @alicesperi 36m
Officer literally just asked me if I want to get shot (for taking a photo of all things…) No thanks for asking, I’ll pass. #Ferguson
From the Washington Post story:
Damn right. I’d be terrified, too.
the CHIEF was.
the chief is the one that told those idiots to let the reporters go.
the issue is not the chief, the issue is the fuckwits who arrested the reporters in the first place, and of course, that’s what the reporter was complaining about.
President Obama Attends Birthday Party On Martha’s Vineyard
MM:
That’s fucking scary as shit.
The law enforcement officials involved in this have a LOT to answer for.
#Ferguson
AntonioFrench Arrest Update:
It’s not immediately clear what the charges against @AntonioFrench are. We’re currently working to find that out. https://twitter.com/blackink12/status/499766284087988224
The problem could be that @AntonioFrench’s car was close to intersection where cops approached. When hell broke loose, he was likely stuck https://twitter.com/blackink12/status/499767466298310657
In true @AntonioFrench form, he called his wife from jail and told her to tweet about it, according to his friend and co-worker Liz Peinado https://twitter.com/blackink12/status/499767168113053696
/u/jandrewweb
Source: http://www.reddit.com/live/tdrph3y49ftn/
tef_poe
23 minutes ago
We are outside the Ferguson PD demanding the release of Antonio French
sang hymns for the whole ride??
Obviously she was hired to torture these poor reporters into submission!
Sigh, I had been busy this evening and only started reading this thread and twitter in the last half hour to see what was going on. It is amazingly depressing to read about this, especially as I hold out very little real hope of change. I will be very surprised if the police are punished in any way, and that much will change. It is also really frustrating to look around at the comments out there and realize that there are many authoritarian followers that think what is happening is a good thing, people that think one should have to be hyper deferential to the police and that if you are arrested, or have your civil rights violated, you must have had it coming to you and deserved it.
they won’t.
you know it.
I know it.
a few slaps on the wrist, a fast press conference with a notpology or two, and this will be forgotten… again.
people don’t WANT to think their government is acting against their best interests. They never have, and they never will.
Nobody will throw themselves on the machine. Nobody will make it stop.
This parade was rained on long before we were even born.
List of vigils taking place tomorrow, across the States.
this.
this is really the main reason I finally gave up and left.
We have enough authoritarian personalities up here in Canada, but they seem to wield so much more power in the US, people, politicians, do not appear to feel that being loud about their authoritarian stances will really harm them in the public eye all that much. Sometimes I feel that having this dysfunctional neighbour to the south lets us be rather complacent about our own problems though, we can always look there and neglect our own growing problems.
Black Tony Stark @minossec 15m
So they’re terrorists? RT @loon: #lessonsfromOWS RT @mikeklonsky: Reporters say : Cops all removed their badges and id tags #Ferguson
And I understand why you gave up, at least to the degree I can understand from a distance. I often feel like there is little real hope of change in the US, but the last few days have left me feeling much more hopeless about the situation.
Travis:
I had no love for cops before Ferguson. Now I’m fucking terrified of them.
No words.
I guess it would be too much to hope that they did this and walked away because they no longer wanted to be involved. I wonder if any officers have refused to take part in this, even to a small degree.
That the police refuse to offer names, arrest reports, or display any sort of transparency shows just how out of control they are, they are responsible to no one.
because authoritarians tend to vote as a block, they have long been coerced and manipulated by politicians and con men.
Hence, Nixon’s Southern Strategy.
if you can convince a specific block of around 30% to always vote for you, it counters the mass of more diverse opinions in the rest of the population quite nicely.
this was a well organized strategy that you saw being published in political science articles by fans of Leo Strauss way back in the 70s even.
it took a generation or two, but now there are adults who were raised on the lies told, and think they are truth. like the 50s really WERE like they were depicted in Leave it to Beaver. Problem is, now that those people are convinced lies are truth, they have started to really wonder why their elected representatives don’t actually DO the things they said they were all for….
it’s come back to bite them on the ass, just like it ALWAYS does whenever you try to manipulate large numbers of authoritarian personalities for your own ends.
I wonder if the instant public communication available to most of us these days will make the pattern run a different course this time around.
Conetta @BmoreConetta
Reunited with Wesley and Ryan at #ferguson police station.
Unreal. DUMBEST MOTHERFUCKING POLICE DEPARTMENT ON EARTH. Now, the media is paying attention.
Police militarization is now a press freedom issue. HuffPost statement on the arrest of their reporter in #Ferguson:
Crip Dyke @433:
I read about that earlier. Grrrr.
And of course so many people will think it’s an isolated incident.
Hello, Just woke up for the day. Should not have come here or checked the news. Feel like crying and throwing up. One bright spot: Le Monde, France’s major newspaper is publishing Antonio French’s tweets. But not front page. Yesterday, AF had 20k followers, today 45k. Checking other French dailies.
Crip Dyke, damn, I did not have to read that. They always use the line that the person was going for their gun, even when it does not mesh up with other reports. I am amazed by how quickly many police officers in the US go for their gun to solve a problem, sometimes to solve a problem that does not really exist.
I was curious how Canada compared to the US on this, and while I did not find a proper source at this point, I did find a quote from a SFU professor in a story from the National Post:
We certainly have serious problems with cops shooting and tasering people, but if these values are correct I am amazed. I realized things were bad, but did not realize it might be this bad. That is 4x the rate here.
lopsided:
I’m afraid that’s not the case. This is not one isolated incidence. In this thread, people have reported appalling acts by militarized police in many states across the U.S., and we are going to be seeing more of this.
If you noted Ceesays’ post, quoted in the OP, there’s a line of victims, the latest in a very long line. Another unarmed black man, Ezell Ford was gunned down today in Los Angeles. His mother was threatened when she tried to find out what had happened. This is a much deeper, wider, and bigger problem than people realize.
@Tony!
Ooops.
If my 433 was redundant, I apologize to everyone. Keep bringing AllTheNews!
well. Let’s add Dante Parker to the list of unarmed black men killed by police in america.
He was riding his bicycle.
Travis #434:
If there *were* any officers who objected to racism or excessive force, they likely were weeded out long ago, during the “let’s make the jail cells more colorful” and (paraphrased) “go arrest every black person in this mall” activities exposed by a previous whistleblower, as detailed in Rachel Maddow’s segment last night. (see Jason’s post here.)
Random reasonable people (even when they’re officers) don’t just invent tactics like refusing to give names, using pressure points on unresisting journalists, and yelling “Stop resisting!” while making arrests. They LEARNED how to behave like this. They practiced it on the bodies of all those black people they disproportionately stopped and arrested. For all I know they trained in it. Behavior doesn’t just spring out of nowhere.
Also, on the Ezell Ford shooting, this morning, someone on twitter made the point that the ‘shots fired’ report the cops were supposed to be responding to was Two Hundred Blocks from where Ezell Ford was stopped and shot.
yup.
it does seem like the money spent on homeland security mostly went to camo fatigues, giant APC’s and rather large guns.
biggest ripoff of public money in the history of the planet, hands down.
you EVER hear of a libertarian or teapartier talking about dismantling Homeland Security though?
yeah, me neither.
@ 436, that pic of the inside of the police station shows particle board/chip board. I think the police have put up some temporary dividers to handle an influx of arrests that they seem to be expecting. Or maybe they expect an attack.
It really seems to me that the police are all about their own authority, there in Ferguson. They could just walk away, and only come back if violence erupted, but right now they are trying to maintain dominance, not order, and they certainly are not protecting the citizens.
The protesters in #Ferguson need food & water, while fighting for justice. Here’s the information to donate via PayPal any amount will help. #MikeBrown #Every28hours
Other major French dailies: one out of 3 reporting on Ferguson. That makes 2 out of 5. I’ll check other Euro dailies tonight when I get home. Hope International pressure occurs.
@437, lopsided:
Yeah, sure. The media was “paying attention” to Trayvon Martin, too. Didn’t do a damn bit of good, and the shooter in that case wasn’t even a cop.
The police know that if they can crush the opposition — and that includes completely destroying the entire neighborhood and killing the residents — and then stonewall long enough, the media will lose interest and the justice department will ignore it. Because they’re cops, and the neighborhood is just a bunch of blacks. It is almost impossible for a cop to be even slightly reprimanded for anything. There was a police commander in Chicago who was demonstrably the overseer of the literal fucking torture of a series of people. He didn’t even lose his pension because the courts will always side with cops.
Rage.
Still wondering why police in #Ferguson look like an occupying army? Wonder no more: https://twitter.com/yarens1/status/499781723970740225/photo/1
PZ, here’s the problem with your original post as I see it. I got your intent. Most of your fans did. But there’s an old joke I heard about two black kids biking cross-country, a truck, and a racist cop. (I’m not going to tell it, but I’m sure a good number of readers have heard it.) The butt of the joke is the racist cop, but you can be damn sure most of the people who actually tell it don’t see it that way.
Oddly enough, I think this may go back to the Frame Wars, which I see in a somewhat different light years on than I did back when they were happening. No, I am not defending Matthew Nesbit in any way, shape, or form. He was still a pretentious dick. but this is one of those situations where framing is actually important, because essentially your point only got through to people who know exactly where you’re coming from. Your point was largely correct, but one takes a huge risk of message backfire in attacking someone and involving a third party.
Unfortunately, I don’t really know how you could have rephrased it; tact is not my strong point. Plus, I don’t know… some people have a greater effect on people than others, and Robin Williams was one of those people. Just because you might not understand doesn’t mean that effect is unimportant.
Deric A. Hughes @dblackanese 4m
This is effn’ ridiculous. RT @mcbyrne: I just spoke to #ferguson police. They said they don’t plan to release @AntonioFrench anytime soon.
N. K. Jemisin @nkjemisin 3m
Anyone surprised by what’s happening in #ferguson right now hasn’t been paying attention to America. Since, like, ever.
C R E A T E @kashmirVIII 9m
Folks are being THROWN IN JAIL for recording and reporting what’s goin on in #Ferguson. Let that sink in.
Petitioning President Barack Obama
Please Enact New Federal Laws to Protect Citizens from Police Violence and Misconduct
Like I said. It’s abundantly clear that the 1% expect to be eaten any day now, and have been preparing for the onslaught for at least a decade or more.
why else would you encourage your county sheriff to attend anti-terrorism courses in Israel FFS?
anyone think of another good reason?
the citizens of the US are now considered enemy combatants, and they didn’t even know it.
the infrastructure is being well prepped for a revolution that likely will never come, though it really should.
@BrianX:
The problem with your comment is that you’re making an effectiveness argument – and you literally have no idea what PZ’s aim was.
You can’t evaluate effectiveness without reference to a goal. If PZ’s purpose was blowing off steam on his personal blog, then the only way to gauge the effectiveness of his writing style is to ask PZ if it was effective.
You assuming that you know what’s in PZ’s head is more than a little arrogant, don’t you think? Why not try keeping your effectiveness arguments for times when you actually have a declared goal against which to measure effectiveness?
@Inaji (#452)
From that link, the police chief on studying in Israel: “I am confident that this will be a unique learning experience offered nowhere else in the world.”
He doesn’t take that as a dire warning sign but is honored he gets to participate.
Brian X:
It is understood, by PZ and the rest of us. Here’s something you might not understand: the previous thread about media bias in Williams and Mike Brown, over 700 comments, with a handful of us desperately trying to direct peoples’ attention to events in Ferguson.
This thread, over 450 posts, many of them by the same handful of people who are desperately trying to focus on the horror taking place in Ferguson. This thread is filled with pleas for people to stay focused on Ferguson. Right now, Brian, you aren’t helping, because we have already heard what you said hundreds of times over. It would be incredibly refreshing for someone new to this thread to bother to fucking read the comments first.
The cops have become a nightclub bouncer, the one who must win the fight regardless of the cause of the conflict, because to fail to do so is to surrender their authority. They do not fight to uphold the law, they do not fight to create order or safety. They fight to win, and for nothing else.
This is a power struggle, naked and raw.
Unfortunately, the people of Ferguson will get no help from any higher authority, for those folks know better than anyone that the people cannot be allowed to be in charge.
Democracy my ass.
@Inaji, #454:
Petition this Barack Obama?
A. Noyd:
Yeah. People have been noticing that, and it speaks volumes, doesn’t it? Seems like he just couldn’t wait.
CD:
Yeah. Just fills you with hope, right?
very enlightening indeed.
your homeland security dollars at work.
…and 30% of americans will defend it to the death.
nothing ever fucking changes, nobody learns any lessons from history, except to think that since they read it, somehow they won’t repeat the same mistakes, magically.
you have the biggest income inequality since the dark ages, a state rapidly leaning towards total authoritarian control and training their law enforcement as soldiers, and half the populace convinced by lies that everything is groovy.
what could go wrong?
Ugh. I wrestled with it, b/c I do think that there would have been some lessening of the value of having Obama win the presidency if he had lost reelection. Some people I really respect talked to me about how important it was. But I couldn’t vote for him
Now I am soooooo relieved about my decision.
how do you think he GOT to be police chief to begin with? by being a freethinking and applying reason to his decision-making?
nope, just another hand selected RWA toadie.
do that for enough generations, and nobody even can recall what it was like before authoritarians ran everything.
Brought to you by the people who read 1984 as an instruction manual instead of a warning.
Statement from Governor Nixon on events in Ferguson
Jefferson City, MO – Gov. Jay Nixon tonight issued the following statement on events in Ferguson, Missouri:
“The worsening situation in Ferguson is deeply troubling, and does not represent who we are as Missourians or as Americans.
While we all respect the solemn responsibility of our law enforcement officers to protect the public, we must also safeguard
the rights of Missourians to peaceably assemble and the rights of the press to report on matters of public concern.”
“I have been closely monitoring the situation and will continue to be in communication with local leaders, and I will be in
North St. Louis County tomorrow. As Governor, I am committed to ensuring the pain of last weekend’s tragedy does not continue to be compounded by this ongoing crisis. Once again, I ask that members of the community demonstrate patience and calm while the investigation continues, and I urge law enforcement agencies to keep the peace and respect the rights of residents and the press during this difficult time.”
LOL. Already failed in his “commitment” then. what a joke.
Ike Turnup @Wayne85Live 22m
✊ RT @PresReed: I’ve secured legal representation for @AntonioFrench and @TefPoe. Citizen journalism must continue. #Ferguson
Look at the wound from the rubber bullets! This is terrible.
(Twitter link)
Nathania Johnson @nlj 30m
Antonio French charged with “unlawful assembly.” Seems like a bunch of cops should be charged with that instead. #Ferguson
Veterans on Ferguson.
Chapter 574
Offenses Against Public Order
Section 574.040
Last amended: August 28, 2013
Unlawful assembly.
574.040. 1. A person commits the crime of unlawful assembly if he knowingly assembles with six or more other persons and agrees with such persons to violate any of the criminal laws of this state or of the United States with force or violence.
2. Unlawful assembly is a class B misdemeanor.
(L. 1977 S.B. 60)
Effective 1-1-79
yeesh.
meanwhile…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2003999.stm
and this research is actually not new.
@Ichthyic:
The problem is that when you use firehoses & dogs, you can get pics of the officers obviously responsible.
Rubber bullets are still used because they outfly accountability.
I’m really curious how it is that #Ferguson is blocked from trending on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, according to various twitter comments. Nothing automated could explain that.
Donate to the Jail Support Fund for Justice for Mike Brown
not for nothing… but someone mentioned that Canada has a yearly average of 12 police shootings, and the US has… 400.
New Zealand has….
22.
over the entire last 75 years.
that’s not average, that’s TOTAL.
so few the local paper can publish the entire chronology on a single page:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10539110
Do you have a link to those reports? #Ferguson is trending on twitter for me.
Did a quick blog post, using the photo of Howard University students in solidarity with Ferguson.
Ichthyic #477
That was me. I think this goes back to some of our Canadian complacency. As a giant elephant lives next door to us we have a tendency to only compare ourselves to the US, for the most part we come off looking better, and we sit back and feel good about ourselves rather than taking a look at the wider world which far outshines us in many ways.
Be aware. What you are seeing, isn’t Middle East. This is United States, a War Zone in little city #Ferguson.
Travis: here’s one for Twitter. (link) I haven’t been curating those, just browsing the stream.
See also post 303 in this thread.
Travis: also I don’t see #Ferguson trending on Twitter when I look. (Tired.)
just to be clear, I was piling on the criticism of the numbers in the US, rather than taking a poke at Canada.
hope you didn’t take offense.
This goes for me, too. I don’t have television, but trying to find any news online was driving me up a wall, there was so little, and what little there was on various sites was buried under an avalanche of eulogies. I can’t really express the depth of my gratitude for the ‘net, and all the people who have risked their own safety to keep bringing us news.
The Howard University Students.
It finally gets a bit of attention over here:
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-14/ferguson-erupts-after-michael-brown-shooting/5670532
Oh no, I definitely did not take offence, it just struck me as yet another example of where we look better than the US but in reality fall behind other countries. While I have definitely used Canada as an example to contrast against the US at times, as I am familiar with quite a lot of the statistics regarding crime and firearms, I also like to collect stats such as this to deflate some big Canadian heads on occasion.
Pics of the Al Jazeera journos being driven off their equipment.
(twitter link) (direct image link)
(twitter link) (direct image link)
Whites and blacks united against the biggest gang in #Ferguson their local PD
Hey #Ferguson, you’ve officially made the front page of Australian news. #TheWorldisWatching
That’s it for me this morning. I can’t take anymore right now.
This could be a terrifying precadent for policing over here in Oz. In Queensland, we have a right wing, jackboot government run by an ex military narcissist. In a couple of months there will be a G20 summit in Brisbane.
This kind of tyrannical shit needs to be slapped down before it becomes a template for ‘ crowd control ‘ everywhere.
current narcissist, one presumes?
The WTO protests in Seattle received way fucked up police responses, but I don’t think that the cops are learning anything.
sadly, nobody is learning anything.
in 2 weeks, 4 at most, even Ferguson will be forgotten.
such is as it always has been. no difference between this police response, and the response to the protestors in Berkeley in the 60s.
nothing is learned. nothing is retained. The cycle of violence endlessly repeats.
@Crip Dyke
This one has taken narcissism to a new level for us, and he and his trained lapdog of an Attorney General have already started disassembling the seperation of powers and the right to assemble.
If the postscript to Ferguson is ‘successful riot control’ and not ‘criminal abuse of police powers’ we are all fucked.
If I could leave this country I would.
OK. Seeing those numbers for Canada and NZ, I looked for something on Australia.
This article gives us 105 shooting deaths in the 22 years up to 2011. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/30/half-shot-police-mentally-ill
So the average for that period is less than 5 per year. Scale that up roughly to the US population – from 20 million to 340 million – 85 per year. So the US rate is almost 5 times that Australian rate.
(I might add that those 22 years include several where one state was using tactics taught by imported US trainers. Their rate was much higher than the rest of the country so they’ve abandoned them and the force should be fully retrained by now. If they’d been using similar tactics all over Australia for the whole period, the numbers would be lower.)
Well that came out strange. “if they’d been using the same tactics as all over the rest of Australia the numbers would have been lower.”
Cops in #ferguson are quite literally rolling up to reporters and tear gassing them to keep reports from getting out .
*hugs* Inaji, or just soft arm strokes if hugging is too much to bear right now.