I was really busy yesterday being about to start my period (booo)

[conuly]

and so I missed some important news and before I say anything I'd like to share a link: This way for adorable baby animals!

And now, while you're all distracted by the cute, I'm going to scream incoherently for a little bit.

WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING WITH THIS COUNTRY NOWADAYS?

Trevor Noah Asks Why Jacob Blake Was Shot 7 Times, but Kyle Rittenhouse Wasn't Considered a Threat

"While what happened with those shootings last night is tragic, what happened afterward is illuminating because it made me wonder, it really made me wonder why some people get shot seven times in the back while other people are treated like human beings and reasoned with and taken into custody with no bullets in their bodies.

How come Jacob Blake was seen as a threat for a theoretical gun that he might have and might try to commit a crime with, but this gunman who was armed and who had already shot people, who had shown that he is a threat, was arrested the next day, given full due process of the law and generally treated like a human being whose life matters?

How did Dylan Roof shoot up a church, James Holmes shoot up a movie theater, and both live to tell about it? Why is it that the police decide some threats must be distinguished immediately, while other threats get the privilege of being defused?

I'm asking these as questions but I feel like we know the answer. The answer is that the gun doesn't matter as much as who's holding the gun, because for some people black skin is the most threatening weapon of all."

I'm glad he summed that up for us, I'm still busy screaming. This dude walked past a cop car while holding a gun, and people screaming that he'd shot somebody and they did - nothing. They sat there and did nothing. They let him just go past and go home.

Comments

[wendelah1]

That's beyond disturbing. I am aghast.

[greghousesgf]

that is so fucked up.

[kengr]

It's nothing new. This has been happening since at *least* the end of the civil war. Likely before that too, except the blacks/yellow peril/dirty Indians/etc were less likely to be in a position to do those things.

But frankly that describes the excuses for the Trail of Tears and most "Indian Wars". And pretty much every lynching. and the Tulsa Massacre.

It's just that it's getting *reported* these days. and widely distributed.

[bibliofile]

The dude walked towards the cops with his hands up, his gun slung on his back -- and the cops ignored him. Yup.

I also liked Trevor's point about bullets 2-7.

Yes, some of us are screaming right there with you.

[dewline]

Trevor Noah grew up a living, breathing crime in progress in apartheid-era South Africa.

He damn well knows the answer to that question, and so do we. If we've been paying attention. Evil is at the root of that answer, an evil that goes back centuries.

We already know that evil's name.

[al_zorra]

What's happening is the armed militias are enabled and assisted by a very large part of the police, to enable the orange shoggoth to stay in power. It is a plan, one of their few, and they've strategized it very well. It's working. They are ready for armed conflict if by chance Biden wins by such a landslide so it can't be court challenged.

This is our time's equivalent of the Kansas-Nebraska in the run-up to secession and armed war of Fort Sumter.

[dark_phoenix54]

It's horrifying, and systemic. We're seeing militias springing up- or coming out- everywhere in the US now. They are a huge presence, enabled by the police and the county commissioners, here. I can't imagine how people of color feel right now. Fear, rage, despair. I feel those things, but I have white privilege and so know I won't be killed in the near future just for existing. *shakes head* The hell of it is, I can't even figure out why these people feel they have the right to do these things! (other than, obviously, that they can)

[shadowkat]

I'm going to scream incoherently for a little bit

You and me both. At my UU worship service this week - the ministerial intern stated that if he became president of the US, he'd initiate one law - "legalized public screaming".

The bad news is unending and worse every day. It's gotten so I dread reading the morning NY Times Briefing. Yet at the same time...I can't quite stop either.

[cellio]

Screaming right along with you. This is appalling and so so fucked up and how do we correct course? 'Cause racism has been a problem for a long time but this, this blatant, out-in-the-open, racism with deadly consequences, with police thumbing their noses at actual victims while glorifying killers -- this is a bold escalation of an already-screwed-up situation, and we've got to at least correct that part. Somehow. We the powerless. :-(

[wpadmirer]

The cute was nice. Thanks.

All these northern officers, where there aren't many black people to start off with, seem to over-react to everything. I mean, come on, we've got our troubles here in the South, but we haven't had a truly horrible shooting in months. Wisconsin and Minnesota are taking over the white supremacist role.

[smokingboot]

Horrible, horrible. I thought we'd got past this.

[readerjane]

It's exhausting. The idea that police have not only been perpetrating their own brutality, but also enabling the sort of white, home-grown terrorists who have been committing school shootings since Columbine. How can this end if those responsible for stopping it think, *it's okay when a white boy does it* ?

[hudebnik]

An interesting quote showed up in my wife's feed yesterday: "How come murder is a reasonable response to property damage, but property damage is not a reasonable response to murder?"

[siderea]

Oh, hear, hear!

[oracne]

We all know why. I just hope more people with privilege to not know it are now being forced to face what goes on every day in America, and will be moved to do something about it.