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Notes -
The way Tyre Nichols murder has been handled by the media/internet feels... Weird?
The rhetoric around his killers have used the word "gang" more often than other police killings, and I can't help wonder if that is because his killers are Black. It's an odd form of racist dog whistling from the "woke" denizens of reddit.
In spite of that, there still seems an effort to claim the killing was racially motivated - that these cops were Black-hating Black men. It doesn't seem possible for the discourse to accept that police brutality isn't always a racial issue. Sometimes, it is just abuse of power by terrible people, and skin color has nothing to do with it.
Finally, the video release process is... Uncomfortable. We don't give terrorist videos this kind of air time, and we actively scrub videos of mass shootings that get posted online. Why does the public need to see the horrific last moments of this man's life? The video will surely get played at the cops' trials; cops who have already been charged, so there is no need for public pressure to get the prosecutor to do their job. But the media is hyping up the release schedule like it's a silver screen movie, and his mom got put on a press tour today in anticipation of the video, which feels like an exploitation of her pain. Biden is encouraging protests (peaceful, of course). What are we protesting? The cops are charged with murder, and very quickly. What does protesting accomplish here?
First time posting a parent comment, sorry if this isn't fleshed out to the quality of standards y'all normally utilize!
I view the use of "gang" more anti-cop than anti-black. For example, see these pieces covering the Los Angeles "deputy gangs". That said, it's easy to interpret it in an anti-black sense, and I wonder if it will end up going down the euphemism treadmill like many other words that were at first benign then turned into slurs.
I disagree that this should be standard operating procedure. People should know what happened, and not be restricted to learning about it through second-hand accounts. When you don't let people see video, you end up with wild and unsubstantiated speculation like "Paul Pelosi's attacker was a right-wing MAGA-wearing extremist!" (no, the bodycam footage shows he was just some random dude who decided to break into a house).
I agree with the rest of your points, though; hyping it up in any way is atrocious and disgusting, and in fact all the hubbub around this situation is unnecessary. Protests and riots of any form are unnecessary at best and excessive and damaging at worst.
I thought Paul Pelosi's attacker was a gay lover/drug dealer.
He may have been, however, he has clearly broken in there during the altercation in question. There's exhaustive discussion of the bodycam footage elsewhere in the thread.
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I agree, there is something ghoulish about the media salivation over this, as well as anticipated protests and riots. That said, we’ve known for a long time that if it bleeds, it leads.
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