Another quick look at the Clarion Ledger comments section. This time the comment comes from a story entitled "Dog pack hounds Belhaven," which discusses the issue of roaming packs of stray dogs that are "terrorizing" (quote from the writer) the neighborhood.
(Quick editorial note: I know the writer personally; he is the guy that did the story on Catherine and I using re-usable shopping bags. He's a good dude, but "terrorizing?" Really? I live in Belhaven and the only thing that terrorizes me are annoying neighbors. Our end of Monroe Street is a weird place. But I think this reveals a little bit about how the media works. I don't think the writer has any real want to rile people up with such strong language, but probably feels like he has to for his pieces to remain relevant. I don't know. Normally I would just blast the media for glamorizing fear, but since I know dude, I thought I would try to find an explanation.)
Now, when I saw the title of the story, I knew there would be some gold within. People always have things to say about Jackson, especially when a story paints the city in a negative light, which this story certainly does. It works on the assumption held by many that the city cannot govern itself, not because of a lack of funds or personnel, but because of a stupid black majority that elects even stupider black leadership. (This is a dominant view that permeates almost every set of reader comments about Jackson on the paper's site.)
The first comment that caught my attention was this one:
"lets see--run in packs, don't know how to act, are untrainable---sounds about like 1/2 the thug population of stokesburg"-posted by whiteoak1956
I don't really need to explain this. It's all there-stereotypes, animlaization, use of the word thug instead of what he really wants to say, a reference to the most hated black leader in those parts, Kenneth Stokes. This is a glaring example of racist thought and I have gone deeper into this in other postings, so I won't repeat them here. I do find it interesting that the Clarion ledger can run an opinion column about how much Mississippi has changed since the Civil Rights Movement while this type of shit is posted on their website.
The second set of comments, though, I thought were just as revealing. Here are some examples:
"Temik will take care of that problem."-RazorbackMS
(Temik is a pesticide that can kill an animal that ingests it)
"Caution: Use shotguns with #4 or smaller shot to reduce risk of hurting a person or damaging property behind the target. Always check behind the target to make sure the impact area is clear."-billb0925
"22 between the running lights always worked in the past."-Paybacksrhale
These are just the ones on the first few pages. Here's the deal. A lot of these same people were on the same site a few weeks ago when a white guy in NE Jackson had his dog shot by an intruder. The comments were calling for the intruder to be tried for murder, because killing animals is wrong. This is because the readers assumed the intruder to be Black and they were looking for any reason to be able to say that the person should be put to death. Now, they are all on here spouting off about shooting animals.
Of course, as always in Mississippi, this kind of logic reverts to race. It's a felony punishable by death when a (perceived) Black law-breaker shoots an animal but it is justice if a white person in a white neighborhood shoots a stray animal. What if their dog escaped for a few hours while they were at work and someone shot it? Would they appreciate that or revert back to the killing a dog is murder rant? Of course, there is not room for those kinds of questions on the Clarion ledger. To top it off, the few brave souls who do post logically on the site are immediately shut down as being "bleeding hearts" for suggesting more humane ways to help with animal control.
But these comments reveal something else that is just as damaging to our communities: the violent nature and tendencies of some of those amongst us and the rhetoric that surrounds it. There seems to exist on the Clarion Ledger comments this weird blood lust for anything the posters don't agree with. Pretty much any story that is about a murder, or for that matter, any crime that involves a Black person, the commenters start calling for either the death penalty or "2nd amendment justice" as it has been called. No trial, no Constitutional guarantees, just kill the person or persons (allegedly) involved with the crime. It's crazy. The racism on the site is deplorable, but I get it: these are ignorant Mississippians with draconian views on race that are as misinformed as they are hollow and just plain wrong. I've come to expect it from my fellow white Mississippians, sadly. But this blood lust thing i just can't understand.
Here's a case in point. Sometime last year, there was a story about a family who were the victims of a home invasion; they were bound and gagged and watched as the invaders went through their belongings while their accomplices held guns to their heads. One commenter on the story wrote that that would have never happened to him, because he has a gun and would not hesitate to use it in that kind of situation. Another commenter asked how he would have gotten to his gun, if he didn't have it on him and there wasn't enough time after the door got kicked in. Of course, the commenter wasn't hearing this, because to these types, merely having a gun will keep you from being a victim. That's all there is to that. But another commenter asked him if he would really feel safe opening fire on multiple people that had guns to his family's heads. Would this be the best thing to do, even if you were able to get to the gun in time? Of course it would be, and for questioning my right to own a gun you are a socialist is the typical response.
Now, on the surface, this is just another right vs. left argument about gun control. But, there is far more. The man that both a) thinks owning a gun will magically shield him from being a victim of crime and b) thinks it would be a good idea to try to shoot one guy who has a gun at his daughter's head while another person has a gun to his wife's at the same time is CRAZY. He is crazy. He is nuts. That kind of logic is purely and wholly insane. The fact that he is a right-winger or a tea partier does not matter, other than the correlations that exist between crazy people and those movements. He is just crazy and no other labels really matter when you are nuttier than Chinese chicken salad. And there are a lot of crazy people out there, to be sure.
And this is where I think the media has screwed up with the Arizona shootings. Immediately, some pundits went right after the Palin connection with the shootings, and, for the most part, rightfully so. But it was too easy for the right to attack these pundits as being politically motivated. And they did. And, as wrong as they were, they were still right. Sarah Palin did not not tell that guy to shoot that Congresswoman. And because of that, it was far too easy for the people on the right to turn the argument around on the left and make the left look like opportunists waiting to blame a tragedy on things they don't agree with. The right is mean and calculating, but they are damn smart and even more saavy.
The media, and especially the left-wing side of it, in their rush to blame Palin and others, thus making the debate political, missed an opportunity to really get at the core of what this is all about. See, it doesn't matter that Palin a tea partier or a Republican or whatever. What matters, just like the Clarion Ledger posters, is that she is FUCKING CRAZY! CRAZY! NUTS! Only a crazy person would make a map with targets over the the districts of people she disagrees with politically, tell her followers "Don't retreat, reload," and then give a "you betcha" speech attacking the mainstream media for their "blood libel" against her. People have been arguing over whether or not she knew what that meant. Again, it doesn't matter; she is crazy. She is talking like a crazy person.
And there is the rub. The Arizona shooter, as it appears now, was not influenced by any singular political ideology: he read Hitler AND Marx. He isn't a tea partier carrying out the missions given to him by Palin and the party. He, like Palin and like the violence obsessed commenters on the Clarion Ledger site, is NUTS. And that is what it comes down to: Crazy people talking to other crazy people. Crazy person one, Palin, constantly puts ideas in the media that are laced with violent rhetoric and images that, and very certainly, appeal to a good portion of the American populace that leans toward the right. But what is scarier, is that crazy people, by definition, do not operate with the same kind of filters and logic that sane people do. I, and you, can see what Palin is trying to do with her choice of words and images, which is to rile up her base who respond to anything that involves their right to own guns and protect themselves from everyone who is out to get them.
This paranoid thinking that Palin has used to rouse her base is, as we have seen, having broad effects on our nation. For one, any time a line of communication is opened between crazy people (like the Arizona shooter or Clarion Ledger commenters) and the leader of the crazies (Palin, for example) only bad things can happen, because none of them can distinguish between right and wrong. However, what's worse is that craziness is now being normalized. The more time Palin spends on the air defending her craziness, the more opportunities exist for more crazy people to hear her and follow her lead. Nothing about her is political, although she is good at making it seem that way. She has not, like the pundits think, provided a voice for people who feel like politics no longer works for them and that just want to return to a simpler time. No, she is crazy. And everyday other crazy people join her cause because, frankly, there never has been a movement for people that crazy. And by seeing their leader of crazy-town on television every night, more and more people think "hey, maybe I'm not crazy. I think just like that pretty woman on TV that is always winking at ME. Think I'll join up because I can't get laid and she looks into it. I should load all of my guns and put on a pretty dress and hope she can see me through the TV. I also have that clown costume. Maybe she'll like that. I'll ask the refrigerator for advice." This person is crazy, but this type will soon be in charge and the rest of us will be the crazy people.
And the longer this goes on the people will get crazier and crazier and crazier as they become more normalized while the movement has to dig deeper into the population for membership. And the more crazy people that join up, we are in deeper and deeper shit. If only 1 in 10000 of these crazy people try to shoot Congressional members, we can expect to see a lot more of this kind of thing in the future. And honestly, I am surprised we haven't sen more already. Grateful, but surprised.
Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment