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[Truean]

Gay and trans jails do exist in the US.
Please build more.
Protection should be required.
Protection and accountability are effectively denied.

Incarceration as punishment should include imprisonment, not abuse, not far worse things.

Ideally, we'd need fewer prisons, with fewer inmates. Praise the ideal, not the idol. Strive for the idea, live in the real.

[ggamer]

Ugh, this still bothers me. I still can't believe that someone sane would go and shoot up a church because of some dumb bullshit like racism, but I guess people have killed for more dumb bullshit than that in the past.

[Leafsnail]

Are you suggesting that people being motivated to kill others over racism is unusual or surprising?  It really is not, and has not been historically.

[ggamer]

Are you suggesting that people being motivated to kill others over racism is unusual or surprising?  It really is not, and has not been historically.

...

Did you seriously just ask that?

as a matter of fact, yes, I do find the fact that there are still people who are so fucking stupid that they go and murder people because of varying melanin levels a tad bit shocking, excuse me very much for having basic fucking human decency.

I get that there's been a history for this sort of thing, but I honestly cannot see anyone, even the most backwoods of the backwoods "distill my own moonshine south will rise again" rednecks honestly considering murdering anyone, let alone black people, and I think the fact that you just asked me why I think that's weird to be rather disturbing.

FAKEEDIT: ugh, that was a tad more heated than I meant, but the fact still stands. I'm never going to consider racially motivated shootings to be anything but "unusual or surprising."

[Leafsnail]

Sorry for making the very controversial claim that racism often leads to violence I guess.

Really the problem I am having is that your line of argument reads like an attempt to apologize for racism, by claiming first that it's impossible that racism could've motivated the murders (rather than insanity) and then by acting as if this is like, the first time someone has ever killed other people due to the fact that they're racist and gosh isn't that surprising.

[Frumple]

... think it's more abhorrence than apologist inclinations, LS. Maybe lack of exposure (or at least lack of recognition of exposure, which amounts to the same thing) to the violent side of racist ideology. Lot of people, especially when viscerally exposed to something like this for the first time, are shocked enough by it they can't really wrap their head around it. Especially if they've been around folks that are... well, you probably know the sort -- best people in the world, so long as you're not <insert race>. It's incredibly goddamn jarring the first time you notice the people around you are actually not far off from being murderous assholes. The mind recoils. Doesn't want to accept it, etc., etc. Makes you want to think that the beliefs the people you otherwise respected couldn't lead to abhorrent acts such as the one in question.

That's... it's not really a bad thing, exactly? Entirely, anyway. People who have that reaction to acts such as these are ones who probably aren't going to perpetrate them, and are fairly likely to spread that kind of reaction to those around them. Naiveté, perhaps, but sorta' a good one, so long as it doesn't blind the person to the existence of what causes acts like these. Which it does have an unfortunate tendency to, as you've kinda' noted, LS, pointing out the similarities to apologist bullshit.

Unfortunately, violence against groups that have been painted as the degenerate Other is entirely too human, too sane, and too normal... there's consequences to professing beliefs

[ggamer]

EDIT: This post is messy

I get what both of you are saying, and I cannot type a response that satisfies me.

Ugh, something just isn't sitting right with me about this whole affair. I guess let me clarify what I'm saying a bit more so it doesn't sound like naive bullshit.

If my position seems weird, it's because that opinion is what pretty much everyone i've talked to holds about the whole thing. Nobody really believes that it was racially motivated, they just think the kid's fucking crazy and needed an excuse to go shoot people, so he chose one from the barrel. Aside from that, noone has really been expressing any opinion aside from sorrow for the folks that died and vehement anger at the kid who shot them. I guess if there is some sort of racism around here, it's a lot more subtle than most people would think (aside from Frumple, seeing as how he's in the mix IIRC).

Tried typing more but this is about as far as I can get that makes sense to me. Let me sleep on this, there's a good thread of discussion somewhere in here.

[SirQuiamus]

Nobody really believes that it was racially motivated, they just think the kid's fucking crazy and needed an excuse to go shoot people, so he chose one from the barrel.

"Excuse" is not the correct word in this context: If he really is crazy, then we have every reason to assume that he sincerely believes everything that racist agitators have told him, to the extent of seeing it as a valid reason for his act. As a general rule, people don't go on a premeditated rampage without some motive, imaginary or otherwise, and regardless of his sanity or insanity, the fact is that Roof got his motive directly from a white supremacist website:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/06/20/a-conservative-website-literally-turned-dylann-roof-into-the-murdering-racist-he-is-today/

The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words “black on White crime” into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong.

Whether or not he happened to be frothing mad, the important thing to note is that he already had this "racial violence is no biggie" mentality prior to his radicalization, and all that propaganda thus fell on fertile ground.

[Truean]

https://www.yahoo.com/politics/supreme-court-affirms-right-to-gay-marriage-122495807066.html

Gay Marriage, constitutionally protected in the US....

"Gay and lesbian couples will be able to marry immediately in the four states named in the case — Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Michigan. "

I still can't believe it.

[JoshuaFH]

I guess the Supreme Court can only do four states at at time, but otherwise good jerb Michigan, good home state, best mitten.

[Truean]

Actually, it's for the entire country now. They found restrictions on that specific right unconstitutional, and those four states were the ones holding out/defending the idea.

[JoshuaFH]

Ok then I guess I have to retract that statement then.

^{Darn ignorance, making me look ignorant}

[Truean]

Not a problem man, and I suppose in practical terms you may even be right. Just because there's a right to something immediately, does not mean there is an immediate remedy. There may be a delay of a few days or weeks for same-sex marriage to be legal in the remaining states with bans, since lower courts will have to apply the opinion to them.

[itisnotlogical]

I love how gay marriage opponents still claim that they're defending the rights of American citizens. "We're ensuring equal protection under the law for ALL Americans... except the ones we don't like." To be honest, I foresee a lot of state governments acting on their own to defy the ruling however they can for as long as is sustainable.

[Reelya]

I wasn't that surprised by the church shootings, but I was kinda shocked by the conservative radio guy who said the only decent, rational response is for the survivors to go and murder the killer's family "ten fold" for revenge.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/06/23/nra-news-regular-charleston-shooting-victims-re/204109
This conservative right wing radio guy (also has strong links to the NRA) 'said that he was "sickened," "disgusted," and "very bothered" by the forgiveness shown to the alleged perpetrator'. And went on to suggest killing the perp's family (ten fold) as an act of revenge, as the only "decent" response. Sounds good, clearly killing 10 times as many as you lost is the only rational response. Nothing can go wrong with that plan, let's make that out default response to being harmed. Guy rapes your daughter? Rape his wife and mother! That'll show those rapists.

The right wing media is the most entertaining when they are jumping through these logical distortion hoops, usually contradicting themselves from a week ago (blacks reacting violently to black deaths = bad, blacks forgiving a killer = bad too).

Up until recently FOX was saying Obama is waging a war on christians / catholics (by adding contraception coverage to insurance plans), then recently the Pope says we should take environment damage seriously, so this week the exact same FOX correspondents are running the story that it's Obama and the Pope in cahoots for a tyrranical socialist world takeover.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/06/23/conservative-media-who-complained-of-war-on-chr/204092