Gift link, with URL shortener so that Lemmy doesn’t remove the gift token
Additional reporting from Bring Me The News. They have removed the following text from their coverage:
Federal agents briefly detained our reporter at the scene, who says he was tackled to the ground and had a gun put in his face.
Did you see George Floyd death footage?
Have you watched every execution of every prisoner sentenced to capital punishment? Have you tried to book a seat to watch the execution in person? Have you sourced out footage from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, in order to watch people die? Have you requested the body cam footage of every shooting involving a police officer? Do you seek out snuff films? Do you go to hospital emergency rooms to see if you can see someone dying? Do you hang out near bridges in the hope of watching someone jump to their deaths?
I’d probably be a lot angrier if I did. Which is the point. We, people, need to stay angry. Anger motivates action.
Anger also clouds the mind.
But, if anger motivates action, why aren’t you watching those things? Why do you feel you have to watch this particular video, but not those other ones? Is it that, even after all this time, you think Trump and his goons might be telling the truth, and you need to check for yourself? Is it that the literal millions of other people who have watched the video might be lying about what it contains?
I’m not going to disagree with you because that would be silly. But, what are you referring to? I hope you can read the comtempt in my voice. Whose mind is clouded over the murder of Renee Good?
I was going to explain something about farm houses keeping cameras out of their slaughterhouses, or use an analogy about trying to explain magenta to a blind person, and how your own description can both be truthful and insufficient. But I don’t think that’s even important.
The only thing that matters here is that you are struggling to watch these videos, you feel as if you are being made to, and everything you’ve said since those two feelings has been sophistry to explain why you shouldn’t have to.
merc, I’m snapping my fingers. You are free. You can go play Factorio or whatever it is that you wanted to do. I absolve you of the responsibility.
Is that a yes or no? No need to be so defensive about it. I’m just curious.
As for me you don’t have to worry. I’m not easily traumatized but I don’t feel the need to see people dying all the time. I’ve seen enough police killing videos and read about the outcome of the investigations and court cases to know exactly how bad the issue of police violence in US is. I’ve seen what happened and I’ve read the narratives or both sides enough times to know you can’t trust either. I read enough news describing the killings to know they don’t convey what happened at all. That’s why I think if you haven’t seen it and just rely on news and online comments you don’t really know what happened.
That’s why I think that if you didn’t witness something personally and just rely on watching videos you don’t really know what happened.
That’s why I think that if you didn’t get shot yourself and just relied on watching something happen in person you don’t really know what happened.
…
Why won’t you answer a simple question? It’s not gotcha question. I don’t have any “you saw it so you’re a hypocrite” waiting. Have you seen the footage from George Floyd killing or not? It literally shook the whole country. Did you still decide not to see it or was it important enough for you to see?
And your poor attempts at hyperbole are… poor. I explained exactly why I think it’s important to see this specific kind of footage. Police always lies about what happened. Media tends to repeat what police said. Activist over-dramatize what happened to promote their narrative. Same thing can’t be said about plane crashes or car accidents. There’s no nuance to a car hitting a tree. I don’t have to see it live to know what happened. There’s a lot of nuance to police killings. “Resisting”, “reaching”, “threatening” can describe wildly different things. Relying on reports leaves you uninformed and being uninformed by choice makes you ignorant.
Why should I?