Comments

  1. Sean Boyd says

    All lives SHOULD matter. It shouldn’t require a warning from halfway around the planet to realize this. And if it’s so clear to people in Gaza what the hell is happening here, how can so many ‘Murikans still be so completely and totally and actively oblivious?

    /rhetorical question

    Stay safe (as much as possible), residents of Gaza, and Ferguson, and anywhere else where the rights of people are being trampled upon.

  2. dianne says

    Given the way the US has treated Palestine and the Palestinian people, their sympathy is rather shame making. It’s amazing that they have any sympathy left for us.

  3. Saad says

    Wow, what a touching image.

    And what a fucking shame for any of the privileged assholes involved in defending the murder.

  4. Esteleth is Groot says

    I remember reading that back in August/September people in Palestine were posting on the #Ferguson hashtag advice on how to construct a makeshift gas mask, how to handle being surrounded by tear gas, and how to manage the physical symptoms of being gassed (e.g. what sort of stuff to have on hand to dump on yourself).

  5. Usernames! ☞ ♭ says

    It’s amazing that they have any sympathy left for us.
    — dianne (#4)

    They don’t [hate/despise/have antipathy towards] the American people, just the American government.

  6. JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness says

    Esteleth is Groot

    I remember reading that back in August/September people in Palestine were posting on the #Ferguson hashtag advice on how to construct a makeshift gas mask, how to handle being surrounded by tear gas, and how to manage the physical symptoms of being gassed (e.g. what sort of stuff to have on hand to dump on yourself).

    Yep, I get chills every time I think of that.

  7. hexidecima says

    all lives should matter. but what was the point of destroying innocent bystanders property?

  8. David Marjanović says

    We send our cops to be trained by the Israelis and then are shocked when they treat us like Palestinians.

    I laughed way too much when I saw that. :-/ I suppose it’s funny only because it’s true.

  9. says

    Given the way the US has treated Palestine and the Palestinian people, their sympathy is rather shame making. It’s amazing that they have any sympathy left for us.

    I have a feeling that its’ #notallamericans they have sympathy for.

  10. tbtabby says

    All lives SHOULD matter. It shouldn’t require a warning from halfway around the planet to realize this. And if it’s so clear to people in Gaza what the hell is happening here, how can so many ‘Murikans still be so completely and totally and actively oblivious?

    Part of the Rugged American Individual philosophy is “it’s not a problem if it’s not happening to me personally.” Trouble is, by the time is starts happening to you personally, it’s often too late to solve. “FIrst they came for Ferguson, and I did not speak out because I was not in Ferguson…”

  11. Thomathy, Such A 'Mo says

    I would agree with Giliel @ #12. Afterall, it is some number of Americans who elect the people and condone the actions of those elected people who then bomb or endorse the bombing of people like the Palestinians.

  12. toska says

    Adding on to Giliel’s 12 and Thomathy’s 15, I have trouble finding Americans who are sympathetic to Palestinians. It may be partially due to my location in the US, but there certainly seems to be a majority of American citizens who do not like to think about Palestinians as real people.

  13. nich says

    all lives should matter. but what was the point of destroying innocent bystanders property?

    Why is it always crickets from you fuckers when it’s drunk white kids rioting after their favorite fucking sports team won a game? Where was all the pissing and moaning during the Vancouver riots over that fucking hockey team? But when it’s brown people pissed that one of their own got shot 90 fucking times on the barest of pretenses, then you fuckers are all about the fucking sanctity of somebody’s fucking storefront.

    Fuck off.

  14. nich says

    PSA:

    If you have the urge to put a “but” after “all lives should matter” please SERIOUSLY reconsider hitting the post comment button before you look like a fucking ghoul.

  15. kayden says

    Thank you PZ for covering this issue (and other issues concerning racism). You’re the one atheist blogger who consistently keeps up with “sensitive” issues like the police gunning down of Black men.

    I hope there is some reciprocity in regard to the morale support that the Palestinians have shown to the people hurting in Ferguson.

    Thank you nich @17 for your response. Couldn’t have said it better myself. White kids/people riot all the time (especially about sports) and there doesn’t seem to be any negative repercussions for their actions. Somehow Blacks rioting is a big deal — and always bigger than the issues that they’re rioting about.

  16. freemage says

    hexidecima

    25 November 2014 at 1:59 pm

    all lives should matter. but what was the point of destroying innocent bystanders property?

    Maybe if they weren’t so eager to remain bystanders, and actually got involved in changing things, this sort of situation wouldn’t happen.

    Ferguson is living in a state of apartheid. “Innocent” becomes a very dodgy concept at that point.

  17. Menyambal says

    Yep. American cops get trained by Israeli soldiers. But the American airport-security staff, they completely fucking ignore the Israeli airport-security practices and procedures. Oppressing the people is more important than protecting them.

    Thank you, Palestinians of Gaza.

  18. throwaway, never proofreads, every post a gamble says

    Maybe if they weren’t so eager to remain bystanders, and actually got involved in changing things, this sort of situation wouldn’t happen.

    Ferguson is living in a state of apartheid. “Innocent” becomes a very dodgy concept at that point.

    Can it be shown that those who had their property damaged were ambivalent toward Brown’s murder?

  19. hexidecima says

    to #14 and #20, it’s so nice to see such nonsense. Now, it seems that any bystanders who didn’t do anything somehow “deserve” to be harmed. Does this mean since you did nothing, I can burn your house down because you didn’t do anything and chose to do so? Please do define who is innocent and who is at fault for this and just how far out we can go to declare everyone guilty.

  20. says

    hexadecima
    Citation badly needed; show where anyone’s home was damaged or looted; I have seen no such reports anywhere. To amplify Freemage’s comment, since you are apparently too ignorant to supply context on your own and arrogant enough to open your fool mouth anyway, look at who owns the businesses that were damaged. More specifically, look at who doesn’t own the businesses. Then educate yourself a bit on concepts like capital flight and redlining. Then consider just what you mean by ‘innocent bystander’. Is an agency innocent if it is actively engaged in preventing capital flow into black neighborhoods, perpetuating unemployment in same, and being backed up by the police with lethal force? Consider carefully. Get back to me if you need help with the more complex concepts, I realize that you have difficulty with the idea of context.

  21. F.O. says

    @hexidecima “deserve” and “have a responsibility for” are two different things.
    Example: I don’t “deserve” to live under an evil government, but it is my *responsibility* to change things.

  22. Sili says

    10. hexidecima,

    all lives should matter. but what was the point of destroying innocent bystanders property?

    Sentences usually start with capitals.

    Anyway, you do realise that property is easily replaced with proper insurance, right? Lives, not so much.

  23. F.O. says

    Also, why the fuck can’t the world make up its mind about the Israel vs the Palestinians?
    Aren’t the land grabbing and the disparity in body count and weaponry enough already?

  24. randay says

    # 10 hexidecima. The Israelis demolish the houses of Palestinians who have made attacks against Jews even though nobody else in the house may have known about the plans or supported them. That is collective punishment which is a war crime. Then the Israeli government refuses them permits to rebuild and hands the property over to Jews as “absentee” land.

    So they leave Palestinian families homeless and steal their property. There wouldn’t be riots in the U.S. if its “justice” system worked. But since it doesn’t, people have no other recourse to make their voices heard than to take to the streets. It is the same reason that Palestinians take to the streets, the Israeli “justice” system is racist and criminal.

  25. F.O. says

    I didn’t realize how the Ferguson murder is similar to the Mavi Marmara raid… The parallels are very apt.

    The poor helpless full-geared, hyper-trained Israeli boarding party (in international waters) had to defend themselves killing 11 people which may or may not have wielded makeshift weapons and threw themselves at the soldiers.
    People manage to treat Israel as the fucking victim.
    Israel won’t be charged.

  26. Maureen Brian says

    hexidecima,

    Here it is, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1864 – http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/emanc.shtml

    And here we are 140 years later and there have been many troubles in between plus a couple of Amendments to the Constitution, plus Supreme Court Decisions, plus the laws pushed through by LBJ.

    I feel perfectly confident to say that by this stage that anyone just standing by gawping or seeking to support the status quo, making excuses for legal or economic injustice, willing to see whole groups of people demeaned and and disadvantaged for their skin colour or listening unmoved to a law official doing a character assassination of the dead victim IS NOT INNOCENT.

    They are part of the problem. Own it.

  27. says

    The horribly cynic in me says that maybe if killing black people becomes fucking bad for business because of riots, maybe then will parts of American society withdraw their support and demand that people, especially police officers stop killing black people.

  28. hexidecima says

    ah, so it’s “ghoulish” to think about anyone who was harmed by the rioters. And home, business, cars, it’s someone’s property being destroyed for what? Tell me that. Anger? At whom? Again, who “deserved” this? All of this crying about social justice but there is no thought for those who were also harmed. Is it such a problem to point out that both sides were wrong? Or do you need a narrative that has only a pure victim? As it stands, it seems like this is similar to attempts to say that no one should complain if they weren’t as “badly” harmed as some one else.

  29. hexidecima says

    And again, tell me where the blame ends? Should someone burn my business because I didn’t supposed “do” something. I live a thousand miles from Ferguson, am I to blame? Is a person to blame if they did all they could in Ferguson but it still didn’t help as much as someone else thought it should? Tell me who the victims should and shouldn’t be. It’s horrible that a young man got killed. It’s a fact that the grand jury did not think that they had enough evidence, considering the witnessses did not agree. That’s how the law works. Reverse the situation: a young man is accused by witnesses of killing a man. The witnesses don’t agree. Do you want the grand jury to indict him? Now, do you think a riot is in order if they did? And who deserves to suffer because of that?
    I know you won’t agree. It doesn’t sit with the story you wish to tell.

  30. F.O. says

    @hexidecima: Because, as a citizen of the US, Mike Brown was killed in YOUR name. The government and its use of violence is legitimized by You The People.
    Because the standards you walk past are the standards you accept.

    a young man is accused by witnesses of killing a man. The witnesses don’t agree. Do you want the grand jury to indict him?

    Yes, so that there can be a proper trial?

  31. nich says

    I know you won’t agree. It doesn’t sit with the story you wish to tell.I know you won’t agree. It doesn’t sit with the story you wish to tell.

    Fuck off with your poisoning the well bullshit. You fucking assholes ALWAYS do this. You have no problem with the murder of unarmed black kids. Can’t keep your mouths shut tight enough. I’m guessing if I poked around Pharyngula, I won’t read much from hexi-fucking-decima about Michael Brown. But man, as soon as the first brick is tossed, your silent fucking mouths suddenly unglue themselves and you can’t shut the fuck up about the injustice of it all.

    Dead kids trump a fucking insurance write off for fucking Walgreens any day. The only sympathy I have is for the lost paychecks for the poor souls schlepping aspirin for minimum wage, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they sympathize with the rioters more than their employers anyway!

  32. nich says

    Reverse the situation: a young man is accused by witnesses of killing a man. The witnesses don’t agree. Do you want the grand jury to indict him? Now, do you think a riot is in order if they did? And who deserves to suffer because of that?

    I guess you haven’t read the thousand of words out there saying that grand juries typically have almost no fucking problem handing down indictments EXCEPT FOR WHEN IT COMES TO COPS PUTTING BULLETS INTO PEOPLE.

  33. says

    hexadecima
    And since you prating, privileged, pissants are too stuck on your half-assed high horse to perceive what’s under your pusillanimous propertarian probosci, I suppose I’ll have to spell it out, just in case you jackasses are actually capable of comprehension.
    What you recalcitrantly refuse to register is that businesses like Toys R Us are active agents of economic oppression in places like Ferguson*. Because these businesses are not owned by residents of Ferguson, and for the most part do not hire people from Ferguson. Every dollar that the residents of Ferguson spend in these places leaves Ferguson poorer, because that money doesn’t circulate in Ferguson anymore. Not only that, but these businesses occupy the economic niches that black-owned businesses would occupy, if black people could get business loans (but, in the main, they can’t, due to a practice known as redlining, where banks and insurance companies draw a red line on the map around black neighborhoods, and no one with an address there can get a loan. It was made illegal in the late 80s, but enforcement is lax at best, and it still happens all the time.) But even if they could, they’d have the devil’s own time starting up in the face of corporate giants who can and will use all manner of dirty tactics to drive such competitors under. That’s not even mentioning the way that a lack of home loans leads to rapacious landlords owning most of the living space, which is even more financial capital vacuumed out of black neighborhoods and never replaced. So, frankly, fuck the lot of them; the owners of Toys R Us and the other businesses for the most part deserve** all this damage and the loss of far more of their ill-gotten gains besides.

    * note that everything I’m saying here applies to black neighborhoods and communities everywhere in the U.S., not just Ferguson, Missouri.
    ** I don’t really like talking in terms of deserts, as it gets into all kinds of sticky issues, but even from a strictly economic standpoint the only problem here is that some of the damaged structures could probably have been useful for better purposes once the looting was done with.

  34. says

    @ hexidecima # 10

    all lives should matter. but what was the point of destroying innocent bystanders property?

    Please go and ask that of the Apartheid Israeli State, after their criminal destruction of innocent Palestinians’ property.

    @ nich #36

    But man, as soon as the first brick is tossed,

    Hell, in Hong Kong the cops don’t even wait for protesters to do anything. They advance against their stationary victims and then pepper spray them for “advancing”.

    Theory of Right Wing Relativity ™ , or something…

  35. ck says

    carolineborduin wrote:

    PZ – why do you hate Israel?

    Increasingly, I’m wondering what wouldn’t qualify as “hating Israel” to people like you. But, I suppose for black-and-white “you’re with us or with the enemy” thinkers, it’s hard to see a difference between disliking what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians and endorsing Hamas rhetoric about destroying Israel. But I’m wasting my time here, because this will fall on deaf ears like it always does.