Over on men’s rights hate site A Voice for Men, Attila Vinczer has found the true villain in the case of Walter Scott, the black man shot in the back after he ran from a white cop: Don’t blame the cop for shooting and killing a man who was no danger to him whatsoever; blame the ex-wife who simply wanted Scott to pay the child support he owed:
Another AVFM commenter seconded Vinczer’s, er, interpretation of events.
As did someone called TLC:
Over on the Men’s Rights subreddit, the regulars, to their credit, were a bit more reluctant to see this as a Men’s Rights issue rather than a “white cop shooting black man despite being in no danger at all” issue. Well, some of them were, in any case. The others posted comments like this:
Dungone decided to spread the blame to evil feminists eager to cash in on sweet, sweet child support payments.
InBaggingArea offered the most succinct explanation:
It’s true that Scott owed child support. He had four children with two ex-wives and apparently owed thousands of dollars in child support for his two younger children; his family says this is the likely reason he ran, though we can’t be sure. Despite being behind on his payments, he was reportedly on good terms with his children, and saw them regularly.
Scott’s funeral was held today.
H/T — r/againstmensrights
I agree with that assessment, but this feels like backpedaling considering you didn’t say any of this prior.
You came right out and said (and I’m going to paraphrase here) “People with mental illnesses shouldn’t be taking care of kids because most terrible parents have mental illnesses”.
This wasn’t about the debt in your last post.
Or perhaps it could be that these mental illnesses have been around for quite some time, and we’ve only just now discovered what causes some of them, or we’ve just now realized the fact that some of them are, in fact, mental illnesses.
Sure, we have a lot more stress in “contemporary society” than a lot of societies prior, but we’ve also got it pretty good in a lot of ways as well.
Back in ye olde Victorian times, I would have been thrown into a very terrible institution (most likely by a male family member, if not a husband that I would have been forced to marry) and been misdiagnosed and abused physically and sexually by doctors and staff by now. All because I show symptoms of depression and anxiety.
It’s true that we’ve built up a lot of negative feelings (and, trust me, it’s not just here), but I think you’re a little off on where the blame lies.
I don’t think it’s just a theory MRAs came up with, because his family confirmed that this was the issue. And MRAs were pretty slow on this one. AVfM, for example, took almost a week to bring it up.
Mostly it was originally cast as a racial issue, which it may be in part, but given Walter Scott’s background and generally non-criminal nature it would take some factual contortion to ignore the child support issue. He was even featured in an older article on “deadbeat dads” from 2003, so he’d been dogged by this for a long time. There’s no other good explanation for his snap decision to flee.
Obviously, you don’t see it the same way I do. That’s fine. But I honestly relate to Scott, having been there myself, and I can understand his impulse to run for it. It wasn’t an ideal decision, and I doubt I’d do the same, but I can definitely understand it. It also seems that the mainstream has generally accepted this explanation as well. That’s a good thing, because now maybe his death will not have been in vain.
Keep in mind that I don’t blame his ex or his kids. They have little to no say in this drama, so for MRAs to blame them is irresponsible at best. But I think the politicians, judges, police and attorneys involved have a lot to answer for. Too bad most of them are “above” accountability. My biggest concern here is that Officer Slager alone will take the fall, and the other culpable actors will carry on as usual, pretending they had nothing to do with it.
Multiple things can be going on in the same case. Child support could have caused Scott to run. Racism likely caused the cop to shoot. As the shooting is the issue, more so than the running, it has been cast as a racial issue. By focusing so much on the child support, you’re giving off the impression that you think the running was the issue, more so than the shooting. That’s not a great impression to give.
The idea isn’t to brush them off, but rather not to suggest that they are the standard non-custodial parent. Most non-custodial fathers care about their kids, and most are competent enough to spend the day and night with them without supervision. But today they must confront the presumption that they are not fit to parent, and that’s ridiculous and counterproductive.
Yes, those with problems of a non-violent, non-deceptive nature need help and not incarceration. Sadly, they usually do not have that option today. We should ask ourselves whether we want to be complicit in a system that punishes people merely for suffering from misfortune rather than for intentionally inflicting harm on others. I don’t. I couldn’t in good conscience punish someone for personal misfortune absent bad intentions. It’s a terrible thing to do. Frankly, it makes me sick to see “Christians” who advocate for this kind of society. Worst kind of hypocrites possible.
Thank you, Kirby. We shouldn’t be concentrating on why Walter Scott ran but why the fuck the cop shot him in the goddamn back and how terrible the MRA are to make it all feminism fault.
That’s kinda the entire point of WHtM, actually. What system of child support is better shouldn’t even have been brought into the discussion.
In fact, let me bring it back on topic:
The MRA are terrible shitheels for making an issue of a man getting shot in the back all feminism fault for any reason. It’s almost like they don’t even care that a man got shot–oh, wait, they don’t, they just want to circle jerk each other while talking about how horrible woman are by using Walter Scott’s death as a jumping off point. It’s like a shitty game of Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon that ends with nothing being connect to Kevin Bacon.
I’d like to second this one from Kirby.
Bill, I think you’re coming from a decent place, but this is a huge problem I have with what’s going on here. Yeah, we need to fix some things.
But we need to keep in mind that he isn’t dead because he ran, but because an awful police officer chose to use lethal measures when there was absolutely no justifiable reason.
We can talk about other factors (and you are talking about things that are important) but it would be awesome if you spoke of them with a little more respect to the circumstances.
…also, this might not be the best forum for that discussion about things, and definitely might not be the best thread…
But, it’s a relatively free internet, so if you really, really want to keep discussing it here, just don’t be surprised if there are some folks who get progressively more annoyed.
(Instead of me, who started out really annoyed because I was fresh off dealing with awful and got you confused with awful and is now trying to remember how to be a nice person after my unfounded rawr-awful-person-annoyance start).
Actually, that would be the best game of Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon. Can’t you see the headlines?
“Bacon-less Hollywood” Discovered After Game Gone Awry
On Tuesday, Samantha was hanging out with some friends. To pass the time, she suggested they play a common game. The results, however, were anything but common.
“We discovered an entire section of Hollywood that has no connections to Kevin Bacon,” she said.
The game, known as Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon, is to try to pick a random actor from Hollywood, and find some connection to actor Kevin Bacon. Each “degree” is found by listing co-actors in a movie the actor has been in, and the theory is that you can always find a path to Kevin Bacon within 6 steps.
Until Tuesday.
“I was shocked,” one of Samantha’s friends stated, “I thought we just hadn’t seen enough movies. But even using the internet, we couldn’t find a the path.”
It turns out that there is a single, strange path of interconnected movies an actors, none of whom have ever acted in a movie with Kevin Bacon.
“Nothing worked, there was no Bacon,” another friend stated. “It nearly drove me up the wall. How is this possible? A whole secret sliver of Hollywood without Kevin Bacon, how is it even possible?” But there it is!
Mr. Bacon could not be reached for comment.
Yes, the crime the cop committed was terrible. But he’s been arrested and will be facing murder charges. What can I add to that? Not much.
The circumstances that criminalized Walter Scott, on the other hand, are not facing trial, but I think they should. You may not feel that they are important, and if so this is where we part ways, and I’ll happily and immediately leave you alone with your conscience as I have the MRAs — browbeating people doesn’t work anyway. But if you care about that injustice, as I do, then I’ll do my best to provide you with knowledge and tools to prevent it, and I hope you’ll join me in that.
OK, fair enough.
I’ve probably made about as much of a point as I could here. Enjoy your weekend.
Kirby, you’re amazing.
But, honestly, losing 6 Degrees is easy:
Lust in the Time of Heartache
0 Degrees from any actor who’s ever worked with Kevin Bacon in anyway. I win.
@Banana, Faith Amantea has a Bacon rating of 3.
Faith Amantea
was in
Herschell Gordon Lewis’ BloodMania (2015)
with
Angela White (IV)
was in
Knockaround Guys (2001)
with
John Malkovich
was in
Queens Logic (1991)
with
Kevin Bacon
i was bored stop looking at me funny *blush*
@isdore13
In my defense, I just wanted to crap on that shitty movie.
heeeee it had it coming, i am just really bored on my day off lol
@isdore13
Isn’t that what booze and/or DVR is for? Or YouTube? 😛
What a happy coincidence, as I’m off work now and will thus be around to screen any further comments attempting to link Walter Scott’s murder to the child support system or any other MRA hobby horse.
Not quite sure how you got “You may not think these are important” from a passage you blockquoted that said “and you are talking about things that are important”, but okay?
I suppose I don’t really have a leg to stand on after this morning’s shenanigans, but that’s still a little odd.
My conscience and I will do our best to enjoy ourselves during our upcoming ‘not weekend’ of work.
@ Kirbywarp:
You are amazing.
Given that a black man or boy is killed by a cop seemingly every day without child support having anything to do with the story, my conscience is clear for assessing this as having to do with racism. I highly doubt that the cop who shot Tamir Rice suspected him of owing child support. Since he was a child himself and all. It’s really out of line to suggest we should feel guilty for seeing this murder as part of a pattern of racism.
It annoys me the most is that the topic got derailed so much that 2/3 of it is all about child support and now the topic is second page, which means no one will discuss it anymore.
Instead of a frank discussion about Walter Scott and the MRA, we have a debate about how the child support system does or doesn’t discriminate women and men. This is shit.