Police in Lafayette, Louisiana are evidently struggling to understand why the outspokenly misogynistic, racist and anti-Semitic John Russell “Rusty” Houser murdered two women and wounded 9 other moviegoers at a showing of “Trainwreck,” a film written by and starring Amy Schumer, a feminist comedian with a Jewish father, known for joking frankly about sex.
[For more, see my latest post on Houser: “Did right-wing attacks on “Trainwreck” inspire John Russell Houser’s shooting rampage?”]
Col. Michael D. Edmonson, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, wondered aloud about Houser’s motives at a press conference:
Why did he come here? Why did he do that? … We may not find a motive.
It seems to me that Houser’s likely motive is staring them in the face.
Because it turns out that Houser was pretty well-known, at least to regular viewers of one local TV talk show in Columbus, GA, as an angry right-wing fanatic who hated women. As one former host of the show recalled,
He was anti-abortion. … Rusty had an issue with feminine rights. He was opposed to women having a say in anything.
Houser evidently appeared on the live show dozens of times as a “gadfly” whose appearances “would generate calls.”
When Houser’s career as a loudmouthed crank on local TV apparently came to an end years ago, he moved to another medium, leaving a long trail of hateful comments on assorted websites, many of them openly praising Hitler and talking ominously about the future of what he saw as a deeply “immoral” culture.”
In the comments on a news article about an 60-year-old man who’d been murdered, Houser wrote
I am sincerely sorry for the loss of this fellow in the deer processing business. Most people over 50 in certain businesses are just as their parents were,rock solid morally.
I am also sorry for what is to come for the other very few moral souls left in the entire US.
I am not sorry for the 90% immoral population which will be meeting the same fate.
Filth is rampant.That none have stood against it causes me to take rest in the worse than MAD MAX near future which approaches.
In Trainwreck, Amy Schumer plays a New York journalist “riding the cock carousel” — as the odious men I regularly write about on this website like to put it — who eventually falls in love.
It seems highly unlikely that Houser was someone “who just happened to be in this theater,” as the police superintendent put it.
It seems highly likely that a woman-hating neo-Nazi ended up in a theater showing Trainwreck on purpose.
When a religious fanatic blows themselves up at a cafe frequented by members of a rival religious sect, we have no trouble calling this terrorism.
When an outspoken white racist murders nine black churchgoers in Charleston, SC, well, some people (including virtually all of the Republican presidential hopefuls) have trouble calling it terrorism. But most people can see it for what it is.
When misogynists murder women, almost no one calls it terrorism.
Elliot Rodger, who left behind an assortment of misogynistic videos and a book-length diatribe, was a terrorist.
“Rusty” Houser — who left behind no manifesto but who was well-known for his odiously anti-woman and neo-Nazi views — was almost certainly a terrorist as well.
NOTE: According to court filings, Houser had “a history of mental health issues, i.e., manic depression and/or bi-polar disorder.” (Which are actually the same thing.) While this could certainly have had an effect on his state of mind, it says nothing about his motives. Bipolar disorder does not cause people to become misogynistic neo-Nazis who murder women.
EDIT: Added the note above, made tweaks to wording.
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There may be plenty of good guy cops (although I’m doubting that most are), but as an institution, the police uphold basically every system of oppression.
I think anyone who is paying the slightest bit of attention knows that cops are awfully quick to kill unarmed black people. And just look at stop and frisk. Also, arresting and sentencing disparities for non-violent drug crimes.
11 trans women have murdered so far this year in the US alone. Considering what a tiny minority of the population are trans women, this is a huge number. Yet, these murders never seem to viewed as hate crimes by law enforcement.
The police absolutely uphold misogyny too. How many stories have come out, both in small towns and big cities of the police treating rape victims like the ones who are criminals. And blatantly refusing to investigate.
Since the shooting happened in Louisiana, here’s an example from that state
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/11/new_orleans_police_ignore_sex.html
Then there was the time the police allowed their fellow officer to shoot his wife in front of them and not only did they fail to stop him, they comforted him afterwards!
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/06/17/new_jersey_policeman_reportedly_kills_wife_witnesses_say_officers_made_no.html
Also, cops are more likely to be domestic abusers than the general population.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/
@sn0rkmaiden:
I’ve been looking at the other news coverage of this tragedy and the comments, no mention of misogyny anywhere, just the usual arguments about gun control and lazy thinking about mental illness.
It is almost as if there was an unspoken prohibition against noticing misogyny.
@Rosemary:
“He told me if I wanted to play games with him I’d better watch out because he always wins,” (his ex-wife) wrote in a (divorce) court filing.
Those words are chilling.
Yes.
Also chilling and infuriating at the same time is this quote from the article you linked:
This is how glibly we disregard misogyny. It is mentioned that he became known for his misogynists statements, but they are not labeled as such. They are considered a sign of being an “oddball,” like, say, an interest in UFO perhaps, and not at all an evidence of his, or anyone’s, dark side. Something to laugh at and be entertained by.
If there is one thing I’ve learned in dealing with misogynists, it is that their hatred of women IS the dark side and the harbinger of all kinds of terrible behaviors, including mistreatment of various kinds, and violence, domestic and / or other. It is a huge red flag. That we can dismiss it so easily as some personal oddity is frightening. And then we act surprised: “We don’t know why he killed these women, we may never know.”
Ugh.
It’s as if we are fish and the misogyny, and the gendered aspects of violence, are the water we swim in, unaware of it by design.
And just like it is un-PC to speak of misogyny, it is un-PC to point the maleness of violence. Headlines and news about violent events around the world lull us into a sense of curious but unreal gender neutrality. For example, we see a headline “Violence erupts in X” and go to the story which talks about “crowds,” “mob” or “people” causing violent disturbances and attacks in whatever place on Earth. But when we look at the pictures, we see only or overwhelmingly men. No one, however, writes news to reflect that: “Men attack Y in X” or “Male mob kills Z,” etc.
This unspoken prohibition on specifying the gender of the deadly and destructive culprits is part of the same blindness we cultivate with respect to deadly misogyny. It insures that things will continue as always, without any meaningful change — for we cannot change something if we don’t admit to its existence. It is that water we swim in.
At what point to we begin to convict these misogynists as terrorists? The vitriol that is spewed out of MRA’s MGTOW’s and PUA’s fuel this hatred even more. I’m not for censoring, but like you said, when any ideology becomes murderous, where do you draw the line?
I know the intent was malicious, but take a moment to picture Amy Schumer actually riding a cock carousel. I think it’s already my favorite Amy Schumer skit, and it doesn’t even exist yet.
Indiffrentsky,
Me too. I’m really sick of brogressives who claim to be on our side and want cookies because they’re pro choice, or whatever, but they refuse to consider that they have absorbed misogyny too, crack jokes about how over sensitive feminists are, and mansplain to us about how we should do feminism.
The guys on this site who are real allies do give me some hope, but it seems like the brogressive types are more common.
An eyewitness reports that it appeared as though Houser waited for a specific line in the movie to start shooting, and that he proceeded more or less methodically:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3174066/I-think-Lafayette-theater-shooting-survivor-fights-tears-revealing-theater-helped-one-try-safety.html
It’s supposed to be a “risque punchline” about 20 minutes into the movie. Does anyone know what it may be?
Well said Aunt Edna!! Really insightful comment on the issues. It is becoming more and more “uncool” in mainstream to talk about misogyny. I WORK in social work and if I say the M word I get attacked by both men and women!! And I think ideologies of racism and sexism etc. ARE clearly becoming more murderous. You read these men’s activists pages and neo-Nazi sites and they are full of all these doomsday prophecies warning their followers to be on the attack (physical attack I mean)
weirwoodtreehugger.
I’m trying to comment on these news articles with headlines that put RACIST first as a descriptor for him. He was a RACIST everyone… :/
I was saying to my partner the other day before this shooting that any day now there was going to be a shooting of women judging by how hateful the “men’s movement” is and I was right.
That is the scary part, that it was that easy to predict it.
Robjec:
What on earth gives you the impression that people aren’t already doing that? Did you know that people can comment here about this story *and* they can “have this discussion outside of here”?
I hope I didn’t blow your mind.
People are raising some really interesting points here about terrorism and hate speech. This is a subject that’s close to me, again for both personal interest and professional reasons. I’m about to go off and paint a deer an attractive shade of teal, but whilst I do that may I pick your brains?
What do people think about the Tom Jones song ‘Delilah’?
There’s a reason I ask this so I’d appreciate your views.
*Goes off to start typing*
Aunt Edna
As David wrote in the OP
Sounds exactly like a fish to me. Water? What water? What is water anyway?
It’s where you live, it’s how you live. It’s little wonder you can’t imagine what life would look like outside it.
@kylagb:
It is unreal, and exasperating, this collective willful blindness.
Check out the Daily Mail article I linked to, and see people’s comments. There is one person who observed that this mass murderer targeted women and s/he is downvoted and ridiculed.
I am at loss.
Delilah?
Oh dear. We were at a cabaret style dinner and dancing thing a couple of months ago. Everyone singing along to most of the songs. Delilah, I’m ashamed to say, is really easy to sing along with.
(Though my most surreal singing along experience was 40 years ago. Went to a similar kind of dinner dance event – but this was a German Catholic club. Just as old songs, including war time songs, were performed at similar events in other groups, we were singing along with what apparently were popular German songs. My German pronunciation was always fairly good — had to be for singing lieder and some opera — I wasn’t so good at understanding it. Useless in fact. It was only on the third time around singing the chorus that I realised I was singing about “Bombs Raining on London”.)
And BTW, all, check out Dalrock’s post from the day of the shooting. He writes about shortages of ammo, real and perceived, caused by Obama’s ‘anti-gun policies.’ He ends his post with “Happy shooting.”
While this is just a coincidence, I thought how ‘fitting’ it was coming from a Christian misogynist whose views are nearly identical with Houser’s.
@Aunt Edna and kylagb,
I hear you. I hesitate to use the word misogyny around a lot of people, because I fear the response will shut down debate. The guy I live with, who is very progressive in all aspects, will get angry with me if I talk about misogyny, I haven’t even mentioned the Lafayette shootings today, while we have been able to talk about Donald Trump and his latest buffoonery.
@Kylagb,
also, I’ll be mindful of saying ‘mental illness’ when ‘mental health’ is more accurate.
@Alan Robertshaw,
I find the song Delilah, which is from the point of view of a man who has murdered a woman and is now blaming her for it, pretty disturbing to say the least. Isn’t that song an established chant for one football club? I can’t remember which one.
@snork:
I hear YOU. I also get a curious reaction from my husband, who, even a progressive feminist both in principle and in fact, feels compelled to ‘mansplain’ away misogyny when the subject comes up. It is a most interesting thing, I must say.
And speaking of,
My dad is watching CNN and they’ve been talking about this for at least 5 minutes. No mention of his misogyny or his misogynist views just yet. And now the segment is over. Never mentioned. They mentioned his swastika flag though. Maybe if misogynists would get a flag, the media would finally be willing to consider that as a motive.
Needless to say, I’ve been ranting.
CNN is the worst.
Okay, Fox News is the worst. But CNN is bad too.
@Robjec
Others have already called out your assumption that nobody here does any activism outside this site. So, now, riddle me this: so what if someone of us don’t? Who appointed you the arbiter of how to feminism? Who appointed you the arbiter of what people who aren’t you do with their time, effort and money? What information do you imagine yourself to be in possession of that tells you whether meatspace activism is feasible for anyone here? Speaking for myself, there are exactly 0 people with whom I have face to face contact who aren’t either right wing nincompoops or militantly apathetic about politics. I have no drivers’ license and I have severe anxiety issues. Engaging in conversation about this stuff on the internet is about the extent of what I can do. So that’s what I do. I’m so terribly sorry (not really) that it’s not good enough for you.
I’m not trying to attack you guys and I’m sorry if it came off that way.
I guess I’m just suprised you guys are spending energy on what the media talks about, since in my experience they never side with you until you have won.
I know you guys spend time outside of here talking about these issues, I just feel like you guys are focusing to much on how the news covers this and I really don’t understand why. To me that seems like a waste of energy.
I’m sorry if I came off as attacking anyone.
If your willing to explain without being insulting I will listen, but in general I show as much trust for the news as many of you seem to for the police.
So please try to explain why I should spend energy being upset, or even suprised that any of this is covered the way it is? The news media has failed me time and again. As some background I’m pansexual, Transgender, and suffer from scitzofrenia and sizzures, and the news hasn’t had a good record of treating any of those fairly until they already had overwhelming popular support.
I guess I’m confused because it feels like you guys expected more, and I’ve never seen anything live up to this expectation.
And once again I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you or imply you weren’t good activist, I just got to heated with my argument. Will you guys forgive me?
@sevenofmine
I’m trying to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say you guys weren’t acting properly or being good feminist. I’m not trying to attack any if you. And once again I’m sorry.
rob, I don’t take offense at you, they are points of discussion.
If headlines and coverage are more accurate it forms public opinion. So it’s good.
Robjec:
Well the fact that you’ve come in here with pre-formed conclusions doesn’t help matters any. You’re also operating under assumptions about people that you have no way of verifying. You’re making assumptions about what people do with their time based on comments in a blog online. How would you know if people are “focusing too much” on anything?
And I find it annoying when someone tells me I’m “wasting energy” doing X. It’s not your business nor your place to dictate how I spend my time.
Are you under the mistaken impression that anyone is interested in telling you what to do with your time or how you should feel? I’m sorry, but that’s been your province since you first commented. I think you’re projecting here.
That this is the way things are is no reason to not expect people to be better.