Last night, according to various media accounts, Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis confronted three mask-wearing men at the protests who seemed to be acting shady. After a brief altercation, one or more of the men pulled out a gun and shot at BLM protesters, wounding five of them.
Police took two men — one white, one Hispanic — into custody in connection with the shooting, later releasing the Hispanic man. Two other white men, both in their twenties, turned themselves in to police this afternoon.
While we still don’t know all the details of the shooting, there’s some pretty compelling circumstantial evidence suggesting that the masked men (and perhaps a masked woman as well) were 4channers who had been lurking around the demonstrations for days.
Raw Story is claiming that
White supremacists have discussed various strategies online for sparking confrontation at the demonstration, which they described as a “chimpout.” …
They agreed to wear camouflage clothing and display a four of clubs to identify each other, and the white supremacist agitators argued over whether they should carry guns or wear Guy Fawkes masks.
Much of their language will sound familiar to you all. Raw Story continues:
The white supremacist mocked “social justice warriors” and other anti-racist whites, who they described in psychosexual terms.
“Best to act as much like a beta white as much as you can,” one the racists said.
Meanwhile, a video posted online shows two masked men in camo gear apparently on their way to disrupt the BLM protests; they refer to blacks as “dindus” (short for “dindu nuffin”), a racist slur popular amongst 4channers and white supremacists. (The video was apparently shot several days before last night’s shooting.)
While we don’t know for sure that 4channers — or the two men in the video above — were involved in the shooting, some 4channers are convinced of the connection.
In a 4chan /pol/ thread earlier today quoted by Gawker, one anon puts the responsibility on members of 4chan’s famously racist /pol/ board, as well as another 4chan board devoted to guns:
4chan in the news again. A bunch of /pol/lacks+/k/ommandos in Guy Fawkes masks just shot up a Black Lives Matter protest. Apparently the BLM protestors tried to assault them, the Anon’s ran off and when the BLM protestors chased after them the /k/ommandos shot them.
5 BLM supporters confirmed in the hospital.
Media hasn’t mentioned 4chan by name yet but these guys were on /pol/ a few days ago telling everyone how they were trolling BLM by attending their protests and open carrying.
Other 4hanners claim that the 4channers who talked about disrupting the protests were not the same people who were involved in the shootings yesterday.
If the connection to 4chan is as real as it seems on the surface to be, it’s yet another reminder that online talk can have potentially deadly real world consequences — even when the online talkers claim to be “trolling.”
The alleged planning emails quoted by Raw Story, with their references to “SJW faggots” and “beta white cuck[s],” are steeped in the language, and the aggrieved entitlement, not only of 4chan but of the broader manosphere; it’s the same sort of language used by readers of the cuck-obsessed white supremacist “pickup artist” Heartiste and more than a few GamerGate trolls.
Online hate is not somehow magically separate from the real world; it’s part of it. If the shootings last night were connected to 4chan, and it seems likely they were, they also show that the line between hateful “trolling” and “real” hate is exceedingly thin if not nonexistent. The shootings last night are what happens when “trolls” carry guns.
I’m laughing way too hard. People were INJURED. My sides ACHE. This is no time to say you feeling OLD and make me LAUGH from the schadenfreude.
“Best to act as much like a beta white as much as you can,” one the racists said.”
= Mmmm hmmm. Wow. The Manosphere is becoming famous for all the wrong reasons. Or right ones? I mean I’m glad Manosphere lingo is making its way out into the mainstream so that people can begin to associate these terms with the ***holes who use them.
“Two other white men, both in their twenties, turned themselves in to police this afternoon.”
= I wonder why they would do that? Oh that’s right – ATTENTION.
“Trolls on Gawker, and I’m sure in many other places are running with the misinformation that one of the shooters was Hispanic and holding it up as some kind of proof that this shooting was not racially motivated.”
= Coz they think “Hispanics” and African Americans are the same?
Is it just me or has the internet fueled racism and violence since its become widely accessible? Also, I don’t watch TV but I used to. I don’t remember race being talked about in mainstream TV like 2 or even 1 decade ago, like it is now.
…pandapool?
We were born in the same year. I don’t know why this surprises me. I thought you were… older.
(not that the rest of you are old, or anything: I’m just befuddled by having contemporaries!)
@contrapangloss
I thought you were older, too. Everyone but, like, Fruitloopsie is older than me here, even by a few years.
(I am waaay too immature to be thought as older so I am offended on behalf of everyone older than me.)
Is it just me or has the internet fueled racism and violence since its become widely accessible?
The internet lets people find people like them, and some people are totally awful…
I have been to North Minneapolis. My husband is from there, and we live in Birmingham, AL, one of the top 10 most dangerous cities in the US. We were driving around, and he wanted to show it to me, to see what I thought of the “bad” side of town. I thought it was…rather decent, actually. It probably sucked to live there, but it’s not like B’ham, with buildings that look like a bomb hit them.
Born in 1976, personally. Yesterday was my birthday, in fact.
(warning tl;dr pedantic post)
I find it very telling… as in it is a sign of deliberate awareness…they did NOT go with the Guy Fawkes mask.
4chan is a platform used by many subcultures exploiting “anonymous” online identities.
This is not excusing 4channers, or their actions…it is knowing who exactly your enemy is. Comments around here are famous for confusing 4chan, channer culture, gamergate, and Anonymous. I usually don’t bother saying much about it because commenters are right in their criticisms, just often wrong conflating a platform with a group.
For instance: 4chan is NOT Anonymous. The SJW branch of Anon was birthed in 4chan and used it as a platform, until they were politely asked to move on by Moot:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology
Anon also used ED and 888chan as platforms, but they are not Anonymous, just platforms. For the record, there is another branch of Anon that hates all this protest “f*ggotry” and embraces being shitlords. In the past there was friction between the two. The two rarely interact these days, and the later rarely makes a big deal about being “Anon”.
/pol/ – historically always had people posting racist content, whether they were racists or trolling for lulz. What has changed dramatically, at least since I started watching the boards in the mid 2000’s , is the lack of equal response from non-racists. Also, the famously offensive slang discouraged the older racist crowd from participation for a long time. It’s ironic, but raging homophobes are very uncomfortable in a place everyone is calling everyone else a “f*g”.
Sometime around OWS, the political racist crowd “got over” the slang and started to use 4hcan for organizing, not just trolling. By this time most of the early chan crowd had aged out and moved on, leaving a vacuum. There is almost certainly in an attempt by racists on /pol/ to mimic the success of Anon. They wouldn’t be the only ones….
Gamergate – one of the most blatant attempts to mimic Anonymous, using Anon and 4chan culture as a shield. Some factions of Anon tried to take on GG, but found resistance in the collective, many groups strangely giving GG the benefit of the doubt. In one case a couple Anon were outed( not doxxed, just exposed as organizers of the OP, a very rude thing to do in Anon) by GG apologists and the Op was abandoned out of concern for damaging the collective.
For the record I think this is some weak sauce, and made me ask around to see WTF was happening. (Any lurkers from the collective want to know how weak that sounds? As weak as the IRS caving to Operation Snow White. If that stings, it should) From talking to people it seems many old Anon groups were replaced by OWS Anon, who are full of tinfoil, Tea Party woo and value “freeze peach” over trufax.
Regardless of how lame Anon has been about GG, there is a short list one can check to prove GG–or any other groups using the collective as a shield– is not Anon, though it likes to coyly imply a connection to outsiders:
-Anon values trufax without tinfoil. GG’s values tinfoil and spin over trufax.
-Anon corrects itself when new information is available. GG never does.
-Anon is NYPA. GG is openly the PA of all reactionary woo.
This is true regardless of the platform. If trufax are being ignored, you are not dealing with a member of the Anon collective.
Why this Tl;Dr tangent about groups, platforms, 4chan, gamergate and Anon? To show there is a deliberate attempt by gaters and racists to hide their organizing by exploiting the same platforms and anonymous strategies. But, for all that, both groups are aware enough to not do the thing that would piss off Anon: actually claiming to BE Anons while being caught doing something criminal and stupid.
Because, as loathsome as many Anon feel about the Fawkes mask, it is now considered legit branding, implying trufax. The racists considered using the Fawkes Mask. They did not.
I don’t believe this is by chance or whim. IMHO they are avoiding it out of self fucking preservation.
@Pandapool @WWTH – my mom used to watch Roseanne when I was a kid, and even when I was around 8-10 I found that the characters, especially the main couple, seemed like “real people” compared to characters in other shows.
I guess I’m technically from the 80s. I was born in 1988, when everybody seemed to be wearing glasses with huge frames.
*avoids talking about more bad news*
*discusses TV and glasses with huge frames*
… me too. Only, I’m hiding from the horrible news by looking up stargate reaction gifs, because that was the show of my childhood. Also, because of potential troll who’s nym happens to be a minor character who was kind of hilarious but not a good guy (although not a super terrible guy either).
Really didn’t do much in the way of sitcoms, ever.
@weirwoodtreehugger I <3 you so much right now
Maybe I’m being a dunce, but what *what* is the gain? Potential gain? Slight tilt in favor of? Of what? What gain?
@Pandapool
It’s alright, I’m (probably) not older than you.
OT: Is it me or has there been a sort of trend of 4Chan bullshit leaking out into the real world more and more? Back in ’06 they were famous for things like the false bomb threats to various stadiums but for many years they just went to harassing people online and DDOS attacks. Recently it feels like they’ve become more active in person, even if it is just going around shooting people. I’m not sure what to make of it but it’s worrying.
@amandajane5
In 4chan mentality being awful is itself a value. Can you imagine portraying your most vile, hateful and violent characteristics for social acceptance and pats on the back from equally depraved characters? Right down to gun violence and even murder. No gain, just ego masturbation over your lowest low.
“Is it just me or has the internet fueled racism and violence since its become widely accessible?”
…no? But then, by ’92 I was begging for a computer (get off my lawn!) and was running DOS a few years later. So yeah, I think the ‘net really hit its stride when I was in HS and was just fucking THRILLED for web research, even if I couldn’t cite it.
Even further off topic, the youngin’ in my trapeze class is half my age. The instructor and I are both 30. We keep making cultural references and having to go “wait, do you know what we’re talking about?” — jazzercise no, Home Alone yes. It’s weird.
On topic, nope. Won’t. Can’t. Fucking assholes.
“For the record I think this is some weak sauce, and made me ask around to see WTF was happening. (Any lurkers from the collective want to know how weak that sounds? As weak as the IRS caving to Operation Snow White. If that stings, it should)”
That sound you just heard was my heard exploding.
The IRS caved to CoS, Anon, afaik, hasn’t. But GG they cave to? Goddamnit peeps, what happened to those pesky things like facts and something resembling ethics?!
*head explodes again*
Holy acronyms, Batman.
personally Ive heard lot of conspiracy theory talk and general assholery from people calling themselves anons and stopped trusting them in general a while back. What some have done for justice like the Parsons case is great but not having a real structure including an ethical code imo weakens what anon could be.
I don’t really have a lot to say about the OP only because the horror of one of my fears coming to life …….makes it hard to form sentences….. yea just freaky, I thought when I protested cops might shoot at us….. the idea of civilian white supremacists lurking to hurt us…. just because black people ask to not be shot randomly with impunity….. and the Chicago tape just came out with an arrest…. just, Im glad no one died anyway…. 🙁
@WWTH:
A few months ago I got hit on by someone who was born in 1997. It was a moment of absolute horror.
Next year, people who were born in 1998 will be permitted to vote to determine who the ruler of the most powerful nation on earth will be.
We’re getting old.
I don’t think that society has become more racist or more violent. All the numbers I’ve seen are trending down. I think you’re just hearing about it more now, thanks to the internet and the 24-hour news networks.
@leftwingfox
Happy Birthday, Bicentennial baby! I hope you had fun.
@sbel
That’s a really good thing to hear.