Open thread to discuss shootings in Dallas that have left 5 police officers dead

#ThisFuckingYear

I also can’t shake the feeling that the higher-ups at the NRA are positively orgasmic over this. As the old song goes, “My god, how the money rolls in…”

I’m not going to ask if this year can get any worse, because it keeps going on.

You think the situation has hit rock bottom and some idiot has to punch their way into the earth’s mantle. Seriously America. You have a problem with guns. 🙁

i followed this from the very beginning. almost immediately, people (some of whom are notable gamergaters, including creator of the video Baldwin named the movement on) were spreading false information about who the shooters were. i saw the Sam Hyde meme, Cernovich named, Robert Kinnison named, a Breitbart reporter, and eventually pictures shared of a random black woman. that last one was the one that took off the most from what I could see.

and almost immediately, BLM was blamed. let me remind you that even as I’m writing this, we don’t know anything about the suspects beyond one being a woman. nothing has been known beyond that. not their race, not their color, not their motives (beyond killing police), not their allegiances or names or fucking Facebook profiles.

but BLM was blamed.

and what else happened? an innocent black man was named a person of interest by police, Mark Hughes, because he was exercising his open carry rights by carrying a gun in the protest. someone had a picture of him from the protest and police released it, immediately it was spread across media worldwide. within fifteen minutes, video surfaced from people who had marched alongside him, showing he was nowhere near where the shots were fired. video also surfaced showing he had handed his gun to police upon request, and no altercation happened, and everyone was cool.

but the dallas PD twitter account still has his picture up as a person of interest, even after they’ve announced to the news that he was cleared and released (which they haven’t announced on their twitter yet). even after Mark was interviewed by news networks, while police were still negotiating with one of the shooters.

that man received thousands of death threats already, as did his brother.

and while all of this was going on, i was seeing drudge already announce a headline about “black lies”, i was seeing countless right wing pundits condemning BLM and blaming them, i saw joe walsh, a former congressman, delete a tweet in which he called for americans to take up guns and come after obama and “thugs in the street”.

alongside them, i saw gaters who had celebrated the murders of black men in previous days suddenly show outrage and concern over police being murdered.

but the saddest thing i saw was people of color and black lives matter members themselves already assuming they were to blame, that this was someone associated with them who went too far.

this was a tragedy, do not mistake me. but it is also a tragedy that the people who have spent days in mourning despite constant antagonization are now being placed under a microscope and attacked if they aren’t mourning police the correct way. shit, they’re being attacked regardless of how they’re mourning police.

it’s a tragedy that we already see innocent people being blamed for a tragedy they never asked for, and history being perverted and distorted to accuse them of wanting it the whole time.

and it’s a tragedy that some of those people have already accepted that blame, internalized it, and are apologizing for something they neither influenced nor had a part in.

whatever motives these murderers had, they’ve gravely wounded a nation that has spent too long mourning. san bernardino, sandy hook, planned parenthood, carolina, orlando, and the countless black men and women who have had their lives ended without cause or reason beyond unjustified fear and racism. and i’ve seen BLM tonight mourn these officers as they’ve mourned their own, because they’ve never wanted police to be murdered, only reformed.

the tragedy is that i’ve seen so many who antagonized, made a joke of, and attacked BLM’s mourning of their own, refuse to understand that BLM can mourn all tragedies regardless of victims. the tragedy is that i’ve seen so many who accused people of wanting cops dead and their feed showed that one day earlier they were celebrating the murder of a black man.

that i’ve seen so many who truly showed that only blue lives matter despite claiming that all lives matter, when BLM has cared and mourned for all lives.

and whoever caused this tragedy, they are beyond broken. they are indefensible and no decent or sensible person would ever believe what they did was good.

i cannot say they are inhuman, because this is surely something humans are capable of, and they are not a monster but are people who made a choice of their own will. they were trained like professionals, whether by themselves or elsewhere. they were armored, they had hardware nobody should have, and their tactics have already been described by police as triangulated and well planned.

and no matter who they claim to represent, who they are, how they look, or anything else, they are the only ones responsible for this massacre.

i only hope hate can be reigned in and this isn’t a sign of worse to come.

edit: and one other thing-

the dallas police, from what i’ve heard, are one of the few departments in this country to actively reform and reduce their cases of excessive force, to actually undergo bias training and everything BLM has asked for.

whoever did this, if it was to send a message to police, it was the wrong force to send that message to.

This morning, I opened WHTM from an old, rarely used bookmark. For some reason, it showed a cached version from December 2, 2015. The latest post was about San Bernardino shootings.

For a moment I was like, “What, another mass shooting? In that same city? I can’t even. Hey, wait a minute…”

Then I used another bookmark to get to today’s posts.

I’m originally from Dallas, 30+ years in DFW, (I grew up poor white in Oak Cliff in an all black neighborhood during the years immediately following Longview (’73 – I was born in ’74) and running right through the ’90s and the Price era) and this just utterly disheartened me.

It didn’t wreck me (I was already wrecked by Diamond’s 4 year old daughter reassuring her mom from the backseat that everything was going to be OK – oh, the tears!) but just utterly disheartened because I knew what happens next: instantly the black community is accused, put on trial, and convicted.

I live in South America now. I’m redheaded. Here that’s super rare; and people don’t automatically think Irish, they think Scandinavian. I’ve started simply nodding along when they assume I’m from Sweden or Norway or Switzerland. I don’t want them to associate me with the country of my birth.

I sit here some days and read the US news and weep.

Make that most days, lately. :*(

My first thought is, oh shit whoever killed the police is completely undermining the entire BLM movement and giving ammunition to the racists. Then my second thought is, peaceful protest doesn’t seem to be doing anything at all. So what the hell is the answer? Where does change come from?
It comes from changing minds, changing what’s acceptable. That seems less and less likely in divided America.
It doesn’t matter what the topic in the country right now; there seem to be two clear and distinct sides. Frankly, I think the country is an utter chaotic mess. I have full expectation that before the end of my life we’re going to see if not a civil war then a painful political divorce in two.

🙁

How long will it be before someone declares this to be a “false flag” operation designed to take away gun rights?

I think they’re waiting to find out the race of the shooters. I have a feeling they won’t trot that out unless the shooters are white.

@ Colby Klaus,

well said.

So, does anyone have a link to a good article on how to be a good ally in such situations? I’m getting conflicting advice.

Thanks as always to the WHtM community for continuing to be the voice of hope and harmony when hope and harmony are routinely told to sit down and shut up.

My condolences to those people who lost their family members.

I’m expecting we’ll find white shooters, rambling about race traitors or some nonsense and everyone will pretend this shooting never happened.

i followed this from the very beginning. almost immediately, people (some of whom are notable gamergaters, including creator of the video Baldwin named the movement on) were spreading false information about who the shooters were. i saw the Sam Hyde meme, Cernovich named, Robert Kinnison named, a Breitbart reporter, and eventually pictures shared of a random black woman. that last one was the one that took off the most from what I could see.

I can’t tell if that’s the result of the simple fascination our society has with the concept of women willing to use physical violence, or something worse.