Meanwhile, I’ll just quote myself from the other thread on this…
Also, let’s not forget that their bad behavior was not limited to being a rowdy, racist mob. They were also horribly misogynistic and definitely looking for trouble.
Here’s testimony from someone else who was there:
And here’s that footage:
And here’s one of them screaming “it’s not rape if you like it”.
Oh, and there’s the whole “blackface” thing.
Which one of the shitheads at that school defended by saying, “We always dress up like that for basketball games”, which, as far as defenses go, is pretty fucking weak.
So yeah. The media fucked up. It dropped the ball badly. But it didn’t drop the ball by making villains out of poor innocent high-schoolers. It dropped the ball by apologizing, by pretending this was anything but a gang of rabble-rousing, shit-stirring, racist, misogynistic thugs out for trouble, by falling for the spin of the public relations firm Sandmann’s mom hired for her son, as if this story couldn’t get any more fucking embarrassing. And in reward for their actions, they’re getting booked to mainstream talk shows and invited to the white house. Nicely done.
Obviously, death threats are wrong. Obviously nobody should be threatening violence on the school. But… I have trouble feeling any degree of outrage over that, because this school needs to be burned to the ground. It is the result of a broken culture actively breaking those who come out of it. There are countless stories swirling around about just how awful the culture there is - how sexism, racism, and homophobia are enabled and endorsed, how bullies are empowered, and how children there are taught to hate and never face backlash for it.
And these kids are a result of that culture. And because they’re rich and white, and their parents have a direct hand in enforcing that culture (who hears “your son was part of a racist, misogynistic mob harassing people and looking for trouble” and thinks, "Shit, I’d better hire a PR firm so that my kid doesn’t face any backlash from this?!), they will never, ever face consequences for their actions. Sandmann’s punishment for this was being invited to the Today Show and possibly the white house. What lesson do you think they learned from this? Nobody should face online death threats, but as of right now, that is literally the only consequence these little shitheads are going to take from this, so excuse me if my outrage meter is running at less than 100%. Or, to paraphrase one media creator I’m a big fan of: “I get death threats on a daily basis without being a total shithead, and I’ve never been invited on national television to talk about it.” (He gets death threats for writing articles and making videos on gaming that gamergaters don’t like.)