I don’t think you are far off with that, and I’m sure the story will play out when it comes to the court case. According to eye witness accounts people were shouting ‘kill him.’ All very sad.
I reckon had he not been white, there would be absolutely no mitigation offered by you or anyone else. His socials would have been forensically examined for any link to BLM/Free Palestine/the local Mosque’s charity day and it would have been called terrorism. The usual suspects would be calling for hotels to be burned and any darkie to be attacked.
That’s what I reckon.
Middle-aged white men on talkback look to explain the actions of a middle aged white man
Vlad sleeps easy in his bed, knowing that the world is turning his way.
This feels a little like you're calling me racist. Feel free to fuck off.
Are we/I not allowed to discuss what may or may not have happened? We could just say he's an evil terrorist and did it on purpose if you like. But he didn't act like that it seems to me. Once in the crowd he'd have just put his foot down and gone for it, but that isn't what happened.
Do you think he set out that morning to kill people Guru? Tricky? Maybe he did. I think it seems unlikely. But I've really no idea. Just speculating on what I've seen and read in the press*.
*Which is obviously edited by Putin.
I'm not calling you a racist. I am however calling out your unconscious bias. Feel free to fuck off and find a dictionary if that concept is beyond you.
I am touched by your naïveté that you or anyone else would be offering this level of explanation or discussion if it was Winston Cudoogo of 55 Mercer Road*, or Abdul Mohammed from Aylesbury.
- one for the oldies
I see you've not answered my question.
As for offering this level of discussion for similar events, I can't from the top of my head recall any similar incidents in the UK that have had this amount of footage and witnesses to consider. Can you give me some and then I'll offer my perspective for you to judge whether it's correct in your eyes? I would absolutely be offering this level of discussion regardless of race or ethnicity. Whether you choose to believe that is up to you but I know for myself I'm correct. Infact, honestly, I'd probably be overcompensating as I despise how the right wing media whip up stories to incite race riots.
I don't know how to persuade you otherwise. It's hardly like there's any point discussing the person bombed that gig in Manchester or killed those girls in Liverpool is there - to see what my viewpoint on their actions was in those incidents and whether I tried to explain even a tiny piece of why they did it as heat of the moment stuff. Absolutely zero chance that any of what happened in those incidents was not the intention of the perpetrator.
I'd also add you've barely ever (never?) met me so I think any instinct as to my unconscious bias is a huge reach on your part.
I think he knowingly nefariously breached a cordon to put himself in a vehicle in amongst a massive throng of people on foot.
Whether that was through some self entitled notion that he should be able to drive wherever he wanted, or whatever obscene level of fuckwittery that might have possessed him to think there was some good outcome to that, I cannot fathom. I do know he shouldn't have been there, and he made that choice, and I do know that he intentionally drove at speed at people with whom he had no personal interaction (aka legitimate 'beef'), with the intention to injure or even kill.
I think that guru's observation that there are other circumstances in which some would not so contort themselves to
excuseexplainunderstand is a fair one.I also know of someone who was a hundred yards from the impacts, and their first hand account was of how the crowd were highly agitated and terrified of being under sustained attack.
If it was brown on white I think that there would be less fighting against calling that terrorism. Which is my reading of the good doctors point.
I agree with all that. Particularly ....
"I think that guru's observation that there are other circumstances in which some would not so contort themselves to excuse explain understand is a fair one."
... however I am not in the "some would not" category.
Did he wake up in the morning and think “I think I might mow down a bunch of Liverpool fans?” No. I don’t think he did. However, he did seriously injure a large number of people as a result of his actions. Did Liverpool fans at Heysel think “you know what, I think we’ll kill 39 Juventus supporters today?” No. I don’t think they did.
Is outcome the result of intention? Not always.
My point is that had he not been a middle-class, middle-aged, white man, we would not know that he was a company director, an ex-Marine, living in a cul-de-sac with three kids with a heart of gold, who wouldn’t harm a fly etc etc. Had he been Black or Asian, he would have been branded an animal, a terrorist, a reason we shouldn’t allow darkies in our sight, etc etc.
And yes, I do question whether you, or others on here, would be giving this event quite the same level of discourse. Unconscious bias. Not racism.
Edit: I did not fully read your earlier post. I don’t purport to know your inner workings and yes, we’ve never met.
Ultimately, he will have to give an explanation of why he did what he did. I suspect that when he does, he’ll be treated more sympathetically by our media than if he had a different skin tone.
For the record I wouldn't place you in that category.
But I can equally see the frustration from a minority position, where tolerance and understanding is not habitually extended, with those sectors of society more likely to be on the receiving end of a desire to persecute, not often the recipients of a desire to understand and explain, but to prosecute, for being in possession of curly black hair and thick lips*.
* quote extension.
To be honest I'd have stopped talking about it 15 posts ago if Seven, Tricky and then you hadn't questioned my initial reading of what may have happened as some sort of concept of me looking to make excuses for a white man, which it most certainly was not.
The likes of the odious Laurence Fox already were before anything had even been confirmed about race or ethnicity. I gather within minutes of the attack he put something on his social media along the lines of "This is why we hate them!". Absolutely fucking vile.
Edit, just googled it: ". he then posted “what is coming next is inevitable” and said “you cannot hate them enough.”
I wasn’t doing that at all.
I get where Guru is coming from and don’t disagree with much of it but ethnicity has nothing to do with why it’s being discussed on here as we discuss pretty much everything. And not many people have even joined in.
I'm confused what you're all on about. Twitter tells me the guy wasn't white...
Eg
x.com/NickieVeroExpat/status/1927281708795154528?t=GTIyW3QMoMGm1Yjt9YzkpQ&s=19
There was plenty of early reporting of the Southport killer being a choirboy from a Welsh village. The media loves a “why did this normal seeming person do this heinous act?” It’s just part of their formulaic response.
