it is my birthday. as you all know it is a national holiday in which you all have to stop writing so i can feel more productive than everyone. godspeed
A journalist's recent Facebook status update destroying the myths about the Orlando shooter is quickly going viral.
A journalist’s recent Facebook status update destroying the myths about the Orlando shooter is quickly going viral.
Che Brandes-Tuka, a scholar, international human rights campaigner, and organizer who works as a journalist for TeleSUR English, ran through the known details of Omar Mateen — the 29-year-old who carried out a massacre at an Orlando nightclub that left 49 people dead and 53 others wounded — and shredded the myth that he was an Afghan terrorist with ties to ISIS:
So after a couple of days of reports and testimonies, we know the following about the Orlando shooter:
He was a child of immigrants, born and raised in the United States.
He pledged allegiance to Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda AND ISIS, 3 organizations that are de facto at war with each other, showing he was ignorant about all 3, let alone politics in the Middle East in general.
He knew practically nothing about Islam and according to his wife, father and community he was not religious in the slightest.
Brandes-Tuka pointed out that according to all available evidence, Mateen’s attack was rooted not in a desire to carry out an act of terrorism in the name of radical Islamic views, but rather as the result of letting hate take over his life and working for an employer with a long background of abuse and domination:
He struggled with his toxic masculinity, had an alcohol problem and beat up his wife for which he was never charged.
He was racist towards Blacks, Latin@’s and other minorities and in the shooting killed predominantly queer people of color.
Despite his own alleged queer inclinations, he was a homophobe in a country where still 1 in 5 LGBTQ people are victims of hate crimes and there are more than a 100 anti-LGBTQ bills (from anti-gay marriage to bathroom bills) pending in dozens of states.
He idolized the NYPD, one of the country’s most well-known and cherished institutions that has an army bigger than ISIS, is known to indiscriminately and disproportionately spy on Muslims and which engages in systematic violence against Blacks, Latin@’s and other minorities.
He beat juveniles in detention centers over the head for a living as he worked for and got his training from the private security firm G4S, which is not only one of the foremost stakeholders in the Prison–industrial complex, but is also invested in mass deportations as it runs immigration detention centers and participates in the occupation of Palestine, training other mass killers in Israel to target and imprison Palestinians.
Brandes-Tuka’s viral post also touched on America’s troubling addiction to guns, the prevalence of mass shootings in recent history, and undue attention paid to violent, hateful, and close-minded viewpoints.
He staged a mass shooting in a country that has seen a 1,000 mass shootings in the last 1,200 days.
So basically he was ignorant, self-conflicted, racist, sexist, homophobe, had a sick admiration for authority and was obsessed with guns and violence, eventually acting upon all of that.
Sorry folks, but your supposed “Islamic radical terrorist from Afghanistan” is as American as apple pie made with homegrown apples and baked in an American made oven.
whenever i’m talking to someone and they tell me about something that happened to them i always tell them about something that happened to me that’s similar to what happened to them. i do it as kind of a “oh hey yeah this happened to me so i can relate to what you’re going through” but i’m always afraid it comes out as “oh yeah well this happened to me so clearly i have it tougher than you” or “i’m done talking about you let’s talk about me”
I run into this a lot with my job - so instead of telling the whole story I say something like, “Oh my gosh, I had something REALLY similar happen. What did you do after that??” And I’ve found that works. Usually they explain and then ask, “So what happened to you?” And then you’re invited to share, and the formula for conversing continues on. :)
Thanks to both the OP for posting a thing that so many of us do, and the responder who gave us a better way to do it. You’re doing the lord’s work, my friend!
Fun fact: there isn’t anything wrong with you if you do what OP is describing.
Deborah Tannen’s work focuses on different conversational styles — the sets of behavioral norms and expectations that we bring with us to conversations. In one of her earlier articles, she describes two conflicting conversational styles that exist in the US.
One, which she (perhaps inaccurately) dubs “New York Jewish conversational style,” is based on the principle of building camaraderie with one’s interlocutor. The other, which she doesn’t really name but which we could call “mainstream American conversational style,” is based on the principle of not imposing on one’s interlocutor.
Each conversational style has its own behavioral norms. Mainstream American conversational style involves things like asking your interlocutor questions about him/herself and waiting until your interlocutor is clearly finished speaking until you say something. These demonstrate a focus on one’s interlocutor and a clear resistance to imposing. NYJ conversational style involves things like conversational overlaps — speaking at the same time as one’s interlocutor — and “swapping stories.” These demonstrate a high level of engagement with one’s interlocutor. Conversationalists using the mainstream American style make space for each other; conversationalists using the New York Jewish style carve out their own space.
Each of these conversational styles works well when the two people conversing have the same style. Imagine two friends meeting for drinks after work:
“Oh, hello! How was your trip here?”
“Oh, it was awful. There was so much traffic on the turnpike.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I know. How was your trip?”
“Well, there was an accident on the bridge.”
“Oh no! Was there a big backup?”
“Yeah, pretty big.”
“Oh, hi!”
“Hey! Ugh, sorry I’m late, there was so much traffic on the turnpike—”
“Oh my god, I know, there was an accident on the bridge and the cars were backed up a MILE—”
“That is the worst, I remember one time I sat in traffic for an HOUR waiting to get through that toll, they really should—”
“Add more EZ-pass lanes, right?”
“Add more lanes, yeah, exactly.”
Both of these conversations worked: the participants feel that they’ve had their say and that they’ve been understood. They feel connected to their interlocutor.
But when people with conflicting conversational styles converse, that’s where things go wrong. Because we interpret other people’s contributions according to our own conversational style. So the person with mainstream American conversational style comes away thinking “Why did they keep interrupting me? Why didn’t they ask me any questions about me? Why were they so loud and emotional?” And the person with the New York Jewish conversational style comes away thinking “Why were they so disengaged? They didn’t seem involved in the conversation at all. They didn’t even offer any personal information.”
Rather, they would come away thinking that, except that we’re taught growing up that the first example conversation up there is what conversations should look like. So the person with the New York Jewish conversational style actually comes away from the conversation thinking “oh my god, what was I doing? I kept talking about myself. I think I kept interrupting them. I am so rude, god, I’m the worst.” When in fact: a) it’s about cultural difference, not individual moral qualities; and b) one conversational style isn’t inherently “better” than another.
Which isn’t to say that we shouldn’t attempt to bridge the gap between conversational styles, as suggested above. But we should be aware that:
TL;DR: Cultural difference is often mistaken for individual moral failings.
Nothing is going to change. Americans love their guns more than they love people and after Sandy Hook we decided that killing over 20 children was acceptable and not outrageous enough to make reasonable restrictions on guns. This is America, a country that has been around for 200 years, a superpower, a 1st world nation, and one of the wealthiest countries on the planet and we refuse to protect our own people. We respect guns more than we respect the lives of people.
Intense background and criminal background checks and anything violent automatically disqualifies you.
Make getting a gun/gun permit more like getting a driver’s license:
permit to learn
includes an exam with 18 or more questions on the policies, laws, and etc of guns and gun ownership
if you get more than 8 questions incorrect you must retake it.
30 hours of practical experience at a gun range with a licensed teacher
Must take a 5 hour class on the dangers of guns and how to use them safely which will then yield you a certificate that grants you to take the practical exam and lasts for one year. If you don’t gain the license within the allotted year you must retake the class.
A practical exam with a licensed instructor who will grade you on various skills. If you pass you may be granted a permit on the weapon of your choice, the exams may differ on the type of firearm you want.
Follow the Japanese model where you must have two gun safes in different areas of the house, one to store the gun and one to store the bullets and you must provide the police with information on where those safes are.
No concealed carry and only handguns may be allowed to be out in public.
If transporting a weapon, it must be in the trunk of the vehicle, in a bag or some other case, safety on and unloaded and may not leave the vehicle until you are at the destination.
If you’re a hunter or some other gun hobbyist that requires a functional weapon other than a handgun then the gun must stay on the premises, whether that is a gun range or the Fish and Wildlife facility.
If you live in a rural area where police (and people, for that matter) are few and far between, something akin to a deer hunting rifle should provide plenty of protection from predators and poachers, you still have to follow the aforementioned steps.
This doesn’t cover everything but I think it’s a good place to start.
The village of Shirakawa-gō at night. It’s located in Ōno District, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. It is best known for being the site of Shirakawa-gō, a small, traditional village showcasing a building style known as gasshō-zukuri. (Source)
ppl who dont even like shakespeare: WOW how DARE you alter the original text these are CLASSICS have you no RESPECT, going around DESECRATING these sacred texts in the name of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!!!!!!!!!
people who love shakespeare: im going to stage a production of hamlet where all the actors are dogs
vine #1: “They say if you look at something for long enough, you’ll start to love it. [shouting] WELL I’LL BE SHOVING MY COCK IN THE FUCKING BRAKE LIGHTS”
vine #2: “Americans drive on that side of the road. But in England, on this side of the road, you sit here and [shouting] DO FUCKING NOTHING.”
vine #3: “Do you wanna live in London? Do you wanna live life in the fast lane? [shouting] GOOD FUCKING LUCK FINDING IT AHH.”
vine #4: “Here’s another joke. So this American guy walks into a bar. Then an Australian guy walks into the bar. Then a English guy–well, he can’t [shouting] FUCKING MAKE IT.”
vine #5: “You can’t just blame the foreigners for traffic, you can’t even just blame motorists for traffic. Sometimes it’s [shouting] FUCKING SANTA CLAU–”
I think the younger you are the more likely you are to be certain My Immortal was written as a joke, partially because it’s the progenitor of pretty much all modern Bad Fanfiction Tropes, so when you read it now you think “oh they were trying to use as many bad fanfic tropes as possible, it’s clearly a joke” even though those tropes exist to make fun of My Immortal. My Immortal could have been written as a parody of bad fanfiction but it made such an impact on that subculture that it’s entirely possible that it only seems like a satire because it’s the original thing being satired.
My Immortal could’ve been an intentionally bad fanfic but that’s not a given. The uncertainty comes from the fact that My Immortal was written in a pre-My Immortal world, and the only reason it seems like a parody now is because we already know about My Immortal.
The other reason is “nobody talks like this, nobody writes like this, it has to be someone making a joke” but the thing is, I was a moderator on a fanfic site when My Immortal dropped, and yes, they really really did talk like that. There is not a single line in My Immortal that would’ve been out of place in 2006.
kaledo-art
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