The most remarkable comments, to me, come from one S Davidson, whose sentiments are all against the black man for being a "busy body".
Seeing his view on victimhood doesn't seem to extend to a black man being the subject of a white woman saying "I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life" when he 100% clearly isn't, and then carrying out the threat in (eventually) hysterical voice, all I can say is that he should never be let anywhere near jury service, ever. "Just too gormless" they should write against the name.
9 comments:
#believeallwomen
I believe my own eyes. She felt so threatened by him that she approached him and he was the one to ask "stay away from me".
She looked crazy - as if even in the most comfortable of circumstances she’d be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Obviously she acted like an idiot to him. By the same token him filming her was obviously a violation of privacy. We tend to overlook this sort of thing now as cameras/video tech is so ubiquitous - there’s no righteous outrage over the viral twitter video as there would have been even a few decades ago over tabloid-style foot-in-the-door journalism - but the effect is much the same. Sinc has a point.
Tim, even allowing for Cooper the guy using some pretty aggressive techniques to get the woman to leash her dog (the attempt to lure the dog with treats), and filming her (not sure why - but she presumably thought it was to dob her in to someone for the dog leash breach), anyone would have to admit that her threat was wildly disproportionate ("I will tell the cops you are threatening my life", in a country known for its trigger happy cops, esp towards blacks.)
Her initial words to 911 did not actually say that he was threatening "her life" (in fact, she never threw those words in, I think - she just said "threatening") but when she raised the hysteria level in her voice, it was a clear implication that she was personally in immediate danger.
That is appalling behaviour, that then (ironically) justified the filming for his self protection!
In short - no, Sinc has no point.
He may not like aggressive busy bodies - but anyone should dislike people who respond by making false accusations to the police about how they are in immediate and urgent danger even less, especially when it has a racist element to it.
To compare to another case - I dissed Andy Ngo for promoting his assault for all it was worth. I said -
"Ngo's before and after assault behaviour does carry a very strong whiff of martyrdom desired and achieved."
To the contrary, Christian Cooper did not go into the park expecting to find an off leash dog, and has expressed some regret that the woman's life has been torn apart over this, and is appalled that she is receiving death threats.
I also said that Ngo's assailants deserved prosecution.
Sinclair's comments (to the contrary) are entirely about sympathising with the woman and criticising the "dickhead" busybody.
To add something else - I think Sinclair lost a lot of credibility with journalists and people who use Twitter when he ran a line about the Adam Goodes matter which was all - to paraphrase - "calling a black man an ape is racist? Really, how is it so?" There were even those who then commented at Catallaxy at the time who were a bit "seriously, Sinclair, you need this explained to you?"
Now we have another case of a black man involving elements of racism and he is yet again pushing hard against sympathy to the black man.
I don't think he is actually racist - but he does such a good job at having bad takes which sound like they are explicable by conscious or unconscious racism, he would be better off just never commenting on any public controversy involving it.
Well, we obviously didn’t see what happened before the camera was switched on, but the thing is she’s lost her job and her dog after going viral - the effect of this on a person who doesn’t seem very sane in the first place can’t be good. And it’s not as if this is in any way ‘fair’ - it’s not a result of justice, but of the mob justice of the internet. (Even the guy involved has expressed regret over what happened to her, and he clearly does have a legitimate grievance over how she treated him.)
Tim, we don't know much about her general mental states, except that she could apparently appear stable enough for most of each day to hold down a good job in finance/insurance.
And I see you are agreeing that he had a "legitimate grievance" about her treatment of him, and he is expressing some sympathy about the extremity of the consequences she has suffered. (I don't think he has said anything about how it came to be published too - his sister posted it, but he hasn't said it was without his knowledge or consent. It might not have exactly been all his idea, I wonder, and he might be reluctant to criticise his sister?)
So, we have a guy with a legitimate grievance over a woman who was trying to get him charged or arrested on the spot for something quite serious which he hadn't done.
Is there one iota of evidence from how Sinclair has commented about it that indicates he has any sympathy to the guy because of the false report that he was threatening her?
That's what my post is about.
Ah, but like the mischievous commenter that I am I took it in my own little direction.
I imagine if Sinc wants to defend himself he can pop over here.
I probably wouldn't even know what's going on at the Cat at all if you didn't still link to it with some regularity!
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