• TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Lester, who later said he saw a large Black man at his door and was scared, shot through a glass storm door and then shot Yarl once again when he fell.

    I don’t think the media needlessly added race to it, the guys statement did.

    • IdiosyncraticIdiot@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Describing someone using their race isn’t racism

      Making the story about race rather than “this old man shot this young man for seemingly no reason, old man bad” is, in fact, race baiting

      • workerONE@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        This event happened days before another story like this- where some teens accidentally drove up the wrong driveway and the owner started shooting and killed one of them. Both stories showed the state of mind of gun owning homeowners when someone approaches their home. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kaylin-gillis-shot-driveway-new-york-what-to-know-rcna80280

        "A 20-year-old woman with dreams of becoming a marine biologist was fatally shot by a homeowner Saturday when the car she was in turned into the wrong driveway in upstate New York.

        Kaylin Gillis’ death, which occurred days after 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot and seriously injured after ringing the wrong doorbell in Kansas City, has sparked a national conversation around gun violence as well as “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine,” both self-defense laws."

        • IdiosyncraticIdiot@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          sparked a national conversation [sparked] around gun violence as well as “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine,” both self-defense laws."

          this. This, is the headline.

          The whole “black man killed by white man” is just race baity.

          You’re hired

      • jj4211@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        If he saw a white man, well, he probably wouldn’t have shot, but he wouldn’t have said a ‘large white man’ if he had to describe it.

        He’s explaining why he was scared, and felt “black” was an apt word to include in an explanation is telling.

        Dude had a gut reaction to a strange person, in large part, by his own wording, because they were black. It’s pertinent.

        I get it, sometimes the media does inject race of victim selectively when it might not be relevant. There was a shooting death in my area recently, and the story was lamenting about black on black violence, when a story almost exactly like it played out between white people a little while back and race wasn’t cited. But here, it’s pretty core to the story.

      • aleph@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        this old man shot this young man for seemingly no reason

        That itself is reason enough for this story to go viral. The racial element was just the icing on the cake.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          The idea is that it wasn’t for no reason, his comments make it pretty clear he’s uncomfortable around black people. Doesn’t necessarily make him a racist but certainly a bigot though perhaps of ignorance rather than actual malice.

            • Madison420@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Mm arguably, you could call it tribalist, bigoted, ignorant. We can define it how we please you just lose some support you might otherwise gain by calling a spade a spade rather than a gardening implement.

      • reliv3@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Describing someone using their race when it is a clear way to discern them from a crowd of people is not racist; but describing someone by their race when it’s entirely irrelevant is likely driven by racism.

        The kid being “black” in the statement adds nothing to the information. He could have easily said “I saw a large man at the door and I got scared” and it would not have been any different, since it isn’t like he is trying discern the kid from a crowd. “Black” is being used to justify his fear of the person, and this is inherently racist.

      • Madison420@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        They’re pointing out the old man’s perception of a small child, like legit iirc the dude is like 5’6" and like 14 at the time that ain’t large.

      • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        “Describing someone by their race isn’t racism, unless it is in a headline, in which case it is race baiting because it is an election year.”

      • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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        6 months ago

        Except we’re not talking about someone who simply described someone’s race. We’re talking about someone who tried to murder a person because of their race.