that prank is hilarious, got tens of thousands of people to hate k-state
it's much worse than that, it's something concrete for actual bigots to cite the next time an legitimate activist has their house burned down
yep
Well there's that, but also he made a ton of black people at k-state think that they lived in a city in which this kind of thing happens. he created the perception of racial discord where none existed (or at least not to this degree).
I seriously doubt that one act would completely change how one feels about being black in Manhattan and at K-State. He created the perception of an incident of racial discord. I don't think we need to act like this placed K-State on the verge of Ferguson and Baltimore.
Artificially creating them almost rises to the level of doing it genuinely in my imho.
Ugh, dlew, man. Not even close, not even a little bit. Imagine if that actually happened to you. You live in the Chicago area right? Imagine you walk out to your cart and you see things like "eff you cracker," "get your white ass outta here," and "we're going to rough ridin' kill you" written on your car. Imagine how scared, violated, threatened you'd feel. Do you or anyone else feel that way about the false accusations? I know you and like you a lot but some putting some dickhead painting his own car in the same category in the same category as someone being actually violated is textbook privilege.
I can feel the frustration of having to deal with false flag accusations and also live in fear that this can actually happen to me. I do think these things hurt black people more than K-State, Manhattan, or whatever institution gets embarrassed by a false accusation. I'd rather read about 20 different false flag accusations every day than read about one actual occurrence of hate.
This lie, while an incredibly shitty thing to do, didn't do much beyond making actual victims hard to believe and some fleeting embarrassment to K-State.
First of all, I know you and like you too and I'm glad we're friends and have respect for one another.
Second of all, I moved back to KC in July, fyi.
But let's get to the meat of this issue. We're really not too far apart here I don't think and that's probably my fault for not doing a good job of explaining my point -- i've had a hard time conceptualizing in my own head why i think what he did was so awful.
Anyway, I too would rather read about false flag accusations than real ones. And I agree that instances like these harm black people because it lends (legitimate imo) credence to people who are dubious any time an outrageously racist incident occurs anonymously.
But getting to my separate, although related, point: this guy didn't want it to be known that this was a false flag. Whether he did it for attention, or for some broader cause, the natural effect of this his scheme was the impression that there are violent white racists at K-State and that black people are right to feel afraid. This validates, and more importantly, encourages, every shred of paranoia and hatred black people (particularly in MHK and K-State) have of white people in their community. It serves to further divide the already disturbingly wide racial divide.
I'm glad you raised your hypothetical because of course I would feel threatened if I walked out and found white hatred vandalized on
my car. But you know what else? I'd feel just about as threatened if I found white hatred vandalized on
my next door neighbor's car. In that respect, I don't see the important distinction between the two.
