site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11110 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

3
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Okay – so if it's not so rare, it shouldn't be difficult for you to find an example which is at least broadly comparable to this one, but with reversed racial dynamics. It doesn't have to be an altercation between two strangers: surely it shouldn't be difficult for you to find an instance in which two male friends of different races (or even two female) got into a fight, the non-white one was clearly more severely injured, but the police arrested him rather than the visibly less injured white party. There must be tens of thousands of hours of publicly available bodycam footage out there, and I'm confident that woke people would be screaming the house down about racial profiling if an event like this had transpired. But despite claiming that Henry Nowak's case isn't especially unique, you can't come up with even one example with the racial dynamics reversed. How strange.

Sure I'll go check a chatbot for another example than the one I gave and doublecheck to make sure it's not hallucinating.

It gave me (with edits to cut out fat).

Florida — Markeis McGlockton shooting (2018, USA)

Legal outcome:

Drejka was initially not arrested at the scene. Later charged and convicted of manslaughter after public pressure.

Why it fits your request partially: It’s a self-defense claim used by a white aggressor against a Black victim, showing how police initially accepted the shooter’s framing of events.

Double check and yep it seems to be real.

Okay, so a case in which

  • a black man starts an altercation with a white man (captured on CCTV)
  • which escalated to the white man shooting the black man
  • the white man patiently waited for the police to arrive, was cooperative when they did so, and admitted what he'd done
  • the police immediately took the white man to the station for questioning when they arrived on the scene
  • the police did not put the black victim in handcuffs when they arrived on the scene, but instead had paramedics rush him to the hospital

... what exactly do you think this case is meant to illustrate regarding the non-uniqueness of the Nowak case?

Here's the important bits

Drejka, a 47-year-old man, was not initially charged for the killing by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, with Sheriff Bob Gualtieri citing Florida's stand-your-ground law as the reason. The investigation was then handed over to the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida State Attorney Bernie McCabe, who charged Drejka with one count of manslaughter on August 13, 2018. Drejka pleaded not guilty to the charge. His trial began on August 19, 2019. Drejka was convicted of manslaughter on August 23, 2019, and was sentenced to imprisonment for twenty years on October 10, 2019.

There you go. A jury in Florida reviewing the evidence and applicable laws found a white man guilty of manslaughter of a black man after he was initially not arrested by police.

This is what you asked for, this is what you were provided. Complain all you want that you don't like the specific laws or whatever, but those are the laws Florida had.

Oh yeah and also Republican state attorney too so the investigation was handled and charged by a Republican and found guilty in a Republican state under Republican law cause I can predict your next nitpick might be "well what if it's politically biased!!" cause you do not want to accept that I have shown you several different answers to your increasingly goalpost shifting ask.

This is what you asked for

It is not. I asked for an instance in which a white man attacked a brown man (though the sexes are irrelevant, and I would have accepted any person of colour), police arrived on the scene, immediately assumed that the visibly injured brown victim was the aggressor (perhaps because the white aggressor was acting "calmly" or cooperatively, as you claimed) and put him in handcuffs, while declining to put the white aggressor in handcuffs.

That's what I've been asking for all along. Read back through the comments I posted, you will not find a single instance in which I demanded an example of a white man killing a person of colour and the police declining to prosecute. That is a completely different situation to the one I asked for an example of.

I honestly cannot believe you have the nerve to accuse me of moving the goalposts. Is the idea just that if you tell an extremely brazen lie, you'll make me doubt myself enough that I'll accept that I was mistaken? Is your goal simply to gaslight me into submission?

Numerous people independently had their suspicions over the last year, I had my doubts, but at this point the pattern is just impossible to deny: give it a rest, Darwin. I don't know what the rules on using alt accounts are, but this is just tiresome, pathetic behaviour, and I wish you'd find a more productive use of your time than reflexively asserting "nothing to see here, folks!" whenever a conservative person voices an entirely legitimate grievance. Will you now announce that you're too busy with your job and family to provide the source I requested, abandon this alt, and come back in six months with an even stupider name? Surely you have better things to be doing with your life.

Look dude, I'm not gonna continue a conversation where you constantly move the goalposts.

If you can't accept a story where a guy was initially not arrested and charged and then later was convicted of manslaughter by a jury of his peers, then what will you accept?

This was a guilty white man who killed a black guy who was not treated as guilty on the scene but later found guilty so it's not even some theoretical argument.

immediately assumed that the visibly injured brown victim was the aggressor (perhaps because the white aggressor was acting "calmly" or cooperatively, as you claimed) and put him in handcuffs,

The victim was dead then! Your only nitpick here is that the victim was too dead to be put in handcuffs so it didn't count?

What goalposts am I moving? Compare the first request I made to you:

Show me an example of a white Briton (or hell, let's make it easier for you: a white person from anywhere) stabbing a brown man, the police arriving on the scene to find the white aggressor clearly uninjured and the brown man visibly incapacitated, the white man claiming to have been attacked first, and on his word alone, the police handcuffing the visibly incapacitated brown man. If you can show me that, or even something vaguely analogous, I will consider the possibility that there are no real CW aspects to this awful case.

with the most recent one:

I asked for an instance in which a white man attacked a brown man (though the sexes are irrelevant, and I would have accepted any person of colour), police arrived on the scene, immediately assumed that the visibly injured brown victim was the aggressor (perhaps because the white aggressor was acting "calmly" or cooperatively, as you claimed) and put him in handcuffs, while declining to put the white aggressor in handcuffs.

You realise that the example you provided does not meet that description, right?

The victim was dead then! Your only nitpick here is that the victim was too dead to be put in handcuffs so it didn't count?

It's not a "nitpick". It's the exact thing I was repeatedly asking you for, which you have yet to provide.

It's not a "nitpick". It's the exact thing I was repeatedly asking you for, which you have yet to provide.

Incredible. Your issue really is "that doesn't count because the victim was too dead to be handcuffed"?

We went from "vaguely analogous" to "nope, too dead to be handcuffed so doesn't count" and you aren't goal shifting?

My other issue is that, by talking about how Drejka wasn't charged until after public outcry, you're completely missing the point of my request .

In the Nowak case, I and others are criticising the conduct of the police officers who arrived on the scene. Those first responders bear no responsibility for determining whether Digwa should be prosecuted and, if so, for what offenses. That responsibility falls to the director of public prosecutions. From what I can see, the people responsible for prosecuting Digwa did their jobs perfectly: they charged him with murder, they collected evidence with which to mount a case against him, and they presented that case to the jury, who were persuaded.

In the McGlockton case, you are criticising the conduct of the people responsible for prosecuting Drejka. By all accounts, the police officers who arrived on the scene of the shooting did their jobs perfectly: they correctly identified McGlockton as in need of urgent medical care and brought him to the hospital, and also brought the cooperative perpetrator to a police station for questioning.

So, to bring it back to that phrase "vaguely analogous": what I'm specifically looking for is a violent crime with the racial valence reversed in which the responding police officers behaved poorly in a manner similar to the Nowak case. I am not looking for a violent crime with the racial valence reversed where any member of the criminal justice system behaved poorly. I am specifically looking for a case in which the responding police officers behaved poorly.

More comments

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats