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Notes -
Update on the Black Teens Versus Pregnant Nurse story.
This twitter thread seems like a reasonable summary. I know it's not entirely unbiased, but absent additional contradictory evidence, the story seems to basically check out like this:
Kids had checked out the ebikes for a ride, and docked them before the 45-minute "free" period ended, planning to undock them to resume riding. (This is apparently a pretty common practice?)
They're sitting on the bikes chilling, when Comrie, the pregnant nurse, approaches and asks to have one of the bikes.
The teens say no, unmoved by her appeals for consideration for her pregnancy.
She scans (checks out) a bike one of the kids is sitting on, and tries to take it.
The kerfluffle we saw on video ensues. The kids apparently filmed it with a legitimate fear that she would turn it into "gang of teens harasses pregnant white lady."
So basically, no one looks like an entirely innocent victim here. The kids were just hanging out in preparation to check out the bikes again, but since they were docked, you don't really get to "call dibs" on a bike you are not currently renting. Technically Comrie was entitled to take an available bike; the kids shouldn't have been squatting on them. They were also kind of jerks for not showing a little compassion for an obviously pregnant woman (their version is that if they'd given up the bike, one of them would have had to find some other way to get back to the Bronx).
That said, deciding "Screw you, I'm taking your bike anyway, get off" wasn't great behavior on her part, even if legally justified. I cut her more slack because apparently she just got off a 12-hour shift, and she was pregnant.
However, even if the teens were perhaps being inconsiderate and less than gentlemanly, the narrative that's basically portrayed them as ganging up on her and trying to steal her bike appears to be inaccurate.
While I agree with your analysis, I'm having trouble picturing a race-flipped version of this story where the woman isn't portrayed as a modern-day Rosa Parks and the boys aren't charged with a crime.
Indeed. And in the race-flipped version, right-wingers wouldn't be indignant about teenage thugs bullying a pregnant nurse.
ETA: All right, acknowledged, this was too uncharitable ( @gattsuru ) because I did not qualify it enough. Would every right-winger be flipping sides as readily as @jeroboam claims leftists would? No. Do I think an awful lot of right-wingers are every bit as hypocritical as I see leftists being right now? Yes. There are ample examples on right-wing social media of outrage over teenage thugs, with varying degrees of thinly (or not) veiled racism, and I don't think that outrage would be the same, and I think even a lot of folks here would be more inclined to consider a more charitable explanation of the kids' behavior (or a more skeptical attitude towards the nurse's story), if it was a pregnant black lady claiming she was beset by white youths while they're claiming she tried to take their bike.
Your edit is doubling down by saying "it was only uncharitable on a technicality". I'm sure there are right wingers on social media complaining about teenage thugs, but the racism comes from your own head.
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There's an interesting asymmetry here that I'd like you to acknowledge (no hard feelings if you don't): the only real world consequences in either the actual or race-flipped version would see the white participants punished (suspended from their jobs, or severely harming their prospects of getting a place in higher education) whereas no punishment of any kind of would come to the black participants.
Another interesting asymmetry is that we never actually see the race-flipped version.
Most likely true, yes.
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You made the claim that one party’s evidence free account after the fact with holes in the story “basically checks out.”
I don’t think you are thinking clearly on this issue and should just take the L.
I am thinking very clearly. It's possible everything they are saying is a fabrication, but I've seen no evidence of that.
No you aren’t. People have already pointed out the holes. You’ve largely dismissed without much thought.
People have pointed out that our priors should already disbelieve the claims of the people you are supporting. Those priors are based both demographically (black male group of teens v pregnant early middle aged medical professional) and on the specific known actions of these actors (the youths were already gaming the system in an anti social way; they attempted to harm the woman despite the fact she was in the right). You have ignored this (while for some reason patting yourself on the back).
Third, your biggest argument to believe them is they aren’t contradicted. This assumes the other side heard this allegation and that the other side benefits from trying to contradict it. I’ve already given reasons to reject this claim.
In short, this isn’t clear thinking. We’ve all been there where we say something but don’t want to backdown.
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I can't imagine more than 6 white parents in the country find this sort of behavior acceptable no matter the demographics of the victim.
What is on display, in the charitable version of the story, is a display of extreme entitlement that only exists in Hollywood scripts when we are talking about white men.
White teens of certain social classes would pull the same crap, and their parents (or more likely parent) would find it acceptable. But in major US cities that niche tends to be taken by minority youth.
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First, I don't think it's true that if the races were swapped the right would be defending the men. Right-wingers like pregnant women and don't like selfish gangs of young men. In general, I think the left hates white people way more than the right hates black people. So you would not necessarily see a reversal of attitudes, but rather loud condemnation from the left (how dare those white privileged male privileged devils harass a proud woman of color?), and at best a muted response from the right.
Second, practically speaking, even if right-wingers would condemn the black woman in the hypothetical gender-swapped version, there is absolutely no chance in hell that right-wingers would be able to get a crying pregnant black female nurse suspended from her job for being bullied by a group of abusive white guys, and that's double true in New York City. Let me know if you disagree but I think this is such a blatantly obvious truth that it doesn't really require more elaboration.
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I think this is resoundingly uncharitable.
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Right now right-wingers are more indignant about the clear bias in charity shown to parties of the bike conflict, to the point that the wholly innocent party got royally screwed.
My read is that, rather than just downplay the teens' actions on the object level, in that scenario right-wingers would be busy protesting asinine federal hate crime law proposals, dealing with accusations of genocide and wrapping their minds around novel concepts like «stochastic induction of miscarriage»; and we would be fuming over twitter threads from ethnic studies Ph.Ds shoehorning that episode into some chattel slavery history crap with pregnant black mistresses forced to work in the fields.
Yes. I cant think of a single sympathetic black victim in the last decade where conservatives attacked the victim. Complaints generally were about “this isn’t representative or there is no evidence racism caused this.”
Suggesting with zero recent precedent (to my knowledge) that the right would react to support the gang of white youths seems questionable at best.
To be fair, there's been a number of "but they really did <insert minor sin here>", usually related to drugs, alcohol, or fleeing from the police. There were some conservatives and even social conservatives that handled the Arbery shooting with grace or at least recognizing uncertainty, but at the very least there were some pretty dedicated bad trolls pretending to be socons.
I'm skeptical that this particular case has the necessary ambiguity or secondary valence to this those points, though.
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No, I'm pretty sure that average right wingers would be shouting about the youths these days if it went viral. @fashycumgroyper1488 on twitter wouldn't, but he's one person who is not very mainstream.
If your point is that /pol/ is hypocritical, that's probably true, but the mainstream right is not /pol/.
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Agreed if 3 white guys were sitting on a bike and told a pregnant black female to get away. Well they would be looking at 10 years.
He’s not presenting a neutral version. But assuming black people have preferential treatment.
And there is a bit of - sorry I got in the news. I’m the one who posted the video.
I’ve been poor before. Sometimes the rich (this case middle class) get to go first. Wait till the next bike shows up. That’s what you have to do when your poor.
And one of the poors greatest advantages is you have the hustle they don’t.
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