Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Girl in the Kent State Photo

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 89 posts

Re: The Girl in the Kent State Photo

#11

Post by happytoexplain »

throwaway8581 wrote: post #4

Yes, sounds just like the case of Ashli Babbitt. Shot for breaking a window during an act of civil disobedience. The same people who think there was nothing wrong with shooting Babbitt also think it's wrong to shoot a teenager as they swing to stab someone. Babbitt was a right winger, so she is subhuman. Her death was covered up. We don't know who fired the shot or exactly why charges were not brought against them. A…

>The same people who think ... also think ...

This is a common format of "fact" that we invent to rationalize our own hatreds. It's usually impossible to generalize to any meaningful degree. Not that it's never possible to construct a reasonable observation this way.

Re: The Girl in the Kent State Photo

#12

Post by throwaway8581 »

happytoexplain wrote: post #11
throwaway8581 wrote: post #4

Yes, sounds just like the case of Ashli Babbitt. Shot for breaking a window during an act of civil disobedience. The same people who think there was nothing wrong with shooting Babbitt also think it's wrong to shoot a teenager as they swing to stab someone. Babbitt was a right winger, so she is subhuman. Her death was covered up. We don't know who fired the shot or exactly why charges were not brought against them. A…

>The same people who think ... also think ... This is a common format of "fact" that we invent to rationalize our own hatreds. It's usually impossible to generalize to any meaningful degree. Not that it's never possible to construct a reasonable observation this way.

No I mean literally the same people telling you to believe one tell you to believe the other. And that particular tribe is very obedient of their media leaders.

Re: The Girl in the Kent State Photo

#13

Post by DoreenMichele »

For me, it’s hard now not to look at that photo and see a 14-year-old girl, unaware of how that single moment will shape her entire life. She’ll become a public figure — as a minor — with no consent and no control over her image or her reputation.

And yet, she eventually defied the narrative that was written for her. She built a new life on her own terms. Far from the public glare that defined her as someone she never was, she’s now who she wants to be: someone whose life is both private and purposeful.

It is, at least to some degree, a piece about issues alive today and amplified by the internet, social media, a larger world population, faster modes of transit, etc. The world has grown both larger and smaller at the same time and it will be some future generation that perhaps figures out how to deal with all this, while perhaps being caught flat-footed by their own current developments.

Re: The Girl in the Kent State Photo

#14

Post by Talanes »

throwaway8581 wrote: post #12
happytoexplain wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The same people who think ... also think ... This is a common format of "fact" that we invent to rationalize our own hatreds. It's usually impossible to generalize to any meaningful degree. Not that it's never possible to construct a reasonable observation this way.

No I mean literally the same people telling you to believe one tell you to believe the other. And that particular tribe is very obedient of their media leaders.

But you don't mean that literally, hence your use of vague generalizations like "tribe" and "media leaders." You don't mean specific people, you mean a broad range of people that you have grouped into all holding singular opinions. Not the same thing.

Re: The Girl in the Kent State Photo

#15

Post by simonh »

throwaway8581 wrote: post #12
happytoexplain wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The same people who think ... also think ... This is a common format of "fact" that we invent to rationalize our own hatreds. It's usually impossible to generalize to any meaningful degree. Not that it's never possible to construct a reasonable observation this way.

No I mean literally the same people telling you to believe one tell you to believe the other. And that particular tribe is very obedient of their media leaders.

That cuts both ways. There are a lot of people who see themselves as pro law and order, would deplore a protest in which a police officer was killed, would normally be horrified by protesters chanting “shoot him with his own gun” when they isolated an officer, yet sympathise with the Capitol protests where both of these things happened.

The truth is most of the Capitol protesters probably had no intention to actually hurt anyone. The same is true of most of the people at BLM protests. Yet in both cases there are extreme elements that revel in violence for their respective cause. The problem isn’t left wing extremists or right wing extremists. The problem is extremists and those on either side that, while not violent themselves, offer aid comfort and support to those that are. That justify violence selectively in some cases while deploring it in others for partisan reasons.

Re: The Girl in the Kent State Photo

#16

Post by Leparamour »

simonh wrote: post #15
throwaway8581 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I mean literally the same people telling you to believe one tell you to believe the other. And that particular tribe is very obedient of their media leaders.

That cuts both ways. There are a lot of people who see themselves as pro law and order, would deplore a protest in which a police officer was killed, would normally be horrified by protesters chanting “shoot him with his own gun” when they isolated an officer, yet sympathise with the Capitol protests where both of these things happened. The truth is most of the Capitol protesters probably had no intention to actually…

>would deplore a protest in which a police officer was killed

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/capitol-polic...

But they surely instrumentalized that death for their own ends:

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/29/politics/brian-sicknick-l...

Re: The Girl in the Kent State Photo

#17

Post by adamcstephens »

happytoexplain wrote: post #10
pmoriarty wrote: post #9

"Back in Kent, Ohio, local business owners ran an ad thanking the National Guard. Mail poured in to the mayor's office, blaming "dirty hippies," "longhairs" and "outside agitators" for the violence. Some Kent residents raised four fingers when they passed each other in the street, a silent signal that meant, "At least we got four of them." Nixon issued a statement saying that the students' actions had invited the tra…

The day after the shooting, a banner was hung in the West Point cafeteria stating, "Us: 4, Them: 0". America has a non-negligible percent of population who I can only describe as "bloodthirsty for no good reason". They've been here a long time, and remain here today. When we try to discuss the problem, the noise from political side-taking usually overtakes the conversation.

As long as we ignore the violent things done by our country for the past few hundred years, it will continue to poison our society. Reparations for slavery could be one approach, but it doesn’t account for enough of the pain we’ve caused.

Genocide, slavery, civil war, imperial conquest, overthrowing democracies in favor of repressive regimes, to today’s bombing of people in other countries with drones. We don’t discuss these things because they’re painful, conflict with the narrative of ourselves we’ve been told, and are drowned out in modern media because both “sides” agree with the policies.

America is bloodthirsty because we always have been, and have taken no meaningful steps to change it.

Re: The Girl in the Kent State Photo

#18

Post by lazulicurio »

pmoriarty wrote: post #9

"Back in Kent, Ohio, local business owners ran an ad thanking the National Guard. Mail poured in to the mayor's office, blaming "dirty hippies," "longhairs" and "outside agitators" for the violence. Some Kent residents raised four fingers when they passed each other in the street, a silent signal that meant, "At least we got four of them." Nixon issued a statement saying that the students' actions had invited the tra…

FWIW I think that this attitude is at the core of issues such as mass shootings and police violence. That I think it's largely cultural is also why I'm not convinced that gun restrictions will be super-effective at combating it. I think that all humans experience some measure of schadenfreude at seeing people they dislike get a comeuppance, but I don't think that enjoying physical retribution is innate. I remember one year we were over at my sister's house for the holidays and watching A Christmas Story. My 2yo niece was with us on the couch when the scene where Ralphie beats up the bully came on---you could tell that she was horrified whereas noone else seemed to think twice of it. Unfortunately cultural issues are difficult to solve. Christianity brought "turn the other cheek", but 2000 years later look where we are.

Re: The Girl in the Kent State Photo

#19

Post by klmadfejno »

lazulicurio wrote: post #18
pmoriarty wrote: post #9

"Back in Kent, Ohio, local business owners ran an ad thanking the National Guard. Mail poured in to the mayor's office, blaming "dirty hippies," "longhairs" and "outside agitators" for the violence. Some Kent residents raised four fingers when they passed each other in the street, a silent signal that meant, "At least we got four of them." Nixon issued a statement saying that the students' actions had invited the tra…

FWIW I think that this attitude is at the core of issues such as mass shootings and police violence. That I think it's largely cultural is also why I'm not convinced that gun restrictions will be super-effective at combating it. I think that all humans experience some measure of schadenfreude at seeing people they dislike get a comeuppance, but I don't think that enjoying physical retribution is innate. I remember on…

> Christianity brought "turn the other cheek", but 2000 years later look where we are.

I've no interest in a debate on religion, but Christianity is the religion that brought "bad people burn in hell for eternity".

Re: The Girl in the Kent State Photo

#20

Post by LocalH »

pjc50 wrote: post #3

Extraordinary number of contemporary parallels. The FBI turning up to ask for the negatives. The reporter who interviewed her and then turned her in to the police. The people sending death threats to a fourteen year old girl, decades before twitter. And of course the wide public support for state sponsored murder.

If anything, it counteracts the notion that social media has "caused" this type of viciousness. Social media may be able to amplify it in a new way, presenting new challenges, but that viciousness has been a thread in humanity since almost the beginning of recorded history, and likely much further back.
Post reply on HN