Munn75 said:
Did the Young Turks know who had committed the crime? When the original story came out, they did not mention the name or race of the person that committed the crime. Odd omissions considering that information was available at that time with a little bit of research. The charitable viewpoint is that they did not know who committed the crime. The reason I say this is that if they in fact did know the name and race of the person and still chose to frame this as a racist, right-wing attack, that would make it much worse. Essentially moving it from lazy journalism to manipulative journalism. Were they wrong about who committed the crime? Since they framed it as a right-wing attack, unless they can someone how prove that the attacker was in fact right-wing and a Trump supporter, I would say yes they were wrong about who committed the attack. Especially considering in the original piece they didn't name the person but simply described the type of person the attacker represented. Would I disagree if you were to say that being anti-immigration is a right wing position? Good question. I would say that anti-illegal immigration is certainly a right wing position. I would agree that the right tends to value sovereignty more than the left and that would lead more of the extreme right towards anti-immigration in general. This of course is countered by some of those on the far left advocating for open borders and to that end, the dismantling if ICE, borders, etc. Something like immigration is again a nuanced discussion where blindly picking one side or the other actually hurts everyone involved because we don't get to have the proper discussion. Going off topic a bit here but in the current political climate, you are immediately labeled by many as some buzz word version of a bad person if you don't have the same exact viewpoint or ideology. I consider myself to be a centrist although I used to lean more to the left before the party started changing. I think immigration is a great thing and what this country was founded on. We have laws/policies in place that allow for legal immigration, the same as many other sovereign nations. Just as we have borders. I personally believe that it is all about balance. We need the ability to take care of those who are already here while also having standards on who we allow to come here. Illegal immigration bothers me because it is a slap in the face of those who have come here through the proper channels and those that are currently trying to come here throw the legal process. |
I believe that the individual who committed this attack wasn't named because it simply doesn't matter. I don't think it matters that the individual is a black woman (and I find the general assumption that her race can be utilized to assume her political affiliation fairly unambiguously racist), and personally, I don't believe that it matters whether or not she is a Trump supporter. However, I don't think that it is an illogical assumption to state that she is "right wing", at least on the issues of immigration. As you have said, generally "anti-immigration" positions are the position of the right. As such, for someone to be attacking someone while espousing anti-immigration rhetoric, lets just say you don't have to reach very far to get to the assumptions that are made by TYT.
That said, it is still an assumption. I agree that they shouldn't have phrased it that way, but I also am not going to get too worked up about it because of the two reasons I've already stated: It isn't a stretch and it doesn't matter.
The core of their point is this: Hate crimes are fueled by the anti-immigration rhetoric of the Trump administration.
Now, this is subjective commentary here, not "news". It is TYT presenting their opinion and speaking about the broader context of these issues.
In that context, I think this is an entirely valid point to make and an entirely valid discussion to have.
My larger problem with this thread is that TYT is an easy target. Yes, they are pretty awful and they lean so far left that they are lying down. They sensationalize the story and talk big. Okay.
But why is this a thread?
Why is the thread that has been made about this horrible incident a thread not simply condemning these actions or discussing the political context they occurred under, but instead an attack on the left?
I feel as if I were to ruffle a few feathers if I were to answer that question, but I think it is fairly plain to see what is going on here...
