ATurner: So tired of "progressives" on this board assuming that Black folks inherently have criminal intent.

Throw The Bums Out: Guess what, if you get on the interstate using the off ramp despite the multiple reflective “wrong way” signs then you inherently have criminal intent. Regardless of race or any other factors.

ATurner: Where do you get that from? Are you a law professor? Whiteness confers expertise in a lot of fields, doesn't it?

CyberMindGrrl: Wrong. Nobody is ascribing criminal intent because he’s black, people are ascribing criminal intent because he SPECIFICALLY drove the wrong way down an off-ramp, drove the wrong way on the highway, and did everything he could to avoid the cars blocking the protesters, THEN drove straight into them. It doesn’t matter what the color of his skin is, if that doesn’t literally SCREAM “criminal intent” then I don’t know what does.

And FWIW I am a black person.

ATurner: The man is an immigrant of color and should be given the benefit of the doubt in terms of intent, given what white settler colonialism has done to the Third World. You have no idea what type of trauma he has been through.

Johnny Q: Somehow my sympathies are not with Mr. Vehicular Homicide in this instance.

Why do you make excuses for him?

ATurner: I'm not making excuses for anyone. If your white fragility is such that you are unwilling to confront the legacy of settler colonialism then that's on you.

Johnny Q: Are you seriously saying he did it because colonialism?

ATurner: Obviously I am not saying that, and your compulsion to belittle BIPOC viewpoints by making deliberate distortions is duly noted. I am saying that the generational psychic TRAUMA that is a by-product of settler colonialism might be an indirect cause of the driver having a PTSD episode that led to this unfortunate situation. But I guess that it's easier for some to fall back on racist stereotypes of the 'black savage' than to stay silent and listen to the perspectives of those of us who inhabit Black bodies.

[...]

Reporter100: This reminds me of my ex-husband who used to get drunk and beat me half unconscious. He thought it was OK, though because he was from El Salvador and was possibly tortured at the US-backed Junta.

ATurner: Please don't bring your dysfunctional personal life into this discussion. We are talking about the rush to automatically ascribe sinister motivations to Black men.

Reporter100: The suggestion that a traumatized immigrant of color can’t make intelligent choices is racist. I can recall hearing talks by Rigoberta Menchú, a Guatemalan Mayan whose family members were tortured and killed by the US-backed dictatorship. She was organizing for indigenous rights and a change in US foreign policy, not driving cars into demonstrators.

ATurner: You're calling ME a racist? That's rich coming from someone who basically wants to lynch a Black man without knowing all of the facts. Please refrain from projecting your personal issues with race onto me. Thank you and have a blessed day.