Since nearly no one is talking about it...

[zoom-zoom]

Even though it's all over the major news networks. This tragedy has been pretty much swept under the rug in comparison to the level of grief and attention afforded to a similar and tragic event in CO just weeks ago.

Racism is so ugly. A group of peaceful Sikhs gunned-down in their place of worship deserve just as much attention in social media as do a group of movie-goers, IMO. If we (as a nation) ignore this event does it mean we agree with the white-supremacist shooter...?

Just hours after the CO shootings there were countless threads and graphics honoring the victims of that event. On FB I have counted 3 links to the story since the shootings took place. THREE.

Are there really that many bigots amongst my FB friends (I'd like to think this isn't the case)? I only found out about this even this evening when I was online for the first time all day after a wonderful day in the great outdoors and happened to be scanning a local news site to find information about an accident we happened upon.

As much as the story upsets me, the reaction (or lack thereof) makes me truly ill.

[Owlie]

Even though it's all over the major news networks. This tragedy has been pretty much swept under the rug in comparison to the level of grief and attention afforded to a similar and tragic event in CO just weeks ago.

Racism is so ugly. A group of peaceful Sikhs gunned-down in their place of worship deserve just as much attention in social media as do a group of movie-goers, IMO. If we (as a nation) ignore this event does it mean we agree with the white-supremacist shooter...?

Just hours after the CO shootings there were countless threads and graphics honoring the victims of that event. On FB I have counted 3 links to the story since the shootings took place. THREE.

Are there really that many bigots amongst my FB friends (I'd like to think this isn't the case)? I only found out about this even this evening when I was online for the first time all day after a wonderful day in the great outdoors and happened to be scanning a local news site to find information about an accident we happened upon.

As much as the story upsets me, the reaction (or lack thereof) makes me truly ill.

I hate to say this and it isn't nearly on the same scale, but I think it's sort of comparable to the shooting in Norway last year. Yes, the media at large condemned the action, but not the motivation behind it, because a huge number of people implicitly agree with it. "We don't want nasty foreign brown people here!" is a sadly common sentiment, no matter where those "brown people" are from or what religion they may belong to.

Americans as a whole tend to lump all non-Latino "brown people" into one entity, and almost every article notes that Sikh men wear turbans and are "easily confused with Muslims." So I think there's a significant chunk of the population who agree with the apparent motivation, if not the action and the fact that the shooter managed to get the 'wrong' group of people. This opens another can of worms. I don't want to imagine what would happen had the target been a mosque rather than a Sikh temple.

The other reason I can think of for the outpouring of expression of shock and grief over the Aurora shootings is that for most people, that could have easily been them. In this case, if you're not a minority from certain ethnic backgrounds, you're safe.

[lph]

People will always react most strongly to bad things happening to people they identify with, there's just no way around it. And there's no logic in emotional reaction either. It's been one year since the shootings in Norway now. In a way I think that if Breivik had managed to target the muslims he so viciously hates that might have generated more sympathy for them and actually forced white Norwegians to look at how they think and feel. As it is he shot down mostly white Norwegians, most of them kids and teenagers. People can pour out endless amounts of sympathy for the families and swear "it will never happen again" without having to think any uncomfortable thoughts about what lay behind it and how their own viewpoints may tie in with it.

This bugs me. For a year now Norway has been collectively holding hands and holding a very dignified and calm court case over the shooting (and patting our backs about it and being righteous), at the same time there's been a huge debate about maybe two or three hundred dirt poor gypsies who've been camping around in parks in Oslo and being a nuisance. The comments under news articles have been vitriolic, the amount of hatred spewed out is just scary. So much for holding hands and being calm and just.

[Kiwi Stoker]

Most Australians and New Zealanders look at USA and it's gun culture and shake our heads. Shootings and murders by guns are RARE here and that's because we have tight gun control.

The 2nd ammendment has a lot to answer for, especially since the latest shooting was with a hand gun. What next? Metal detectors at movie theatres and religious places? There is no need for people to walk around carrying a gun all the time. Get with the times USA!

[OakLeaf]

Um, we don't need to turn this thread into national chauvinism, either... (and I would point out that the US overall homicide rate is not so different from that of Australia's Northern Territory...)


I don't know, zoom-zoom. Are you referring to your FB friends or to the news sources you subscribe to? We were home and watching on TV as the cops secured the scene but it was a Sunday afternoon, and if it took you that long to hear about it, then it was probably the same for most people you know. I just looked at my FB page and it's true, there are only a couple of reactions to the shooting, but there are also probably no more than 15 postings of any kind since that happened, most of them sports and gardening sites that tend to be among the last to respond to tragedies outside their own communities. Personally, I just don't usually post a tribute over that sort of thing, myself, no matter the scale or the details.

[zoom-zoom]

I don't know, zoom-zoom. Are you referring to your FB friends or to the news sources you subscribe to? We were home and watching on TV as the cops secured the scene but it was a Sunday afternoon, and if it took you that long to hear about it, then it was probably the same for most people you know. I just looked at my FB page and it's true, there are only a couple of reactions to the shooting, but there are also probably no more than 15 postings of any kind since that happened, most of them sports and gardening sites that tend to be among the last to respond to tragedies outside their own communities. Personally, I just don't usually post a tribute over that sort of thing, myself, no matter the scale or the details.

528 friends and after scrolling through the day's posts I found 3 links to news articles. When CO happened my wall blew up with people posting about the horror.

I was nowhere near any media until about 7:30pm, as we did a long-century ride yesterday (with several loops, breaks, people with mechanicals, guy cramping, hills, wind). People were definitely on FB and posting the usual nonsense, but the shootings in WI were essentially ignored. Even the 3 links posted only had a comment or two given.

[lovelygamer]

The right to bear arms goes back to the English militia in the UK, and the mentality of the American Revolution that followed. In the US, we have the right to bear arms, supposedly, to keep our government in check. Among other reasons.

Not that you can see any of this in the Patriot Act.

The people that keep harking to the 2nd amendment and the right to bear arms should keep in mind that we don't live in Revolutionary times. Keeping our government in check? Like that is going to happen in our lifetime.

I am ashamed at the lack of gun control in our country. While we are at it, I"m also ashamed at the lack of health care too.

I've traveled the world and yes we have a higher standard of living than most but our idea of "control" is so misguided. Our government controls things we don't NEED them to control and doesn't control things that do need to be controlled.

Just having a higher standard of living doesn't make the US the BEST country in the world. We have to start thinking globally and look at standards across the world in our first world countries.

P.S. Hate is never going to end, anywhere. It is an awful awful situation but I don't know how you can control these hate or terrorist incidents. It is a shame. You know what else is a shame? The news reporter today saying "Sikhism originated in Italy" on a US news network.

PS. I don't want to get involved in a huge debate but just thought I would put my .02 in. Ride on, friends!

[zoom-zoom]

I am ashamed at the lack of gun control in our country. While we are at it, I"m also ashamed at the lack of health care too.

I've traveled the world and yes we have a higher standard of living than most but our idea of "control" is so misguided. Our government controls things we don't NEED them to control and doesn't control things that do need to be controlled.

Just having a higher standard of living doesn't make the US the BEST country in the world. We have to start thinking globally and look at standards across the world in our first world countries.

Actually, I don't think our standard of living is high at all...not when compared to the UK or Scandinavia...countries with universal health care and much lower infant/maternal mortality. We have a helluvalot of people "living" below the poverty line, too. FAR more than a company with our resources should.

[Trek420]

.... While we are at it, I"m also ashamed at the lack of health care too. ........

PS. I don't want to get involved in a huge debate but just thought I would put my .02 in. Ride on, friends!

I think in all the ongoing talk about health care (and I'm not wishing to turn this into a debate about the Affordable Care act) I just want to say that we need to add to the civil conversation; mental health care IS health care.

So when people lack access to affordable care mental health is part of what's unavailable.

We talk easily about the child with miss-set broken bones or consequences of poor prenatal care, the missed or late diagnosis of cancer. What happens to a veteran under stress who can't get help? Perhaps this. We saw in the Gabby Giffords shooting the family had been trying to get mental health care to the shooter. Same seems to be true in Colorado: the shooter may have fallen off the radar or through the cracks.

We need to remove the stigma of asking for help and make mental health care easily and widely available.

My $0.02. Back to cycling.

[PamNY]

Even though it's all over the major news networks[/URL]. This tragedy has been pretty much swept under the rug in comparison to the level of grief and attention afforded to a similar and tragic event in CO just weeks ago..

Swept under the rug? It only happened yesterday.

ETA: I didn't realize you were talking about Facebook. In real life, among my friends, this will get more attention than something like the Colorado shooting, for obvious reasons.

[beccaB]

I didn't even know about that one. I don't read our local paper but it wouldn't have that in there because it's a crappy paper. I think racial violence is so dangerous because it happens more often than a random senseless mentally Ill motivated shooting. It's more dangerous because it's more likely to happen because there are so many intolerances still. Yet people have almost as a whole population, become desensitized to it, where a random shooting from a mentally deranged person gets so much more attention because people are desensitized to racial violence to some extent. It should be every bit as shocking and appalling but the media wants to play up the scenes that will get them the most viewers.

[zoom-zoom]

I didn't even know about that one. I don't read our local paper but it wouldn't have that in there because it's a crappy paper. I think racial violence is so dangerous because it happens more often than a random senseless mentally Ill motivated shooting. It's more dangerous because it's more likely to happen because there are so many intolerances still. Yet people have almost as a whole population, become desensitized to it, where a random shooting from a mentally deranged person gets so much more attention because people are desensitized to racial violence to some extent. It should be every bit as shocking and appalling but the media wants to play up the scenes that will get them the most viewers.

In this case the media is giving it ample attention, but I am still seeing almost no mention of it among the general public. That greatly saddens and frightens me. CO was horrific, but this strikes me as so much more grave, for the reason you give. These people were targeted for who they were, not where they were.

[indysteel]

I'm confused as to your conclusion that the "general public" isn't talking about the shooting. What metric are you using for that? Your own Facebook feed? I don't know how much I would assume from just Facebook.

The news outlets I follow have coverage of the shooting and there are a thousand plus comments to each of those stories. Is the news coverage as rabidly sensationalistic about this shooting as it was about the CO shooting? Maybe not, but that might not be a bad thing. For better or for worse, the CO shooting provoked a media and water cooler-discussion frenzy, but that hardly means that the coverage and discussions were all intelligent or worthy. I'm more interested in the quality of the coverage and ensuing dialogue, not quantity.