Nice Attack, Bro

On Thursday, July 14th, the French holiday of Bastille Day, French-Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a truck into a massive crowd of revelers in Nice, killing at least 84 people and injuring over a hundred more. It’s time to consider a cartoon that has been floating around the internet for a while now, in the context of meme magic.

Just how accurate is this cartoon? Let’s examine.

Don’t Fuel Hatred

In this Guardian article written by Simon Jenkins, we see two of the talking points perfectly laid out, in this paragraph, he is warning us against “fueling hatred“:

As for strengthening France’s role in the Islamist civil wars in Iraq and Syria, it is hard to imagine anything more likely to incite other young men to suicide attacks.

It is an isolated case, a crazy man

And we also see the isolated, crazy man trope, with a nice dash of hopelessness thrown in for good cause.

There is no defence force on Earth that can defend a crowd from a madman in a truck.

He is a troubled young man

Huffington Post was quick to put out a No True Scotsman piece, assuring us that the attacker wasn’t a proper Muslim, and that he was deeply disturbed.

The man behind the Nice truck attack drank alcohol, beat his wife and has been described as “not a Muslim but a shit”. He was reported to be a “loner” who became depressed after his wife left him. French TV reported that he was a father to three children.

No word on exactly when not beating your wife became evidence of being a bad Muslim.

Don’t Play The Game of the Far Right

In a CNN piece that was mostly reasonable, titled After Nice horror, I fear hatred, writer Cecile Alduy laments the possibility of events like this might lead to a surge in voting for France’s National Front party, a party with a strong stance on immigration.

And #JesuisNice or other hashtags won’t do it. France is sick of commemorations and condemnations. Sick of the ritual of cringing fear and dramatic headlines. Enraged with its powerlessness, it might be tempted by a political outlet — a surge in the National Front vote come next year’s election. Or something worse. We have nothing to fear but fear itself. And hatred, from all sides.

Black Lives Matter Responds To Nice

While we can all agree that the events which unfolded in Nice are tragic and horrific, some people, mainly members of the Black Lives Matter movement, seem to think that the real tragedy is focus being taken off of their plight.

Stay classy, BLM.

#AllLivesMatter

Remigio Pereira, a “lone wolf’ member of the Canadian Tenors, has faced an incredible amount of backlash this week when he altered some words in the national anthem to say “all lives matter” and held a sign saying “all lives matter”. After the backlash began, he tweeted out that he was speaking for the human race.

It strikes me as a profoundly bizarro world we are living in, when such a benign and innocuous message can inspire the type of vitriol that we see in the tweeted responses. For example:

Haha, look at that last one. Is that satire? It’s so hard to tell these days.

Keep in mind that the same people that are egregiously outraged over the fact that this was done during the national anthem, are the same people that will nod silent approval when Black Lives Matter protestors shut down a Pride parade to further their own agenda. And what I have shown you here is just a tiny sample of the hatred sent his way, there are hundreds and hundreds of tweets and Remigio was finally forced to issue a public apology for having the nerve to affirm the value of human life.

Jeniffer Lopez has also made headlines this week for including the hashtag #AllLivesMatter in a tweet promoting her new charity single to raise money for the victims of the Orlando shooting.

“I was only trying to be inclusive. I didn’t realise there was such sensitivity to it in that moment which is why I decided to take it down.”

It’s Not Terrorism Tho

On July 6th a petition was started to formally recognize Black Lives Matter as a terrorist organization. The very next day, a supporter of Black Lives Matter, Micah Xavier Johnson killed five police officers in Dallas, Texas and wounded several others.

In the 11 days since the petition was launched, it has garnered over 140 thousand signatures. At one hundred thousand, the white house is required to officially respond, which they did today.

“The White House plays no role in designating domestic terror organizations,” nor does the U.S. government “generate a list of domestic terror organizations.” “[T]herefore,” the response read, “we are not able to address the formal request of your petition.”

Is it further eerily prescient irony, that on the day they issue this massive cuckish cop out, a black supremacist in Baton Rouge by the name of Gavin Long shot and killed multiple police officers? Of course, as is always the case in mass shootings, before the banal and predictable motivations of the killings came to light, the media was desperately trying to tie Gavin to “far-right” groups and not reporting on his race.

Videos on Long’s account show that he was a former Nation of Islam member. He also ranted against “crackers” and made references to Alton Sterling, the black man killed by police in Baton Rouge on July 5.

Oh and apparently there was a failed military coup in Turkey or someshit. So all in all, a pretty bad week for humanity. Here’s to hoping we’ve hit rock bottom for 2016 and can start going back to the days when the biggest thing I had to gripe about was an unwanted Ghostbusters reboot.

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