To those who feel it’s necessary to defend Jay Baker’s “bad day” quote by saying it was just a recital of Long’s words: Baker *put them into his own mouth* by paraphrasing them. He did not read a transcript.

Doing so frames Long with empathy that nonwhite criminals rarely get.
When cops paraphrase the words and describe the actions of Black suspects and even Black VICTIMS, it’s usually in a way that makes them seem more dangerous, or complicit in their own harm at the hands of law enforcement. We have seen that time and again.
By using subjective, empathic language in interpreting Long, Baker demonstrated how he saw him and how he wanted others to see him. This is what Baker said:
"He was pretty much fed up & kind of at the end of his rope. Yesterday was a really bad day for him & this is what he did"
Let me show how cops might have paraphrased Long’s words if he were Black:
"Suspect reported being enraged and unable to hold back his violent impulses. In his confession, he stated that his decision to commit the spree killings was motivated by having a quote unquote ‘bad day.’”
In talking about Black and other nonwhite persons of interest, cops use clinical language, make suggestions of prior history of violence/instability, frame direct quotes with context designed to raise question about their true meaning and reinforce criminality whenever they can.
Note: if you’re a white male journalist, deciding you want to die on the hill of defending a cop whose job is communications and who knows EXACTLY what the words he chose were intended to convey is really quite a thing. Especially when the cop is this guy:
nymag.com/intelligencer/…

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More from @originalspin

20 Mar
Watching Snyder Cut and my reaction so far after 30 minutes is: so much worse money thrown after bad money
Would anyone understand anything that’s going on in this movie if they hadn’t watched the prior, also bad version
Snyder Cut is like someone ate a comic shop and all of the fanboys in it then regurgitated onto a 4:3 screen for four straight hours
Read 15 tweets
17 Mar
When people talk about Asian sex work in tones that suggest that the victims of Robert Aaron along were somehow “asking for it” because they were engaged in an illicit activity, they speak volumes about their own ignorance on why America has an Asian sex work trade to begin with.
Think centuries of exotic sexualization of “the Orient,” reinforced by white supremacism, military conquest, colonial occupation, and a long history of media amplification of racist stereotypical images
Think of the Chinese Exclusion Act and how it banned Chinese men from bringing their wives to the US to prevent them from wanting to settle here, creating a situation where the only Chinese women in the US were undocumented sex workers—with clients who weren’t just Chinese
Read 10 tweets
17 Mar
Man kills women, blaming them for his “addiction to sex”

But not “racially motivated,” because of course race has nothing to do with why Long visited Asian spas looking for sex
It’s total coincidence that he’d kill a bunch of women at an Asian massage parlor, then drive miles away to shoot more women at other Asian spas

It’s not about race at all, he just has a “type”
Wow I had a bad day yesterday and somehow managed not to murder six Asian women, I guess stress just hits different for white guys
Read 5 tweets
17 Mar
Horrific. Robert Aaron Long, 21, has been arrested in connection with a shooting that killed four women at Young’s Asian Massage Parlor in Atlanta. More shootings took place at two other Asian spas in the area. Police have not yet tied those to Long.
ajc.com/news/breaking-…
In total, at least eight are dead and others seriously injured—most or all of them immigrant Asian women. Were they targeted for their race? Their gender?

Given the way things are right now, the answer is probably “both.”
How did I know he was white before I saw the picture?

“Subject was arrested after a high speed chase and brought into custody unharmed”
Read 6 tweets
4 Feb
Trump's impeachment defense: 1. His 1A rights let him say anything he wants (clearly untrue, since as the POTUS he has Constitutional duties that bound his freedom of speech) 2. He didn't incite the insurrection 3. Trying him is...a "Bill of Attainder" (!)
nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Per @NoahRFeldman: A Bill of Attainder is basically a decree that "singles out a particular individual or class of people for punishment without trial" by the judiciary. It would bar Congress/POTUS from enacting laws that affect one person, ex., Trump.
bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/noah-f…
But as Feldman points out, no law is being passed here. This is an impeachment trial. Trump has argued before that he was essentially immune to standard prosecution while POTUS, because he was POTUS, meaning impeachment was the only recourse to regulate him.
Read 6 tweets
22 Jan
As nice as this is to hear for the future, let’s make it clear that this is absolutely a full throated indictment of the Trump administration’s utter mishandling of the Covid crisis and should be acknowledged as such even by Republicans
Like, yes, lovely, hopeful, but 400K Americans are dead and we will never know how many died needlessly
And I know Fauci played the hand he was dealt and did his best to minimize the damage

But let’s not pretend he wasn’t on the bridge when the ship was smashing into every iceberg it could find
Read 5 tweets

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