Thoroughly Educated
Schooled in the sins of “privilege,” a Georgetown University student feels the pain of his muggers:
Who am I to condemn these young men as “thugs”? If we ever want opportunistic crime to end, we should look at ourselves first… Until we do so, we should get comfortable with sporadic muggings and break-ins. I can hardly blame them.
You see, when threatened and robbed at gunpoint, you mustn’t “otherize” your attacker. Because predatory vermin have feelings too.
Someone should give him a bus ticket to Ferguson.
Says the student:
Not once did I consider our attackers to be “bad people.” I trust that they weren’t trying to hurt me. In fact, if they knew me, I bet they’d think I was okay.
Ummm
Ummm
Quite. And by extension, should you or your loved ones be threatened and mugged, or burgled, or robbed, or beaten, you mustn’t blame (or “otherize”) the people actually doing the violation. Instead, you should “get comfortable” with the forcible redistribution of your possessions and earnings. Embrace that “social justice.”
His piety demands it.
“If we ever want opportunistic crime to end, we should look at ourselves first…”
Right, just looked at myself, and I still haven’t mugged or burgled anyone. So am I allowed to resume disapproving of crime now?
And Mr Friedfeld doesn’t seem to grasp that his pieties are an insult to anyone who’s been poor and yet somehow managed to avoid robbing random people at gunpoint. Or kicking old ladies and thieving their pension. Or punching someone unconscious just to steal their phone.
His piety demands it.
So let me see if I can get this straight because I’m a little confused here as to what exactly it is that proponents of social justice see when they look at the world:
Under- or unemployed working class men saying “How you doing today” to a young woman is an egregious act of “street harassment” whose “real motive … is intimidation. To make its target scared or uncomfortable, and to make the harasser feel powerful.” In short, it is an absolutely unforgivable invasion of personal space that should be eradicated from our streets with extreme prejudice.
But being robbed at gunpoint is your fault for having lived the kind of privileged life that means never having “had to decide whether or not to steal from people” and that “If we ever want opportunistic crime to end, we should look at ourselves first.”?
Ummm, what?
Shades of the execrable Robert Fisk.
A thought-experiment: let someone that’s not “surrounded by million-dollar homes and paying for a $60,000 education” criticize the muggers for rolling people at gunpoint, and watch our young hero Friedfeld do some rapid “otherizing”. Any takers?
Mr. Friedfeld is simply demonstrating the paternalism so typical of the Left. It justifies their enlightened intervention in other people’s lives. It’s simply a Progressive version of Kipling’s White Man’s Burden.
“Mug him again!”
–anonymous observer, when Judge “Turn em Loose” Bruce Wright announced that he being mugged and hospitalized would not make him less lenient to criminals.
His parents must be so proud (and I bet they’re glad they spent $60,000 on his education).
“Not once did I consider our attackers to be ‘bad people.” Good boy; here’s a biscuit. He’s such a well trained little SJW.
Georgetown: America’s future leaders. Working for a future just like _A Clockwork Orange_.
If I met the two thugs who beat me up in an attempt to relieve me of my Waller as an undergraduate again, I’d take the chance to ‘otherize’ them into the middle of next week with a baseball bat
*wallet*
“In fact, if they knew me, I bet they’d think I was okay”
Somehow, I doubt it. They would probably see him merely as even easier prey.
They would probably see him merely as even easier prey.
Prey? What you got there is livestock; a sheep waiting to be sheared.
So is this victim blaming?
Nikw211,
Exactly!
Although if a woman blamed *herself* for being groped\assaulted, I think the SJW calculations would break down (like divide by zero?). Certainly it isnt her fault for being assaulted. Also not her fault for saying something that a white male would say. Probably the devil made her do it.
It’s the Oppression Olympics, and everybody wants to be the loser.
Sometimes the Eloi invite the Morlocks to eat them.
Oliver Friedfeld, Shmoo.
Just the type of guy who would also make sure that you wouldn’t be able to defend yourself either.
Lots of those in education, politics and “law” these days.
Does anyone know where this kid lives? I need some pocket change.
them dum poor people don’t be knowin’ any better is waht i say!
I’ve never been mugged. The only time that came close was when I was 11 and I rode my bike on the path under a railway bridge. There was a gang of older boys hanging out there smoking and one of them ran up to me and grabbed the handlebar.
“Give us your bike!” he snarled.
I thought about it for a second, and then replied “Nah.”
That seemed to take my would-be freelance bicycle redistributor by surprise, because he blinked at me stupidly for a couple of seconds, before repeating his earlier request, but this time brandishing a fist to show he really was keen on taking my purple Raleigh Chopper.
A policeman had come to our school not long before to warn us that we’d better not think of carrying knives or we’d be in trouble, and I thought “why not a screwdriver?” I may have gotten the idea from Doctor Who. Mary Whitehouse was right.
So I took out the screwdriver I stole from my Dad for exactly that sort of eventuality, and jammed it into his face.
I’d like to say I came out with a pithy remark like “screw you!” but in truth I just screamed like a blood-crazed squirrel and then rode off like the clappers while he swore and grabbed his injured face, and his comrades gave chase.
If I had gone home without that bike my Dad would have given me a worse hiding than anything those boys were likely to dish out. He wasn’t the sort of man to offer tea and sympathy to his son. He was a man of few words and fists like iron. Sometimes I liked to imagine my real father was a kinder, gentler figure. Like Darth Vader or Giant Haystacks.
He wasn’t a bad man, it was just that violence was the only teaching tool in his kit bag, and it was socially acceptable to beat your kids in those days when they were naughty, as long as you didn’t go too far.
And I was a wrong un from a very early age. There’s only so much you can do with a boy who curses like a drunk sailor with Tourettes from the age of 4, sets fire to the bins at school as a hobby, puts dirt in your jar of Nescafe, draws on your face with a pen when you’re trying to get some sleep before the nightshift, and pours out your Brut aftershave and refills the bottle with pee.
Anyway, I suspect Mr Friedfeld had a dad who was the exact opposite of mine. And that’s a much worse way to raise your boy than the odd punch or kick.
And he said: “Son, this world is rough / And if a man’s gonna make it, he’s gotta be tough
You don’t need to be Chuck Norris or anything to be a man, but you do need to grow a backbone. Respect yourself. Take a bit of pride in yourself. Don’t let people bully you.
I wouldn’t recommend stabbing muggers with screwdrivers or anything, and maybe you should give them your stuff if they pull a weapon on you. But to write an essay tongue-bathing your mugger that after that experience – well, it made me feel a little bit queasy to read it.
Some of the teachers in my school were nuns, and we were told the one about “turn the other cheek”, but I always thought that was fine for saints and martyrs, and I never planned on being either.
Also, I bet you anything those nuns would have gone Old Testament on any would-be assailant, they had an air of “don’t fuck with me, my child” about them. They didn’t hit us with rulers like that nun from “The Blues Brothers”, but you got the feeling they might.
I was curious as to what the pious victim looked like – and it’s pretty much what I expected.
This probably won’t be that kid’s last mugging. He needs to learn to stand up for himself like George McFly did. Did the 80’s teach us nothing?
Why am I thinking Mummy and Daddy paid for all his stuff?
You don’t get mugged when going for a stroll in a wealthy community; you get mugged when AMONG THE POOR.
Most victims of mugging and burglary are the poor who happen to live within the thugs’ comfort zone.
Criminey, what a self-important twit!
I was curious as to what the pious victim looked like – and it’s pretty much what I expected.
Holy smoke: he was asking for it.
@Steve
Part of it is merely acting the part. The majority of bullies will back down from someone who defies them. See, e.g. this lady.
Speaking of the competitive victimhood, this may be of interest:
http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2014/11/23/i-am-a-racist-and-i-am-a-sexist-and-probably-some-other-ists-too/
I must admit, this game is becoming somewhat tiresome…
I must admit, this game is becoming somewhat tiresome…
Still, it’s good to know that pathological unrealism and a kind of moral depravity are things that can be taught.
dicentra – “Holy smoke: he was asking for it.”
He couldn’t look less threatening if he had pigtails.
This is why I wear an eyepatch and a fake moustache. And when that’s not enough, I unleash my vicious attack kitty.
The last sound a mugger would hear is “Mrrrow?”
R. Sherman – “Part of it is merely acting the part. The majority of bullies will back down from someone who defies them.”
Yes that’s most of it. If you even get to the point where you’re being picked out as a target, you’re either unlucky or doing it wrong.
Not much you can do if you’re a sitting duck like someone who works in a shop, but as a pedestrian there’s a lot you can do to deter miscreants.
Like, don’t walk through dodgy neighbourhoods alone. Or if you must, walk with a purposeful stride like the band “Survivor” in their music video for “Eye of the Tiger”. You need to walk with a swagger as if lateral motion is introduced to your perambulation by your enormous genitals.
Nobody messes with Survivor.
That lady who defended her pizza place is very brave. But from what I gather, looting a fast food joint is an appropriate tribute to the slain gentle giant, Mike Brown.
It’s what he would have wanted.
No justice, no pizza!
Aus_Autarch – Great beard of Brian Blessed! That is a brilliant link.
At first I thought he was being satirical for the lulz. But he just goes on, and on, and on. Like an Energiser Bunny fuelled by self-abasement.
Hi, I’m the Internet’s Chuck Wendig, and I’m a racist.
Hi, Chuck!
I know. You’re saying, “Chuck, but you’re a feminist. And you speak out on Twitter against things like this.”
Oh man. Spare me from male feminists. Even actual female feminists recoil from their orchidectomised obsequiousness.
And he fights the social justice fight on Twitter, no less… 🙂
Like, I’m not a super-racist.
Not like that bastard Aquaman.
I’m not some kind of uber-sexist, where I have some secret library of Pick-Up Artist books
No amount of pick up artist books would cover up the stench of his simpering simpitude.
Please note that I typed “powerful men like myself” with an eye-roll so dramatic I got dizzy and fell out a window.
He rolls his eyes like a 13 year old girl.
A good example is how I looked at my bookshelves a couple years ago and was like, “Yeah, wow, that’s a lot of white male authors on my shelf.” It was an error that needed to be corrected. Not because the books I had were bad, but because I was missing out on great stories and powerful voices — my reading experience was incomplete. My perspective was limited.
“Fuck you, Shakespeare!”
Sometimes, a thing just pops out of my mouth. Like a cork. My wife will be like, “You know, that was maybe a little sexist.” And I’ll be like, blink blink blink, whoa, okay, you’re right. I like to think I’m this enlightened guy and then it’s like — oh, yeah, no, I still say ignorant stuff.
I absolutely guarantee that – unless she’s a hambeast – this guy’s wife has taken a more masculine lover at some point, or will soon. Her ovaries will revolt at the idea of going through all that hard work just to waste precious eggs on his weak, milquetoast gametes. Darwin hates male feminists.
Actually, the most recent one for me was transphobia. Like, up until a handful of years ago, I had no idea how transphobic I was. It wasn’t even a thing I recognized.
Say what you like about the Spanish Inquisition, at least you knew where you stood with them. What are we to make of a religious-political movement that invents brand new “phobias” to excoriate you with?
“Oh, so you say you’re not racist, sexist, or transphobic. But you’re still midgetophobic! Hater!”
Even a shortened, simplistic nickname is toxic, cruel, meant to mock you and steal your power.)
Holy shit! It’ll steal your power! Much like primitive tribes believed a camera would steal their souls.
But the generations who came before me are fucked up in a whole unholy host of ways.
Self awareness fail.
Look at it this way: amongst Fortune 500 CEOs, most of them are white guys. So, you either have to admit that there’s a privilege to the power structure or you instead have to opine that white dudes are just better than everyone else, which is fucked up and hyper-privileged and oh, hey, shame on you.
Ok. White men are just better than everyone else it is then.
Makes more sense than a conspiracy theory based on invisible umbrellas and knapsacks of privilege.
Why would I be ashamed of this though? It’s a good thing. White men have given more to the modern world than any other demographic. You’re welcome, people.
And the same goes with the disproportionate incarceration of black men in the US prison system. You either have to admit that there’s a continued privilege to being, well, not a black guy when it comes to the law, or you have to be a shitty person who says, “Well, maybe it’s just because white people aren’t criminals, haw haw haw,” which, y’know, fuck you for saying that.
Reality makes yoy a shitty person, and he rolls his eyes at you.
The freaky thing about privilege though is that it’s blinding.
We just don’t see it.
It’s like an accent we don’t hear (“Me? I don’t have an accent. It’s you that sounds weird”). It’s like failing to recognize our own stink.
Privilege is often invisible to those that possess it.
So, basically, “privilege” is like phlogiston or the deity of your choice?
What a tool.
“Otherize” is a word that appears to have passed me by. However, in the spirit of modernity and our free-thinking-but-word-censored age, I must ask is it permissible to now regard everyone else’s shit as merely an “otherize” in progress?
Asking for a friend.
They used to say a conservative was a liberal who had been mugged. They should also say a credulous fool is a liberal who has been mugged and still holds the same nonsensical opinions.
Mr Friedfeld’s moral contortion is up there with the witterings of social justice warrior Sunny Drake, who says that if you should be mugged in a part of town where lots of black people happen to live, you mustn’t call the police, as this would be proof of your racism, your ignorance and your “white privilege.” In fact, says Sunny, you must actively “take steps to deter” a police presence following your assault, regardless of the consequences for you or the local population, among whom muggers and carjackers must roam unmolested.
It’s much the same level of moral idiocy. And it wasn’t arrived at by accident. It was taught. By people who think themselves enlightened.
The freaky thing about privilege though is that it’s blinding.
We just don’t see it.
It’s like an accent we don’t hear (“Me? I don’t have an accent. It’s you that sounds weird”). It’s like failing to recognize our own stink.
The Stupid works in a similar manner. Especially the academic-induced Stupid. AKA the Dinning-Kruger effect. What’s scarry is that The Stupid is catching on to the Dunning-Kruger effect and is beginning to employ it in the perpetuation of The Stupid. It’s a bit of an ouroboros.
Scary not scarry. Damn auto correct. Bit embarrassing in the context of Stupid.
This young man holds himself accountable for things he is not responsible for, and refuses to hold others accountable for things they are fully responsible for.
I would not trust him with the company accounts.
It obviously didn’t occur to this student that these thugs are going to carry on what they’re doing, and that most of their victims are going to be poorer members of an “oppressed minority”.
Black men aged 15 to 24 in America: 2% of the population, 52% of the violent crime. Self-abuse your way around that statistic, Mr Friedfeld.
This bedwetting little fool (as with all his kind) is blithely unaware that his stance signifies a moral vacuum.
Leaving aside the fact that he is committing the heinous anti-progressive crime of being “judgmental” when he decides that his assailants are members of the underclass (they might really be wealthy middle-class black kids slumming it to take advange of asshats like Friedfeld), what ethical code is obeying?
None, as far as I can see.
What we have, I think, is a complete misunderstanding of the Sermon On The Mount, whereby progressive twerps get to decide who the meek are, then the meek can get started on the inheritin’, preferably at gunpoint.
Heh.
Everyone at Insty’s is saying, “Mug him again!”
2% of the population, 52% of the violent crime. Self-abuse your way around that statistic, Mr Friedfeld.
They have several options on this one:
“That just goes to show how bad institutionalized racism still is in this country.”
“Facts and statistics are just a construct invented by Straight White Cis-Males to oppress Teh Other.”
“RACIST!!!1111!!1”
What, are you new on this planet? There’s no statistic, no fact, no Grand Jury findings that can deviate the Juggernaut that is the Leftist Narrative.
“RACIST!!!1111!!1”
As noted above, there are striking differences in rates (and types) of criminal activity when perpetrators are categorised according to racial groups. The disparity is so great that even if one assumes police bias and differential rates of conviction – despite evidence to the contrary – one still has to wonder why the victims of crime – who are themselves often black and whose descriptions match rates of arrest across a range of crimes – would lie about the appearance of their attacker. Unless we’re to assume that people who’ve been mugged, burgled or carjacked want to make their attacker harder to catch and punish.
“Oliver Friedfeld is a senior in the School of Foreign Service>”
And that, boys and girls, is going to represent us in the foreign capitals of the world.
And that, boys and girls, is going to represent us in the foreign capitals of the world.
WW-III here we come, because the real problem isn’t him, it’s all of his classmates, and the similar graduates from other elite institutions.
‘And that, boys and girls, is going to represent us in the foreign capitals of the world’.
This guy looks like he could get himself mugged in Bhutan.