[supernova87a]

You read these headline grabbing stories, also like the one about the couple stranded in Tahiti during this virus, or the original actual guy behind "The Terminal" movie -- and you usually find out that the story is almost always one of bad judgement combined with somewhat unusual circumstances that they aren't trying to avoid like a normal person would.

Sometimes the news tries to make it seem like they were unwitting victims who slipped through the cracks and are lost in the system. But no, they're actively acting pretty dumb too. Not much life lesson to be learned from these cases, just spectator sport.

This guy is wanted for assault, was in Vietnam, hmm? He'd be lucky if anyone wanted to make a movie out of it.

[DoreenMichele]

Once you get behind the eight ball for some reason, it can be impossible to get out. I don't know how to get out from behind the eight ball in my own life and I think I'm well educated, talented, virtuous and blah blah blah. It's never enough and I'm not some kind of criminal or something.

You don't know the story. Maybe it was self defense. We don't have all the details.

It would be nice if, during a global pandemic, we could not sit around being all judgy going "People fucked over as a consequence of this here global pandemic were just being idiots!"

[dtwest]

You completely misquoted the parent.

This man is accused of several cases of assault, he may have seriously hurt somebody and they want to take it to court. I also do not see how your US race and gender comments below are relevant to this thread about a German man.

It would be terrible to be wrongly accused of assault. But it doesn't seem like something people should just ignore and give people the benefit of the doubt on.

[techsupporter]

> It would be nice if, during a global pandemic, we could not sit around being all judgy going "People fucked over as a consequence of this here global pandemic were just being idiots!"

Wholeheartedly agree. Humans of all stripes seem to have this need to place blame on others' failings on the person being "at fault" yet somehow their own mishaps are "bad luck." It's like the comment threads underneath lapses in security or getting phished. "Oh well, IIiiiiii wouldn't have fallen for that," until they inevitably do.

If humans were always perfectly capable of never screwing up, the entire liability insurance market would cease to exist.

[DoreenMichele]

If humans were always perfectly capable of never screwing up, the entire liability insurance market would cease to exist.

Oh, it gets so much worse than that. If you are the "wrong kind of person" for some reason, misfortune comes at a much higher cost than for other people. In the US, white people generally suffer lighter consequences than people of color for the same mistakes. Men are generally judged less harshly than women for various things. Etc.

So it's more like saying "You fool! You shouldn't have done X! And, also, if you had any sense, you would have been born a different color/different gender/richer...etc"

[TheAdamAndChe]

> "You fool! ...you [should] have been born a different color/different gender/richer...etc

Do you actually know someone in person who has said this in response to someone else's misfortune? Or are you just using the image of some random person saying this to fuel an anti-white man sentiment?

[DoreenMichele]

What I'm saying is that in many cases, telling someone you just should have done it differently boils down to dismissing the very real impact their race/gender/sexual orientation/whatever has on their life.

This is why we have terms like "Mansplaining" or "Whitesplaining." That doesn't mean a man or a white person simply acting like you are stupid and need it explained like you are five and then everything will work. It means that in the context of someone who is completely oblivious to the reality that when women do things exactly like men, they get different results socially and when people of color do things exactly like whites, they also get different results.

When two black men were arrested in Starbucks in Philadelphia for sitting there without ordering and asking to be let into the bathroom because they were waiting for someone they were meeting, one of the reasons it was controversial is because of the white patrons who protested it on the basis of "I've sat in here before without ordering and used the bathroom and no one ever called the cops on me."

I have zero interest in fueling anti-white man sentiment. That's absolutely not my agenda. But racism, sexism, etc are very much alive and well. Pretending they aren't is being part of the problem, not part of the solution.

[TheAdamAndChe]

> telling someone you just should have done it differently boils down to dismissing the very real impact their race/gender/sexual orientation/whatever has on their life.

Race and gender may still play a role, but acting like it is the determining factor in one's life is too much. People have agency over their lives, and can make choices to make their situations better. The fact that someone is white or male does not negate this. I live in rural Missouri, and there are plenty of white people who make bad decisions and hurt their prospects in the process.

Also, "whitesplaining" and "mansplaining" are really incredibly racist and sexist. You should really consider using other terms.

[techsupporter]

Truer words never written. It’s amazing to me how many ways we can dress up “oh, you’re poor? Well, uh, have you tried...not...being poor?”

[DoreenMichele]

"Why, no. That hadn't occurred to me! But if you will give me some money, I will be happy to test drive it and see how I like it!"

;)

[gowld]

And sometimes you get MS St. Louis

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis

[stareatgoats]

You're probably right. "The Terminal" is still a wonderful feel-good movie though. "Medicine for goat" :-D