[hnyc]

In my opinion, her upbringing and life have everything to do with this. If it were not for how she was brought up and how she was treated during her life, she may or may not have done what she did. The only reason is not to try to engineer some sympathy, but there are other possible reasons as well.

If her backstory was a backstory full of mental illness, would you respond differently to what had happened?

Now, I'm not trying to say that racism or stereotypes are good, because they aren't. However, people's past are what shape people and can help others understand people's viewpoints.

Even because of her backstory, however, I find that pretty much everybody (except the reporter, who didn't participate too much) overreacted. In general, though, I find that many of Adria's thought processes were flawed, but that's not relevant to this reply (at least, I don't think so).

[celticninja]

but if her background applies then surely so does his, did he struggle in his upbringing? is there anything in his early life that made him into the person he is today? sure there are but we dont get that side because the sympathy that the writer is trying to evoke is with one side. If they made both sides appear human then they cant have an evil doer and a clear cut good guy.

And i agree our past shapes us, shaped both people in this debate, but we only hear her side because that is who the writer wants you to sympathise with. Hank is just a namelss white male with no life before this incident.

[hnyc]

True, however, in defense of the writer perhaps the writer was trying to balance out the story, because throughout most of the story above her backstory was pretty much "it's her fault". To balance it out a bit, in the middle the writer inserted a "hey, maybe she did really have a reason for her reaction" before returning to "nope, not really-ish".

At least, that's how I felt when I read the article.

But you do make a valid point, his background isn't really brought forth, although slightly it is but not much at all. However, I feel that saying something along the lines of "Hank grew up in Sometown, Somestate, Someplace, and had a loving mother and father, etc etc etc..." would feel out of place in such an article... I'm only guessing Hank's backstory and do not claim to actually know it.

tl;dr & in conclusion: Perhaps it's the writer trying to balance things out? :/