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Horrible images and harm to a child.

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for lack of a better term.

Today, i have seen ligature marks cut into the warm tan skin of a little mixed-race boy, and I know a plurality of my fellow Americans would say "isolated incident" and/or "he must have deserved it" about the attempted murder which left him with these wounds, including not a few people I have to put up with knowing. And I don't know how I'm ever going to sleep again, but much more importantly, how will his mother ever sleep again?

(I am referring to this incident, read if you feel strong enought.)

I partially feel as if I should signal boost this news on Tumblr, but I would re-trigger myself and invite assholes to come argue with me -- I'm taking enough of a risk posting this publcly, but I feel as if anyone who reads about me should know this, or at least have the opportunity to know it, if they are up for it.

(Please, no pictures in comments.)

Current Mood: sad

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

ilthit

That is beyond awful. I didn't want to read the article through.

From:

bikergeek

I have no counsel here, except to point out that apparently, the police originally tried to claim that the incident was an accident.¹ OMGWTFBBQ. How does that happen, exactly?

¹I would link the Globe article, but (1) paywall and (2) the article has photos with it, albeit not the graphic ones that have achieved wide circulation on social media, so it'd be in violation of MM's "no photos" request.

From:

gingicat

It's worth quoting it:

CLAREMONT, N.H. — Scores of people gathered at a city park here Tuesday evening to show support for the family of an 8-year-old biracial boy who, according to his family, was taunted by a group of teenagers with racial slurs and hung with a rope around his neck.

For more than an hour, people from throughout New England prayed, sang, and talked not just about what happened in a backyard here in late August, but also about how to combat institutional racism in their community.

From:

bikergeek

Yeah, the response in support of the family has been heartening.

From:

acelightning

I know the news item you're referring to, and it makes me want to call down the wrath of the Warrior-Goddess who defends those who can't, or who don't know or believe they can, defend themselves!

And New Hampshire is one of the last places in the world I'd have ever expected something like this to happen. (When I was a child, I spent my summers with assorted relatives in that part of New Hampshire. It was very peaceful...)

From:

vass

I heard about it on Twitter. That poor boy. Thank God he's alive, but he'll be so traumatised. I read someone (the police?) quoted as saying the teenagers responsible shouldn't have to carry something they did in childhood with them their whole lives, and FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU that kid is eight years old and he's going to carry it his whole life, and he's the victim. The perpetrators SHOULD carry it their whole lives, this isn't a parking ticket or cannabis possession, it's attempted murder of a eight year old child as an act of racial hatred. They should be apologising and atoning for the rest of their lives. Their families and peers and schools and police officers should be reacting with more horror and "never again" determination than they would if this was a school shooting, and instead they're brushing it off as "accident" and "one-off incident" and thereby making it all too clear what conditions made the teenagers feel empowered to try to kill a little boy.

From:

gingicat

Well said.

From:

corylea

This! So much this.

From:

weepingnaiad

This.

Especially: They should be apologising and atoning for the rest of their lives.

Their parents and every institution that has ever claimed to teach these little monsters should have to atone for their institutionalized racism. We have got to stand up and acknowledge that this is a serious problem and we will not tolerate the powerful sweeping these things under the rug by minimizing what has happened.

I'm so livid that I honestly have no idea what to do with my anger so that I can channel it usefully.

From:

cellio

Yeah, the poor widdle perps who are old enough to know damn well what they were doing should be protected from the consequences... but their 8-year-old victim is on his own? Fuck that.

From:

rosefox

I'm so sorry.

From:

gingicat

One consolation is that the media isn't letting anyone forget about it.
https://www.google.com/search?q=cassandra+merlin+claremont+nh&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

From:

sabotabby

That's so ghastly. How the fuck can anyone justify the attempted murder of a child? Oh, right, because only white people get to be "children."

I hadn't heard about this. Thank you for spreading the word; it's better to know than not, I think.

From:

amaebi

Yes. Hideous.

"Let all the poisons come out," said Graves's Claudius, say people now, and then, since poisons are poisonous, people die.

From:

ororo

I saw pictures and was utterly horrified. There's no excuse for the incident or the behavior of the police.

From:

chochiyo_sama

I saw this the other day and was sickened. I was even more shocked and horrified when I learned the perpetrators were only 14 years old. Disgusting!

They are future serial killers, probably.

I am definitely in favor of trying to "fix" them, but they also have to be housed somewhere away from other little biracial or nonwhite children too little to defend themselves--somewhere with bars and locks and big, high, thick walls to keep them in.

To hell with their futures, if this is the kind of behavior they are going to demonstrate, they should spend their entire lives in cages.

Thank God the community is rallying around the family of the victimized child!

From:

cereta

I saw that the other day. I should have signal-boosted it, and I have no excuse for not doing so. {{hugs you}} It's beyond appalling.

From:

weepingnaiad

I would say that all of this horror and horrific behavior that we're seeing is just the pus oozing out of the racism boil of our society and we've lanced it and identified it and that means that we can fix it. But I fear it's not that hopeful. I fear that it is just all of these awful people being emboldened and it's going to get far worse before it gets better.

I'm sorry, m'dear.

I am flabbergasted and sickened and I ache, but I know that most people are good people. I just hope we can hold out long enough against the terrible ones.

From:

julian

Yeah. I just... I RT'd it, and then I closed the window and had a bit of an inability to cope.

From:

baranduin

Oh honey, just read up on this.

How can the attempted lynching of a bi-racial child be anything but a hate crime.

*extra hugs*

From:

med_cat

No, I, and I think many of your fellow Americans, would say that those teens are nasty people. And I hope this is a wake-up call to them, else they will grow into even nastier adults.

And of course, I hope the little boy will be all right.

Also, I agree re: not starting a discussion which will attract other nasty people.

From:

claudia603

I'm afraid I am a coward and can't read the article. There are too many of my children at my school that look like this and I would see them in this. But just knowing what happened...holy fuck. What the fuck is wrong with people? *cries*

Edited Date: 2017-09-13 11:25 pm (UTC)