• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Vandals spraypaint "Nigger" on gate of Lebron James' LA home

T

theignoramus

Member
mike6467 said:
Comments make me sick. Every time I say never again and every time I eventually get some faith in humanity back and then boom. Never again.
Click to expand...

Honestly, i didnt even read the comments there, Im not looking to be more annoyed than I already am about the incident. I thought Lebron's words were cutting and honest.
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
This is why I give our society zero benefit of the doubt when it comes to how black celebrities (specially athletes) are treated. People want to handwave race away all too often when it comes to a lot of high profile black athletes and how the public and media perceives them (Cam Newton, Serena, LeBron, John Wall, Colin Kaepernick, Richard Sherman, hell even Lavar Ball, everyone else who has ever been cited as having "character issues" or being a "thug") and its naive bullshit.
 
EviLore

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Izuna said:
Are some of those responses really bad sarcasm or are they serious?

In what way could this be a "hoax"? What would make it hoax?
Click to expand...

Twitter is probably the single most damning thing about the internet at this point. It's all bots and coordinated disingenuous campaigns to control the narrative of any notable story. What you're describing is a standard "false flag" campaign to discredit the victim of a crime by suggesting they did it to themselves for attention. Unfortunately, crying "hoax" loud enough is going to have traction no matter how little it makes sense here.

Hoaxes absolutely do happen, and we're especially prone to it in today's climate where social media and news will pick up on a story and repost it instantly without any fact checking or due diligence. Readers eat up any story that reinforces their own worldview and fact or fiction doesn't end up mattering much; by the time a hoax or a piece of fake news is investigated and discredited, the internet's attention has long since moved on to something else and few care or notice.

For actual hoaxes passed off as hate crimes, see stuff like that dumbass white girl who carved a "B" into her own face claiming that those roving packs of negroes in hoodies Everyone Hears About came out of the woodwork and held her down to brand her with a B for Barack Hussein Obama, signaled by the impending doom approaching Real America if scary-named black man should somehow become POTUS. Instant headlines with her teary-eyed sad puppy facial expression. Except the "B" on her face was, peculiarly, written in reverse. Because she did it to herself while looking in a mirror and made up the story. Whoops. Sweet tat on your cheek though.

Several prominent hate crime incident reports that went viral in the days following the Comrade Donald victory ended up being hoaxes, as well, like iirc that guy in the photo completely covered in blood after an alleged attack by Trumpets. That photo got worldwide social media attention for reaffirming the negative implications of a Trump victory and being very striking and succinct visually, but turned out he had a background in practical effects film work or something and decided to be a shitlord and undermine the credibility of actual hate crimes that were being perpetrated around the United States at the time (iirc the SPLC cited something like 1000+ hate crimes reported to the police in the week following election day? those were some fucked up times, with swastikas showing up, and heated confrontations against heavily armed white supremacists going down in earshot of my home...). Anyway, the followup story that revealed that guy's viral photo to be a hoax passed by largely unnoticed and essentially had no effect on the original impact of the image.

Healthy skepticism, checking sources, and verifying stories rather than running over each other to be the first person to repost something that reinforces your worldview is more critical than ever right now, especially when the source is coming from an unconfirmed social media post.


With all that context in mind, obviously there is zero indication whatsoever that this incident could be a hoax. Lebron doesn't need social media attention, isn't going to be awarded a pity championship, would be risking his credibility, career, and legacy if he faked a hate crime on himself and his family as well as it just plain being really fucked up on a number of levels considering the emotional damage involved to his family, and he's fully cooperating with police and they'll probably have cctv footage of the perp to bring them to justice. Beyond all that, watching his press conference it's obvious he's not in great spirits about having to deal with this shit; the last thing someone wants on the eve of an ultra high stakes sporting event is a steaming dump of racially motivated vandalism at their doorstep. This kind of hate crime is designed to send a message to the victims. As Lebron mentioned in the press statement, no matter how successful and famous and accomplished an African-American is in the United States, to some people he's always still just a "nigger" and there's always gonna be someone out there eager to remind him of it.
 
D

devilhawk

Member
EviLore said:
Twitter is probably the single most damning thing about the internet at this point. It's all bots and coordinated disingenuous campaigns to control the narrative of any notable story. What you're describing is a standard "false flag" campaign to discredit the victim of a crime by suggesting they did it to themselves for attention. Unfortunately, crying "hoax" loud enough is going to have traction no matter how little it makes sense here.

Hoaxes absolutely do happen, and we're especially prone to it in today's climate where social media and news will pick up on a story and repost it instantly without any fact checking or due diligence. Readers eat up any story that reinforces their own worldview and fact or fiction doesn't end up mattering much; by the time a hoax or a piece of fake news is investigated and discredited, the internet's attention has long since moved on to something else and few care or notice.
Click to expand...
Well said. Think of how the initial tweet gets 100,000 retweets yet the retraction or correction from the very same account gets 80. It is just the modern times version of the page A1 newspaper headline and page A27 correction.
 
I

Izuna

Banned
EviLore said:
Twitter is probably the single most damning thing about the internet at this point. It's all bots and coordinated disingenuous campaigns to control the narrative of any notable story. What you're describing is a standard "false flag" campaign to discredit the victim of a crime by suggesting they did it to themselves for attention. Unfortunately, crying "hoax" loud enough is going to have traction no matter how little it makes sense here.

...
Click to expand...

I always wondered how obviously false conspiracy theories and stories spread like wildfire. The thought that bots can make it seem that there are people "believing" something is a powerful and potentially dangerous thing since people have a natural tendency to follow the crowd. Especially so considering the motivations some people have you mention about.

In a way, every Facebook post, tweet or blog is as useful as a headline seen in a paper for those who don't question everything they read. All that's required to believe it is whether or not it's part of their agenda. But even then, I can't even imagine a single "Hoax" scenario. You mentioned the possibility of Lebron doing it for attention but someone would have to be very far removed from the effect of the word to consider he'd want that word associated with his family and home.

I just hope that, outside of trolling, there's a universal sarcasm detector that people have. As in, something is so ridiculous that unless there was some sort of authority attached to the opinion, they couldn't seriously think that way.

Because if anyone believes that this event is a "Hoax", that's not even ignorance. It's not a lack of understanding... it's a world view far removed from reality that there really is no hope for some people.

In that case, perhaps news agencies would spread truth faster by giving free lessons on fact checking and critical thinking.
 
F

Forceatowulf

G***n S**n*bi
ain't life a bitch?

LeBron James is a family-friendly famous rich guy who hasn't done anything illegal in his life. Still can't escape the fuckery that is racism.

It really doesn't matter what we do, or how we act, or what we accomplish; we are still going to be perceived as less than in the eyes of many.

ain't life a bitch
 
N

Ninja Scooter

Member
DietRob said:
People might disagree on Lebron being a better basketball player than Jordan.

Nobody can deny Lebron is a better human being. From this response, to his work in the communities he's a part of, to his impeccable family life. What a great dude. Respect.
Click to expand...

Racists buy sneakers too
 
F

Forceatowulf

G***n S**n*bi
Lovely Salsa said:
I thought LA was racist free :/
Click to expand...
nah, bruh... there is no "racism free" anything. Anywhere. Ever.

Best you can hope for is a place where racism has less of a profound impact than somewhere else. My home town may seem a lot better at it than most, and maybe it is, but it's not not even close to being acceptable.
 
B

Bam Bam Baklava

Member
Obviously not a fan of Lebron as a player but nothing infuriates me more than bigotry and ignorance. This is one area Lebron is miles ahead of Jordan, who basically ignored the issue his entire career.
 
A

AntraxSuicide

Banned
Izuna said:
I always wondered how obviously false conspiracy theories and stories spread like wildfire. The thought that bots can make it seem that there are people "believing" something is a powerful and potentially dangerous thing since people have a natural tendency to follow the crowd. Especially so considering the motivations some people have you mention about.

In a way, every Facebook post, tweet or blog is as useful as a headline seen in a paper for those who don't question everything they read. All that's required to believe it is whether or not it's part of their agenda. But even then, I can't even imagine a single "Hoax" scenario. You mentioned the possibility of Lebron doing it for attention but someone would have to be very far removed from the effect of the word to consider he'd want that word associated with his family and home.

I just hope that, outside of trolling, there's a universal sarcasm detector that people have. As in, something is so ridiculous that unless there was some sort of authority attached to the opinion, they couldn't seriously think that way.

Because if anyone believes that this event is a "Hoax", that's not even ignorance. It's not a lack of understanding... it's a world view far removed from reality that there really is no hope for some people.

In that case, perhaps news agencies would spread truth faster by giving free lessons on fact checking and critical thinking.
Click to expand...

It spreads because of how search engines and trending algorithms work. Those algorithms have been too basic and are being exploited, and Twitter can be one of the worst about it.

For example, the day before the French Presidential election (the runoff, Macron against Le Pen), places online tried to get a story trending that Macron had secret off-shore accounts that he was using to steal or embezzle money (or something). On that day, multiple subreddits that I frequent and Twitter accounts all had posts that were something along the lines of:
I can't believe French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has secret bank accounts. Isn't it amazing that French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has secret bank accounts. It's crazy that French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has secret bank accounts. I wonder if anyone knew French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has secret bank accounts. It's a big deal that French Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron has secret bank accounts.
Click to expand...

And so on and so on. All deleted relatively quickly on Reddit on smaller subreddits (I only follow the non-cesspits there), but on Twitter, that shit was everywhere with no response. The goal was to get that phrase to trend on Google so that older people without the awareness to spot a bot would think that it was a real story without actually looking into it.

You can do this kind of thing pretty easily if you just check website traffic info for various shitholes like 4chan and post a call to arms at peak traffic with the right dressings (you know, appropriate memes, insider slang, sometimes just porn). If you get a bite, so to speak, then you get a few hundred or thousand assholes driving traffic somewhere potentially snowballing into a good old-fashioned non-story. It happened a ton during the 2016 US Presidential election (France has laws on the books that the media can't really talk about an election so close to it, so they didn't see any negative blowback from the spam).
 
T

TheGreatMightyPoo

Banned
Lovely Salsa said:
I thought LA was racist free :/
Click to expand...
30sy9hv.gif

Come on, man...
 
F

FZZ

Banned
He endorsed Hillary and the whole state he won a championship for let him down

I know this happened in LA, but the fucking climate and how many huge fucking steps we took back in regards to race relations in this country is disgusting. Makes it worse because of how small the steps made forward were.
 
Jag

Jag

Member
Lebron continues to be a class act. He took the hatred and showed that he was the better man. Huge respect for him.
 
P

Pizza

Member
HazySaiyan said:
Are we ever gonna fucking get past this?
Click to expand...

For fucking real.

GOD FORBID another human doesn't look precisely like you or people who look relatively similar to you

Maybe *gasp* they also don't have the same backstory, experiences, or way of living
 
Ozzy Onya A2Z

Ozzy Onya A2Z

Member
Is it wrong I want to joke that Jordan is behind this? /stupid joke

Shit is racist crap and not on at all, hope they catch em from security cams.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

An Introduction To Japanese Adventure Games pt.1 - What They Are and The Different Types
Analysis
47
11K
SlimeGooGoo replied
Age of Empires IV - Reviews Are Out
2 3 4
190
19K
Tams replied
L.A. Confidential was released 20 years this week
2
54
6K
kyser73 replied
  • Locked
Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992 |OT| - 25th Anniversary of LA Riots (9PM ET ABC)
28
4K
Realyst replied
  • Locked
California: Mosques vandalized; spray painted with "Jesus is the Way"
2 3
114
14K
Ricky Ricardo replied
Top Bottom