This wasn’t a “stand your ground” state so those laws don’t apply here. But the concept of “standing your ground” is choosing not to flee.
I get that you don’t like that he stopped his truck and thereby put himself into harm’s way. But Magnuson did two things to Warren. 1) Verbally attacked Warren with racist insults; 2) Physically attacked Warren with a fist. One thing came after the other.
At the time when Warren stopped the truck, Magnuson had already done (1), and Warren was not exposing himself to further harm from (1) by getting out of the truck. Words sting just as much in a truck as they do on the street. Yes, Warren could have easily retreated from those words by driving on. Again, “stand your ground” means choose not to retreat.
But I feel like you are insinuating that Warren should have guessed that Magnuson might take a swing. Like somehow Warren was the one who escalated the encounter to physical violence. Warren isn’t responsible for that.
Racists don’t get to claim the street. Loud racists don’t get to shift the blame to their targets, saying, “If only they hadn’t come within ten feet of me I wouldn’t have punched them. They should have known not to, I was shouting racist things at them!”
Different people are different, and some people would have decided to drive on. But deciding to drive on has it’s own toll. It’s exhausting to suffer racist insults every day and decide to do nothing about them. Stopping to tell someone that it’s unacceptable to say those things to you doesn’t put you on the hook for their violent reaction.
The dead man initiated the entire altercation needlessly, and it really seems like you’re going through rigorous mental gymnastics in order to passively vilify the Fedex driver for defending himself from physical assault… despite your repeated claims of being “happy” that the driver was not charged or shot on sight.
To me this circles back to a point you made in this thread and elsewhere that many of the people who hold free speech as an important value to them ignore how often they don’t value all speech as free or really equal. A bigot’s provocations are just as equal as the verbal responses to them, but not only do the bigot have more power and financing to broadcast their speech with the popular expectation is that angry speech get met with passive responses instead of speech in kind.
Given the history of racism in America and how black people have been abused and murdered for doing little more than existing, and how white Americans CONTINUE to call the cops on black people FOR NO REASON, he couldn’t have known that.
Dunno, I don’t yell at people nor do I stop my vehicle when yelled at. I was in a long (209 mile) relay race through the mountains of NC late summer/early fall and while the race director did what they could to minimize the impact on the local community there was still impact. I had a very angry man yelling at me and wanting to fight because, I don’t really know why, because I was from out of town and he perceived the way I was navigating his road was not to his liking - I kept on driving and let him yell his nasty insults at me - I know it is a different experience (both the guy yelling and I are white) for this guy but I guess I just don’t know the point of your question. By not yelling back and moseying on down the road with a smile neither me nor the angry man yelling at me ended up in jail, the hospital, or the morgue. If I got out, it is likely one or both of us would be at one or more of those places that night. The race was fun, the Blue Ridge Relay - if you like that kind of thing I suggest checking it out.
No mental gymnastics. If he had kept driving there would have been no fight, right? Just a racist asshole yelling at a passing vehicle. Am I missing something or just not fully on the correct side?
Dude… BECAUSE HE’S A MAN OF COLOR IN AMERICA… I’m guessing he knows that it’s dangerous to be black in American better than me.
Why do black people have to be better people than white attackers? There is literally no reason for them to be judged more harshly than whites. None. Yet you’re continuing to do it here. This driver is a human being. He was in the midst of his work day, and he had a human reaction. Stop trying to pretend that he should rise above to some saint like standard to not be criticized.
Magnuson is (was) an asshole - agreed. I see some of your points but have my own opinions.
I am more of the avoid confrontation unless it cannot be avoided type (these days). I think we can all agree that Warren will suffer in some way and that he is lucky that he was not charged. I think and will say again that a case could be made that he became a participant when he stopped.
Yeah, instead of a participant he would have been a passive receiver of racism. I would have driven on. But maybe after years of putting up with that shit one day I wouldn’t.
Warren might have been the one who ended up dead. You can call putting yourself on the line to confront racism imprudent or you can call it brave. Another day a violent racist like Magnuson might have attacked someone who didn’t have the choice to drive on. I’m not happy he’s dead, but I’m happy that when he decided to attack a black man for being black it was someone who was willing to punch back.
Fair enough. I smell what your cooking. It kind of sucks that some folks on here just treat me like I’m crazy or defending the dead racist. I was once a nazi puncher too - there were times when I did stop - did confront and fight the nazi skinheads I’m RVA in the 90s. Maybe I just took exception to the reference that standing one’s ground without a gun was worth noting. Whatever. Anybody else who wants to trash me can have the last word. I’m done. Thanks Humabella for this last explanation
Do you have a source on Mr. Magnuson’s mental illness? If not, you should know that there’s rules here about making assumptions about anybody’s mental health. In addition, racism isn’t indicative of mental illness, just of assholery.
I made the same point upthread, but I think I’d be a bit more charitable here and interpret “lunatic” as “person who acts in an unhinged way” rather than “person with a mental health issue”. As the latter it would be a super offensive term. Sort of like how “idiot” was once a clinical term for people with developmental disabilities and now it just means “person who does very ill-advised things”.
Yeah, I was thinking along those lines - a person who does unhinged things. I’m really not a bad guy y’all. Jeez. Yelling racist stuff and throwing things at a driver seems unhinged to me. Again, thanks Humbabella.
