You need to watch this before reading:
- A lot of people have tried to use the idea drunkenness as a way to try and defend this man, which I, personally, will never understand. Alcohol does not make you a racist and will never excuse publicly assaulting someone. It will never excuse the fact that this man, in his most unfiltered state, comfortably used one of the most derogatory terms in American history to refer to another human being, who was still referring to him as “sir” until he assaulted them.
- Why are we so comfortable stopping the defender, rather than attacker? People were moving away from this Asian man (see 0:11) rather than standing with him or taking any sort of action to help him. Yet, when the man started to stand up and confronted his attacker, people were very quick to interfere. I understand the whole “don’t sink to their level thing”, but shouldn’t we also consider what kind of message we are sending to people that are trying to stand up for themselves? That man can berate you and hit you, but because you are bigger/younger/whatever, you cannot do anything about it? That’s eerily similar to how we would rather criticize violent protesters, because they are not moral paragons, than talk about the conditions or subjects that had led to those violent outbursts.
- Bless that black woman for stepping in even after hearing the n-word.
I completely agree, the fact that he remained calm for so long is surprising to be honest. I think that overall people need to know the point where you should step in to help someone when they are being attacked like this. It's obvious in the video that people were more uncomfortable with the altercation than angered by what the attacker was doing. At a certain point it is self defense when fighting back, the fact that no one would stand up for this man further plays into the idea that he would have been defending himself. I don't believe that people stepped in to "save" the attacker, but rather to stop the victim from allowing himself to be provoked and give the man's words power.
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