It is upsetting that some posters are so happy not that this was revealed not to be more police-served racism, but that they were right about not believing her. Like positively cooing with delight that they were right and others were wrong. Score one for devil's advocacy then
You're absolutely right, there's no reason to feel excitedly justified when your position ended up being correct in retrospect. Which is why you'd never show such "restrained jubilation," as lexi put it, over being right about someone's character. Or maybe...
I wish the guys who defended him throughout the entire Trayvon ordeal would come into these threads. Usual suspects no place to be seen once again.
They've got plenty of other internet caves where there stupidity will go unchallenged, and possibly even praised
...maybe you would do the same thing, and even take it further by not only gloating that those who disagreed with you were wrong, but also painting the whole opposition with a broad brush, and calling them stupid.
Now, for real, I agree with you that people should be restrained in their celebration of being "right," (even though few things are so binary).
But at the heart of this "restrained jubilation" is the fact that many of us are NOT stupid cave-dwellers, many of us have sided with minorities on many occasions, but many of us have been painted as racists, or in my case, "suspect," just because we've been calling for reasonable restraint in snap judgments.
You know why it's always the "usual suspects" that are calling for reserved judgment and measured discourse? It's not because we're advocates of oppression;
it's because we're advocates of reserved judgment and measured discourse. Threads about sexism and racism tend to be the topics most welcoming to snap judgments, and so the "usual suspects" trying to reign things back get painted as misogynist racists.
So of
course some people are getting some feeling of retribution, the people who have been so frustrated that promoting measured responses and restraint is always labeled as racist or sexist. For once, they can say, "This is the kind of danger I was talking about with snap judgments, that innocent people get hurt with this kind of shotgun justice," and finally, there's a thread for them to say it without them getting branded as racists, and quite possibly banned.
Before this thread (and probably still after this thread), it's mostly true that reasoned, measured posts--while often dogpiled--were not banned regardless of which "side" they came from. But
emotional responses were only tolerated from one side: the majority side. If you don't agree with the majority, you have to be
extremely careful in how you express it. If you get at all emotional with a minority opinion, you're gone.
Now, that wouldn't be so bad if the majority also couldn't get emotional and launch attacks either. But if you're being as reasonable and well-mannered as you can expressing your minority opinion, and then you get a bunch of dog-piling posters attacking your character, it's very, very difficult to reign in your emotion. When people are throwing unrestrained punches at your character, completely unchecked by moderators, it's difficult not to throw a few back. And so the minority opinion gets banned and purged at a far higher rate than the majority opinion, thus reinforcing the majority's status quo.
TL;DR: Snarky and emotional comments are completely allowed and go unpunished if it's expressing the majority opinion, but if it's expressing a minority opinion--or even just telling the majority opinion to hold back a bit--a snarky or emotional comment will get a ban. So yes, I can completely understand why people who have been frustrated with this complete domination of the conversation would feel a sense of vindication at this thread, since finally, the sense of their posts calling for measured and restrained responses is thrust into the light, and the injustice of those calling them racist or sexist is exposed clear as day.
