The included news article on another subway death in New York City is not the subject of this editorial. As heinous as pushing someone into the path of a moving train is, the use of a train car is not the hallmark of a new wave of violence. Spaghetti westerns and Road Runner cartoons featured train-tracks as an ideal way to dispose of people. Before television terrified us with the facts, murder was still a featured specter, a horrific act too aberrant to escape notice and too common to ignore. Crime and Punishment was first published in 1866 in tantalizing monthly installments; the main character, Raskolnikov, murders a woman as a sort of experiment of will, arguing that those with the unusual capacity to murder have an inborn right to do so. In history, prominent baron and companion-in-arms to Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais, was convicted and executed in 1440 for the murder of forty to over one-hundred children. Before the Common Era, religion, history, and myths globally portrayed murder and mayhem as seminal problems within the hearts of men and nations. The more striking horror in the CNN article, entitled “Police: Mumbling woman pushes man to his death in front of subway train”, is the unabashed prejudicial comments from readers and what this may say about how commonplace it is to co-opt tragedy for specific gain.
The Article
Police: Mumbling woman pushes man to his death in front of subway train
By CNN Staff
updated 5:12 AM EST, Fri December 28, 2012
New York (CNN) — For the second time in a month, a man has been shoved to his death in front of a train on a New York City subway platform, police said.
Police are searching for a woman seen running from an elevated station for the No. 7 train in Queens on Thursday evening, Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said in a statement.
According to witnesses, the woman was pacing the platform and talking to herself shortly before pushing the man onto the tracks as the 11-car train entered the station.
The man’s body was pinned under the second car after it came to a stop. Police have not announced his identity.
Police describe her as a heavy set woman in her 20s, wearing a ski jacket and sneakers. Security video shows her running from the scene, shortly after 8 p.m.
In early December, Ki-Suck Han, 58, was shoved onto the tracks in a Times Square station as a train approached.
Naeem Davis, 30, a homeless man, has been charged with second-degree murder in the case.
In the online comments that follow the article, readers spare no time in exploiting the tragedy. The story is dissected and details torn off as fodder for separate arguments about current events and individual beliefs. Gun advocates in the responses seem almost delighted that the weapon du jour is a train, making light of a man’s death whose body was still under the second car during the postings I read. Recent national tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, has ignited gun law debates. Glomming onto the “mumbling” of the murderess, some readers use this detail to prematurely psychoanalyze the perpetrator in the subway killing. Leaping to defend gun rights, this is transferred over to say that because the New York murderess mumbled, she was insane. Thus, it was insanity that killed the man in the subway. Correlating the events, the man in Newton was alleged to have a mental disability and signs of antisocial dysfunction. Glib remarks seemed happy to see this irrelevant coincidence as proof that guns don’t kill people; “crazies” kill people. The only connection between the killers is the senselessness of the killing. The weaponry is irrelevant—made purposefully so in tying these victims together as a flag for gun rights. Manipulating a shocked public is an insidious form of ideological fraud. Using tragedies to incur support for an agenda is simply a less quantifiable form of profit.
How does one senseless act of violence relate to another so obviously different? If anything can be said to connect the deaths, it is the disturbing reaction by the public. The convictions advocated in these responses are so strong they stand outside of logic.
Now, while I am not blankly against guns, I am seriously opposed to stupidity and conflation; the innumerable fallacies in these arguments should be evident. Frighteningly, it is not evident to a number of Americans. In the responses, gun enthusiasts parallel the subway car that hit the victim to a gun. Must we really write out the categorical differences between a subway and a gun in their form, function, and public uses? For one, the action of pushing the man into the tracks killed him, which they exploit in blaming “crazy” rather than guns; had the victim been electrocuted by the third rail or died from the fall, it would still be murder. And do these clever gun-enthusiasts really believe that the banning of all things that have a lethal capacity is tantamount to banning guns? Why not ban cars, sugar, alcohol, peanuts, and bee stings? Why not protect guns and euthanize mumblers, autistic people, and unpopular kids?
Most upsetting to me are the RACIST comments and the indictment that “LIBERAL” MEDIA hides ethnic crime in some sort of unexplained conspiracy against, I assume, “White” America. I have heard other places that “White America” is under attack, but I expect those claims to remain muffled in common company. Neo-Nazis and the Great White Hope of the Religious Right can keep their false histories and racist jokes to their inbred company. But this is CNN. There is little shame from the other commenters. There is little self-awareness in the righteousness. They may have a right to hate, but they have a rightful response to be rebuked publicly I have to wonder why this rhetoric of violence and its many believers, which can stare into tragedy and see opportunity without an iota of compassion, is less noxious than a single murderer. The fact that there is one horrible young woman out there willing to shadow and kill a man is unsettling, but I am more afraid of a plague that hides in mosquito bites or water tables than a single case of some rare exotic bacteria. The fact that the vast majority of CNN readers who chose to respond in such a way—and in so doing find validation in each other—is more terrifying since they are likely fairly ordinary members of the population.
The following are the comments that followed the article; my comments are bracketed:
COMMENTS from the CNN Peanut Gallery [Warning: peanuts may cause severe allergic reactions or death]
OCEANA: •People need to come together in this country and realize after these sensless murders that subways need to be outlawed! They are simply too dangerous in the wrong hands. I bet the untreated crazy person that did this was high on a 32 oz sugary beverage.
JOHN: I think it is really inappropriate that you would turn people’s search for answers about the cold-blooded murder of 20 children and 6 teachers a week before Christmas into some kind of joke.
TEXAS 666 [Actually, I have to leave his handle since it says so much]: Second time in a month? We should ban subways now because they are killers…
PATTON [Like the general]:
Now for the 64 thousand dollar question…
What color was the mumbling woman?
Since the article didn’t say – its pretty obvious.
WELL-DRESSED AFRICAN AMERICAN GUY: What difference does that make? [He quickly seems to have seen the senselessness of participating in the conversation since he stops after this.]
BB: Link this incident with last months, and with the shooters : when all “justice” and “fairness” does is protect and extol the criminals and psychos, this is what you get.
DIZZY [Who clearly did not read earlier comments, but I think he and Oceana might be soul mates, which is terrifying]: Second time in a month a subway has been used to kill someone. Ban subways.
See how incredibly idiotic it sounds antigunners? No, you probably won’t.
TINMAN [The wooden leg in the love triad developing between Oceana and Dizzy. This scholar apparently did not realize that the reference to the tin man is from the Wizard of Oz playing the character who desperately wants a heart from the Wizard]: Dang time to ban subway rides, or at least a 3 day waiting period before you can go onto the platform at any subway station…………………….
CALI [A lone, drowned, voice of reason]: The race of the woman is irrelevant. The real issue is why so many people are senselessly killing others on both a large and small scale.
STEVE [Responding to Cali, but apparently not realizing that the suspect’s race is only relevant to those trying to apprehend her or potential witnesses]: When you have a suspect description in a murder investigation. Race of the suspect becomes very relevant very fast.
BUFFMUFFIN [I cannot bear to change this handle, but please note that the photo is an AK on a bright pink piece of fabric. It is practically Hello, Kitty! However, this fluffy biscuit may not realize how close her handle is to Butt Muffin, which seems fairly apropos.]: Did you know what America is at a 40 year low in violent crimes committed?
I’ll bet you didn’t!
http://news.discovery DOT com/human/violent-crime-statistics-120612.html
Summer of the shark people, summer of the shark… [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_the_Shark]
PHOTO OF GUY WITH ASIAN WOMAN, BOTH WEARING FATIGUE-GREEN AT AN OAK KITCHEN TABLE: “Police describe her as a heavy set woman in her 20s, wearing a ski jacket and sneakers.”
This is the liberal media way of saying that she’s black.
RED [Responds, bless him, to PHOTO OF GUY WITH ASIAN WOMAN, BOTH WEARING FATIGUE-GREEN AT AN OAK KITCHEN TABLE]: She doesn’t look very black in the video. But you know, who am I to quote actual evidence?
BUFFMUFFIN: We really need to enact subway control, this is just getting out of hand.
We need to have a reasonable discussion about the need for these high capacity trains… Too many civilians are being killed because these high capacity trains simply allow the train to roll for too long before stopping.
If we limited the capacity of these trains to 10 or less, they would be less dangerous and able to stop in time when people were pushed in front of them by criminals…
(ahem)
JOHN: NYC Subway Safety Tip 1: Wait by the wall until the nutters are on the train.
SANESOUND: To protect commuters, Parisien metro had installed… barriers protecting people falling off. The barrier doors would open only once the train doors open. Unfortunately, many people in need of help are becoming dangerous.
The short CNN article about the subway murder was an abbreviated eulogy to an unknown man’s death. It was a couple small paragraphs by an unnamed writer. The bulk of the webpage is in the comments that transform a news report into a feed-shop for marauding ideologues. In the past, displacing those who are legitimately victims of tragedy, has been the domain of fundamentalist extremists. The news shows these fanatic groups as they wave flags that say things like “God hates fags” at the gravesides of fallen soldiers and transvestites killed in hate crimes. Watching, most of us hope that each individual is not be capable of waving offensive signs without their group chants and fellow fundies. It is difficult to be mean alone.
In the internet age, ignorance has a new, safer distance from rebuke or public shaming. Hate can paste itself under the banner of CNN or any media outlet. Public statements are brazenly made by private individuals with anonymous handles. What these commenters reveal to be most dangerous is the use of partisan politics, special interest groups, and sociocultural differences to justify vitriolic and extremist rhetoric that distracts the American public away from coming together to create real solutions. If we want a stronger, safer society then we have to work towards cooperation and unify against violence. No one should grieve alone. No one is capable of watching their back in isolation. We need to understand that together we are jointly responsible for the tragedies that grow on our soil. There is a systemic problem and the answer is not to arm ourselves against each other, animalistically baring teeth and claws brutishly. The answer that will help us make a civil society is coming together civilly, armed with the tools to rebuild stronger. If violence depends on dehumanization and selfishness, its antidotes are compassion and charity.
Pneumatic Devotion 