What if Sam Dubose had been a beloved lion? What if the world reacted to Sam Dubose being killed by police officer Ray Tensing the way it reacted to Cecil the Lion being killed by Walter Palmer?
One way to tell is to change up the Wikipedia article for Cecil:
Reactions
Dubose’s death created an outrage among civil rights activists, prompted responses from politicians and many other people. A number of celebrities publicly condemned Dubose’s killing. Tensing received a flood of hate messages.
The death of Dubose sparked a discussion among civil rights organisations about a proposal for bills on police brutality as well as discussions about use of lethal force by police. Global media and social media reaction has resulted in close to 900,000 people signing online petition “Justice for Dubose”, which calls on the U.S. government to stop police brutality.
The National Rifle Association responded by suspending Ray Tensing’s membership, stating that “those who intentionally take human life illegally should be prosecuted and punished to the maximum extent allowed by law.” Late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel helped raise $150,000 in donations in less than 24 hours to Black United Front, which has been fighting police brutality in Cincinnati. People for the Ethical Treatment of African Americans issued a statement that Tensing should, preferably, be hanged.
Government officials
Some high-level government officials publicly condemned the killing of Dubose. David Cameron, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom told reporters that the United Kingdom plays “a leading role in preventing police brutality,” when he was asked about Dubose’s death. His Americas Minister, Grant Shapps, described the incident as “barbaric”.
U.S. Congresswoman Betty McCollum, co-chair of the United States Congressional Civil Rights Caucus, called for an investigation of Tensing and the killing.
On 30 July 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a non-binding resolution to strengthen the efforts to address police brutality. Germany and Costa Rica were the sponsors of the resolution. Harald Braun, Germany’s U.N. Ambassador, linked the resolution to the killing and said: “Like most people in the world we are outraged at what happened to this poor man.” Costa Rica’s Foreign Minister Emmanuel Gondet said of Dubose’s killing as “a matter of deep concern for all countries in the Americas”.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Ray Tensing had no trouble raising the $100,000 bail he needed to get out of jail.
As far as I know, no one blamed Cecil for his own death. No one talked about lion-on-lion killings. No true animal lover tried to downplay the whole thing with #AllAnimalLivesMatter.
Why the difference?
- Human life, unlike that of lions, is assumed to be well protected by law. Yet Black lives in the US clearly are not.
- Black people are dehumanized, arguably below the level of whales, dogs – and lions – to the level of monkeys.
- Few White Americans feel complicit in the killing of Cecil. They can openly condemn it without fearing that a light will be cast on the ugly mountain of injustice that their own lives are built on.
– Abagond, 2015.
See also:
- Wikipedia: Cecil (lion)
- Sam Dubose
- The perfect victim
- The Black-on-Black crime argument
- The dehumanization of Black people:
- What if police brutality was seen as a crime?
535
Not surprising that many people would rather empathize with cuddly creatures than with their fellow human beings.
If there’s life beyond our immediate universe, observing aliens are probably looking at all of this while thinking “why should we make contact with these….things…again?”
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Ha!
You know what would be equally interesting would be to treat Cecil as if he was African-American Lion.
1) What was the Black Lion doing out of his preserve in the first place?
2) Why did he leave?
3) Was the Lion living on the dole? (Wildlife Preserves = Tax money?)
4) Cecil was known to have fathered multiple cubs with multiple lionesses!
5) Cecil had a history of violence (according the the Zebra community!)
6) Were Iboga leaves found in his system???
7) Walter Palmer feared for his life as he approached Cecil with his crossbow
8) His fears were confirmed as Cecil would not go down after he was shot
9) Walter Palmer feared for his life 40 hrs later as he shot Cecil with a rifle!
10) Cecil fit the description of ANOTHER Lion known to be a man eater
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Nice, King.
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@abagond good point.
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Excellent post Abagond! I was just telling the husband the exact same thing yesterday!
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Why does the Lion have 8 cubs without a partner?
We can’t rush to judgement. We need a full and complete investigation
The hunters union call the claims of brutality ridiculous.
The hunter’s TV network have interviewed PETA members who call the criticism of hunters ridiculous
Why are politicians making comments without all of the evidence?
Animal groups and their supporters are thugs.
What about the Lion who attacked a white couple 3 years ago? Why isn’t anyone talking about that case?
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Yeah, I can’t wait for the Lion-baiters and Species-hustlers to begin their stupid “protests.” Leo X and Simba Sharpton! If these guys were serious about Lion lives they would be concentrating on Lion on Lion crime! How about all of the Lions who are killed or injured by other Lions, huh???
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“3,Few White Americans feel complicit in the killing of Cecil. They can openly condemn it without fearing that a light will be cast on the ugly mountain of injustice that their own lives are built on.”
In my every day journey through life, I have discovered in my old age that there are very few white people who are not racist. Very few. I heard a long time ago that the police are a reflection of the community that they serve and why do we as a people give a flying pigs butt how white people feel. Why do we insist on looking to white people for validation?
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I love animals i hate how the lion was hunted and killed for sport with that kind of money i could find some else to do other than kill animals. With that being said i do feel that many care more for animals than black people. I am exhausted seeing on the news a black person killed by some racist policeman. The latest victim Sam Dubose. They just buried Sandra Bland now a new victim Sam Bland. I am listening to the presidential candidates saying “Black lives matter” i really don’t think they care about black lives but are just saying this to get votes from black Americans. The fact that white people get bent out of shape about the black lives matter movement speaks volumes and shows their apathy. Black lives do matter.
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@King:
My money is on the lion with the chubby belly in the above picture.
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With that being said i do feel that many care more for animals than black people.
They do. Remember that PETA ad comparing animal cruelty to slavery?
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@ Herneith
I believe those are the partially-digested remains of his last challenger.
– A common occurrence, known to Lions as “Last Rival Reflux”
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@Herneith: No i didn’t know about the PETA ad.
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@King:
That would explain his partial lethargy.
Folks, many historic psychopaths such as Hitler and Napoleon adore animals to distraction but would slaughter thousands or millions of human beings. Is it such a leap that given their propensity for racist behaviour that a dog, cat or lion would get more sympathy than a black man stopped and shot point blank in the face for having only one license plate. I have read some of the commentary news blogs and they were are horrendously racist, not that I am surprised.
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@ Mary:
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/aug/14/nation/na-peta
This is but one article.
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@Herneith: Wow, just Wow. SMH Thanks for the link.
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I think to believe that animals are the equals of humans is absurd. And PETA is completly out of line with their comparisons of agriculture to the holocaust or slavery.
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Another interesting thing is that the lion, through no fault of its own, is named after Cecil Rhodes who was a vicious colonialist in Southern Africa.
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@Origin; That is a very insightful point about Cecil Rhodes and naming the lion after an imperialist. Just goes to show how colonialism works.
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I know one darn thing. I wouldn’t want Walter Palmer working on my white teeth, the 25 that are left. Three molars gone. Premolars out decades ago (that’s a common white dentition issue, but not rare among African Americans either).
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re “King” You forgot the mention, Cecil kept a harem of females and lived off of them. Hey, I liked the one about “the zebra community”. That’s tops, man.
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illegal hunters just killed Cecil’s brother, Jericho… now Cecil’s cubs have no protection from other male lions — very sad situation.
and I’m also sad that Cecil was killed by an average white American butthole – Lion’s are on top of the predator chain and here comes low-life Mr. Ed with a rifle– what a waste.
I have mad respect for the Maasai, who co-exist with Lions and use sticks and knives (and a lot of balls) to go toe-to-toe with Lions
video showing 3 Maasai men stealing meat from a pack of Lions with only wooden sticks and wooden bows/arrows as weapons.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rTYCc2ZF2o)
these REAL men accomplished this with their bare hands and brains
whereas, white hunters and their colonizing white ancestors, could only accomplish “winning” by using guns,
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Mary @ you have echoed my very thoughts with your comment
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@ Anonymike
A harem? That’s just Lion pride!
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@ King
“6) Were Iboga leaves found in his system???” Classic!
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American writer and feminist Roxane Gay tweeted; ” I’m personally going to start wearing a lion costume when i leave my house so if i get shot, people will care.”
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I hope that dirtbag dentist looses his dental practice he is scum. This is a perfect example of white privilege and colonial mindset. Just killing the poor animals for sport and not giving a damn about the people who live there seeing how it brings revenue to them. I feel this is evil.
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@King: Very clever i see what you did there, lol.
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@King: Well done, sir! Best sad laugh I’ve had all day.
@Mary Burrell: I will now be following Ms. Gay on Twitter. Thanx!
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“KIng” Cecil was just so ghetto. But I could see him being played by Warren Beatty or Don Johnson. In their younger days, of course. You could make the story into a musical. Yeah, it could be a franchise. How about Eddie Murphy as Cecil? And Richard Gere as Palmer? Gere played a real smarmy character in “Chicago”.
Frankly, I see Walter Palmer as turning into the new John Wilkes Booth. The man who is no one’s hero.
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@ king lol
Let’s not forget male lions kill cubs too, so they are part of the reason lions are going extinct, but nobody talks about that. Maybe if the father lions would teach their cubs some respect instead of sleeping all day they’d be alright. He shouldn’t have left the sanctuary, why was he out he must have been up to no good. And he looks threatening do u see how dark his mane is http://knowledgenuts.com/2013/12/28/the-darker-the-mane-the-more-powerful-the-lion/
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Lion on zebra violence happens more than human on lion violence or do zebras lives not matter. lions also kill other big cats and their cubs when given the chance so what about cat on cat violence? All the lionesses do is have cubs and then mate with the male lion that killed their cubs where is their self respect? the male lions just sleep, eat and fight, and always are the first to eat, yet hardly help with the hunts, see how disrespectful they are they are terrible fathers and mates. Maybe if they’d stop being greedy and have one mate and not kill each other and stay in the parks they’d survive. If they would act like house cats instead of acting like lions people would care.
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@mstoogood4yall: LOL
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Abagond, all jokes aside
Don’t you find it funny and sad that white people STILL feel that they can go to any majority black or brown country in the World and
do whatever the F they want without Repercussions because they feel that it is their “Right” to do as they please
My outrage is more geared to the fact that the African continent is STILL being sucked Dry of it’s resources by white majority countries, from Africa’s minerals to it’s indigenous Animals
Even the flipping so called “Zimbabwean” guide was white and got the biggest profit– how much of that $50,000 landed in the hands of the black African “helpers”
does 5% of the profit from any of these illegal and legal hunts, even reach any of the poor people in Hwange
Africans are literally dying, trying to reach Europe because there is no secure financial structure that can support the growing population in various African countries — because they are still trying to correct the “wrong” that was done to the entire continent.
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And maybe they should act less like scar and more like simba, they should eat bugs and befriend their prey and sing hakuna matata. Lions should act more like Christian the lion. They are being disrespectful to mufasa’s memory remember he said “Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance, and respect all the creatures from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.”
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mstoogood4yall and King
ROFL.
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hehehe I’m beginning to feel sorry for the Lions… they are being treated so unfairly!!! It’s Inhuman! Oh well…
Have you noticed how “masculine” the lionesses look? 🙂
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Besides stating the obvious i am appalled at how the media is using the killing of the lion to deflect from having a conversation on black lives matter and the latest victim Sam Dubose from the killing of black people at the hands of thug law enforcement. I am late to the party but have just learned that the main stream media can’t be trust either. They are just as complicit in distorting the truth when it comes to reporting the death of black people.
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@Mary. Agree.. The media has been stringing this narrative that Black lives don’t matter for several years and each year it gets worse. IMO this is a tactic to try and discourage us. To try to keep the country divisive. So we must now ask the question why. What is the end game here? We need to figure it out and quickly.
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@ King
Indeed, so masculine and combative. Going out hunting and fiercely protecting and nurturing her cubs and stuff. Shameful and unfeminine.
Ok these parallels are hilarious but kinda eerily on point. Sigh* beam me up already.
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@ Gen
Lol! Good points!!! And why aren’t their manes longer!!! These strong, sapphire felines are just shameful!
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@bygodsloveandgrace
My husband just had me watching a documentary called The square on netflix. IT is pretty good and somewhat reflects what American blacks are facing.
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Apologies if i come off whiny, this is just how i think/ feel.
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Actually feel free to ignore the stuff irrelevant to the topic, i’ll post the message in my thread.
Apologies for no filter. I’m not sure how exactly poc see white people and what they want from them in order to give them acceptance, leeway, a real culture, potential for growth and potential for empathy, etc, so i get confused at times.
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Apologies again for distracting from this double standard and Sam Dubose’s tragic death. Please carry on as if i said nothing.
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King, mstoogood4yall and Gen should have their comments made into a guest post. But do you really want the respect and love of people who would empathise more with animal, than a black man?
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Uriel stop apologizing for everything!
…and DON”T apologize for APOLOGIZING!!!!!!!!
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@sharinalr.. Hmmm. I’ve not heard of The Square and will have to check it out.
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LmaOo @ King+ms.toogood-brilliant, just brilliant! About that link with the more powerful, popular dark-maned lion vs. the lighter one, the darker the berry..you know the rest. Lol
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Sidenote: Roxanne Gay, so on point!
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“No true animal lover tried to downplay the whole thing with #AllAnimalLivesMatter.”
Well, actually:
https://scontent-ams3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/11824989_865587466866132_4980376802466241358_n.jpg?oh=d9d3011f88f89654461b7f815234f2f5&oe=563CD6E1
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This is a perfect example of white privilege and colonial mindset.
This is it in a nutshell.
But do you really want the respect and love of people who would empathise more with animal, than a black man?
Nope!
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@Linda: Your comments mirror what is being discussed on Melissa-Harris-Perry right now. The panel is discussing the economic distress in Zimbabwe and how the dentist could have used his $50,000 to help the distressed people in that region. The question came up why does an animal’s death spark such an outcry of emotion on social media? Why the anthropomorphism of certain animals? It’s an interesting discussion.
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bygodsloveandgrace
It was quite eye opening. It shows egypts struggle to fight against a military state. I had to stop watching when the police/military started running people over because they were protesting.
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Outstanding article.
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I DO NOT CONDONE DUBOSE”S DEATH & I DO AGREE THAT POLICE , AS A WHOLE, NEED TO BE BETTER TRAINED IN PUBLIC RELATIONS. AT THE SAME TIME, I DO NOT CONDONE CHALLENGING POLICE OFFICERS. THE COURT ROOM IS THE PLACE FOR CHALLENGE & THE DETERMINATION OF GUILT OR INNOCENCE. TAXES PAY POLICE OFFICERS SALARIES …….. THEY ARE PUBLIC SERVANTS ……. THEY HAVE A TOUGH JOB. WE, AS CIVILIZED HUMAN BEINGS, SHOULD BE AWARE OF THESE FACTS. ALSO, AS CIVILIZED HUMAN BEINGS, WE SHOULD KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIGHT & WRONG. IT IS AS MUCH OUR RESPONSIBILITY, TO DO THE BEST WE CAN, TO KEEP THINGS LIKE THIS FROM HAPPENING. SO, IT’S NOT JUST LAW ENFORCEMENT THAT NEEDS TO BE BETTER EDUCATED …… IS IT ?
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@D.M. APKE
I think the only thing that civilians should be educated on is the law. Cops are very verse at making up laws and/or manipulating them. Most people will follow them because they don’t know any better. Black people are understandably scared of cops. Judges will take the word of a cop over a civilian.
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@ D.M. APKE
Doesn’t this read better?
“I do not condone dubose”s death & i do agree that police , as a whole, need to be better trained in public relations. At the same time, i do not condone challenging police officers. The court room is the place for challenge & the determination of guilt or innocence. Taxes pay police officers salaries …….. They are public servants ……. They have a tough job. We, as civilized human beings, should be aware of these facts. Also, as civilized human beings, we should know the difference between right & wrong. It is as much our responsibility, to do the best we can, to keep things like this from happening. So, it’s not just law enforcement that needs to be better educated …… is it ?”
🙂
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@D.M.APKE: Kill the caps lock please. It’s like you are yelling.
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@ D.M. APKE:
In future, please do not use ALL CAPS or I will delete your comment.
Thank you.
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If Sam Dubose were a beloved lion the Empire State Building might be lit up with his image:
http://www.timeslive.co.za/africa/2015/08/02/Cecil-the-lion-lights-up-New-Yorks-Empire-State-building
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When some white men, buy and collect guns, it is to kill two things: black people and animals. I would put it that the white man with the gun, there is no distinction between the two.
To my mind, since they invaded our continents, stealing, enslaving, raping, murdering en masse, dehumanizing and that long, long catalogue of crimes against humanity and nature, they have AUTOMATICALLY EXONERATED themselves in perpetuity of any wrong doing whatsoever.
So what I hear now is “plastic care” at the senseless killing of an African lion. The frothing of the mouth and crocodile tears are to appear good and feel better about themselves. So this white American dentist (he could not have seen this coming) is their fall guy. But they are no different. Just the obverse of the same white supremacist coin.
As my daughter (12 years old) and I were discussing your blog, Abagond, she came to the conclusion that this brouhaha about the lion in Africa is nothing more than a deflection and diversionary tactic to shine a light on themselves (white Americans) to look better. “Oh, we are not like him”. These are same white people that are unable to recognize their fellow human beings as fellow human beings. Black people are thought of as monkeys and treated like dirt.
White people have such an impoverished spiritual perspective of humanity that I find their attitude about wildlife and nature conservation hypocritical. Yes, of course, fix the mess that your forefathers wrought upon the planet. Just do it and shut up about it and stop patting yourselves on the back about it. And do not install yourself as a saviour.
These rumpelstilstilian, barely-scratching-at-the-surface-of-their-conscience ‘animal lovers’ can bleat about their American counterpart’s depravity. Hunting for enjoyment is specifically a white thing.
White men in Africa – stealing, owning, slaughtering, exterminating to extinction, hunting, experimenting on animals, is not new. Does anyone know that the mountain lion was hunted to extinction on Table Mountain, called Hoerikwagga, by the San, my ancestors?
Was our planet not teeming with wildlife just a few millennia ago?
Where is (was) the American mass outage over the cougar, wolf, passenger pigeon and many other animals that WHITE MEN WITH GUNS hunted to extinction? How many millions of trophies “adorn” American walls? Is hunting not a popular ‘past-time?’The white man with a gun- the policeman and the hunter are WHITE MALE PREDATORS.
Americans (i.e. The First Peoples and Africans were (are) natural conservationists. Africans generally have a healthy regard for animals, simply by letting them be. No kissing them on the mouth, committing bestial acts, hunting them for sport, the nightmarish extreme cruelty of animal experimentation, exterminating and causing extinction in other peoples’ continents.
And “”Cecil” as in Cecil John Rhodes was an unmitigated racist and colonialist of the worst sort. Pah! Lions are not pets to be given stupid racist names. They are majestic animals that should roaming wild.
I do hope that Robert Mugabe metes out the most appropriate punishment on this white savage (oops! I mean white American hunter.).
I do not quite know how to articulate my thoughts and emotions concerning the siege that African Americans have to endure. One’s heart is filled with intense sorrow. That Mr Dubose and Ms Bland and so many others are murdered/executed/ terrorized/tortured by the police and the underwhelming response of white America indicts (whites) of callous disregard for human life. As in apartheid in South Africa, the police in the USA serve a valuable function in the white zeitgeist- they are the contract killers for the white community at large.
An African American FEMALE HUMAN BEING, whose name was Sandra Bland, was dehumanized, and called ‘it’, and an African male lion, lionized and humanized, and called ‘Cecil’.
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Major mistake: hunted to extinction by white settlers on Table Mountain, called Hoerikwagga, by the San, my ancestors.
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@taotesan…“An African American FEMALE HUMAN BEING, whose name was Sandra Bland, was dehumanized, and called ‘it’, and an African male lion, lionized and humanized, and called ‘Cecil’.
Thank you, for “saying her name” and “making it plain,” as well as so many other relevant and seemingly honest points in your comment…
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@Deb
I second that.
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Hey sharinalr!! How you doing???
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Good. Just depressed by the reporting of black murders and the amazing, yet never ending white ignorance.
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Look, if am needed at all and what am i responsible to do and how should my life be, lemmo know directly. Please excuse my wrathful demeanor, i am indeed confused and i really cannot guess what people think very well.
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The problem of how should people who have killed, destroyed, raped, pillaged every other people and environment on the planet go about saving their souls is not mine to solve.
Thankfully.
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@sharinalr..
Are you watching the GOP debates this week? It will be interesting to see if race relations and in particular police brutality will be a topic. Let’s see if Sam, Sandra and others even receive a mention.
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@ Uriel
I deleted your long comment as off-topic.
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Today’s Blacks are too stupid and buy into too many emotional issues. We are a very dumbed down people. Lions are the symbols of Africa like Eagles are the symbol of America. Or Dogs are the symbols of White people. If Cecil had been a dog there would have been an uproar all over White America. What was happening in this case was the movie, “Zoo”, which depicts African animals as invading and killing people, mostly Whites. The animals are said to be awakening, so there is a fear Blacks will awaken and their will be retribution. Also killing African animals equates to killing Blacks. Just like dream interpretation symbols pay a key role in recognizing what message is being conveyed. The message of killing Cecil, a well loved lion, a symbol of Kenyan pride, means killing Blacks. Cecil Rhodes is pictured in an image stretching his stride across Africa, meaning the conquest of Africa. The killing of Cecil coincides with the constant killing of African Americans by police. Timing is everything in staging events. The Illuminati is inciting open hatred against Blacks. As Blacks everywhere equate the killing of Cecil as a disrespect, Whites get offended and thus the fighting ensues. Its all planned chaos by seemingly random string of events.
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Excellent. Some knucklehead dentist spends $55,000 for the dude ranch equivalent of hunting and is the brunt of nationwide opprobrium. Some pig murders a black man in cold blood and Americans donate $1 million to spring his ofay ass from stir. Not a proud day to be an American.
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One question, Abagond, don’t you think it would be progress if the national “white” opinion would consider “black human” lives with the same benevolence given to monkey lives?
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@ teddy1975
It would not be progress: Whites do medical experiments on both.
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Just reading through this. Y’all have me lmao!
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That about medical experiments may be true, but gigantic leaps are made in the Western world in the humane treatment of non-human primates. Only the US (and Gabon it is claimed) are still doing invasive medical research on chimpanzees and even the US research is stopping now.
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Mirkwood, there are more important things to worry about than a cute widdoh wion.
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@ Mirkwood
The guy sounds miles more sane than all the clowns who “mourn” for the animal.
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Also sad how people care more about the Animals in Africa than the people that inhabit it.
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Mostly white people have done this, Einstein. If lions could think, they’d kill you.
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I think this post pretty much proves Abagonds point. Everyone wants to talk about lions rather then Sam Dubose.
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@Michael Jon Barker
Agreed. Would I be wrong if I said I don’t give two fudges about the lion?
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@Lord of Mirkwood
What a twisted comment. Goodwell Nzou is not an “a**hole” trying to blame the lion. He is a person who grew up in rural Africa and know what the danger posed by the wildlife rural Africans live with is. And he is no summer soldier either. He lost a a leg at age 11 on account of a snakebite. Unless you want to say that he is bitter and twisted because of his experience, you don’t have a leg to stand on.
I will say that if lions have to be killed to protect the villagers, it shouldn’t be done by trophy hunters. It should done by local people or trained rangers, or if by an outside hunter, maybe a white hunter at that, then a professional hired for that purpose. It might be a good use of our foreign aid money to pay for a professional hunter or to train rangers rather than to allow an embarrassing travesty to take place. Zimbabweans are blaming the United State for embarrassing their country. Walter Palmer has become the new Ugly American, ugly white American that is to say, though perhaps he is just an misguided soul who was not aware of the appearances he was creating by going over to Africa with his compound bow, large bore rifle, bush hat and tan shorts to shoot a trophy. I’d never let the guy work on my teeth.
Frankly, I think you are criticizing Nzou because he is interfering with how you want to use to event, which is as a launching point for your anti-honkey rants. I grew up on the street and I knew the word from the day it come into use. Like most racial and ethnic invectives it can be either an insult or a gesture of affection depending. When my black friends greeted me as “honkey cat” it was a gesture of friendship. You do know that Abagond is a public forum, which can be read and commented on by anyone.
Still, free speech. I’m for it., Either we do it this way. Or someone does it for us, and who knows what we get. I don’t think we would like it.
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our media world is shrinking and hipocracy gets shown ,but then all crime thrives with silence ,the hidden and the anonymous.
Side note -abagond’s on point ,on the ball and on a roll ,and thats saying a lot on the interenet. at least for me it is
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May I disagree, Anonymike? Though the emotions coming with the attention are indeed a bit overdone, defending a law breaking foreign visitor, with a claimed history of poaching a black bear and sexual intimidation, stealing one of Zimbabwe’s natural treasures, make one seem a rather despicable chap, even if you don’t care much for lions. Now I understand he may just have been too deep into his own research and all, so he might be quite nice in real life, probably just slightly out of touch with present social reality, it happens with us scientists, but the style suggests indeed that he is an entire golf course with donkeys.
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@MJB
Yeah, I think some people are missing the point of this post. It’s really not about the lion.
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@teddy1975 Mr Nzou is talking about reality as it is experienced by rural Black African villagers. But he is molecular and cell biologist not a behavioral or social ecology specialist. In the social ecology of animals, there may indeed be “good” and “bad” big cats. One of the issues with culling mountain lions (i.e. cougars and puma) in the United States is that culling mature individuals may remove the behavioral controls and models the younger ones live under and increase the incidences of “bad” (bad from our point of view) behavior. No big cat is safe for humans to be around. But some are safer than others. If Cecil the Lion was relatively human friendly, then he may have been a “better” (better from our point of view) lion than his successor, and there will be one.
The story of “Lord of Mirkwood”, the person I was responding to the first place got a little Mirk-ier when he reported that he too, as I am, was a white guy. Knowing that, the origins of his maldistributed logic become clearer. His posted map of lion distribution is a choice case of deceit. The main areas of African lion distribution I believe are in Eastern and Southern Africa. Not only that, but Africa is a huge place with a huge population. The areas of lion distribution the portion of Africa his maps shows could encompass ten’s of thousands of square miles and be home to many millions of people. The areas of African lion habit in East and South Africa, and their human populations, can only be much larger.
Considering he is a white guy, his comments are particularly strange. A bitter black guy I could see being upset because his take on the issue was being undermined by the intrusion of reality. Lord of Mirkwood might be an animal rights activist. Or he might be a witless animal lover. But I doubt the latter. He is too good a deceit-mongerer to be someone who is just casually upset. Nor does the fact that he is white mean he can’t be anti-white. Anti most of us. And probably you too. He’s fine with African villagers being cat food*, apparently. I’m not.
*I’ve lived in a place with a mountain lion population, Black Diamond, Washington. Pets disappeared. Once, I saw tracks in the snow going all the way around the house I lived in. Across the front porch, up to and over a six foot fence, across the back yard, over another six foot fence and gone. Dogs cannot jump a six foot fence. I’m not willing to be cat food either. Never saw one though. They stay away from people and obviously stayed hidden. But you never know.
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Thank you ,Deb, Sharina and Pumpkin Pumpkin.
I feel incredibly sad and angry for Mr Dubose. And for the lion. In different ways. Both are victims of the white settler. The thrust of my outrage is that I am against all forms of white domination and interference.
(I am vegan and against animal cruelty).
Abagond, I can’t but help think that the people (if you could call them that) in the “Whites are individuals” photograph in your masthead, which inspired Billie Holliday’s Strange Fruit, had pets. Like Herneith pointed out, Hitler and some of the Nazis were vegetarians and animal lovers. That did not stop them from exterminating millions of Jews and Roma.
In the US, roll on a few decades later. The modus operandi has changed somewhat. And no longer the pointy hoods and postcards of macabre picnics, but now police uniforms and # AllLivesMatter. A form of modern day lynching is taking place.
Looking at the US from afar, it seems like all the hard won civil rights are being undermined and eroded. The shameful depraved indifference of the lynch mobs, American society at large and the law makers is not much different from modern day America. From what I have read, not one of these despicable, evil people (if you could call them that) were charged with a crime. And now in 2015, the police brutality, murder and torture against American (i.e. the Original People) and Black people, few, if at all, of the criminals are brought to justice.
I sincerely hope that Mr Dubose’s death means something and justice is served. And to all the very long list of victims, one hopes that justice will be served. It is horrible to say this, but one doubt’s that it will .
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Why would Cecil the Lion’s killer deserve capital punishment but not Sam Dubose’s?
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
You are dodging the question.
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Are there any here, besides Abagond, who aren’t already aware that this guy’s elevator doesn’t go anywhere near the top floor?
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Reread my question. I did not ask how you would punish Sam Dubose’s killer. I asked for why he would not deserve capital punishment when Cecil the Lion’s does.
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