Social Media Trolls, In a Pic or Two

16 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, Eclectic, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Religion, Youth

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Blogging, Facebook, Harassment, Personal Attacks, Racial Harassment, Sentinels, Sexual Harassment, Social Media, Swarms, The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), Troll, Trolling, Trolls, Twitter, WordPress

Some folks who come at me through Twitter, my blog on WordPress, even in the “friend” zone on Facebook, are by definition trolls. According to Wikipedia (and apparently, an Indiana University webpage where the definition below comes from), a troll is

a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a newsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

A Sentinel cutting through the Nebuchadnezzar (screen shot), The Matrix (1999), August 16, 2014. (Donald Earl Collins). Qualifies as fair use under copyright laws – especially low resolution.

But this isn’t a complete definition. Trolls are often anonymous, or, if not hiding in the shadows, often have few followers/follow few people in social media. They don’t just “start arguments” — they launch vitriolic personal attacks on individuals with whom they disagree in order to distract from that person(s) point or main topic. They often express every -ism and -phobia they have toward other humans, as if their own humanity and the humanity of the group they think represent is the only one that matters.

And when they find themselves engaged with other trolls, they swarm an individual in the social media world like Sentinels from The Matrix series, hoping to destroy the person in the process. It’s the virtual equivalent of bullying and harassment, and they deserve as much respect in the social media world as we’d give to a bully in the real world. The kind of respect that calls trolls out and puts them in check, the kind of respect that may well involve law enforcement and legal actions.

Swarm of Sentinels about to attack Neo in Machine City (screen shot), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), August 16, 2014. (http://www.cgw.com/images/). Qualifies as fair use under copyright laws – low resolution.

Trolls do one good thing, though. They remind us there are millions of people who want to sleepwalk through life unaware of power, privilege and injustice. Or maybe, they’ve become addicted to their own misery and narcissism. So though we may want to strangle them, the best way to deal with them is with a swarm of our own, to ignore, block and check them at every turn. Too bad we can’t also use an EMP on them.

Honorary Stupidity

09 Saturday Nov 2013

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, culture, Eclectic, Politics, Pop Culture, race, Sports

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Brandon Marshall, Bullying, Commodities, Cris Carter, ESPN, Fandom, Harassment, Hazing, Hostile Work Environment, Inhumanity, Jonathan Martin, Mark Schlereth, Miami Dolphins, N-Word, NFL, NFL Network, Ostracism, Racism, Richie Incognito, Ricky Williams, Warren Sapp

MLK’s “Sincere Ignorance and Conscientious Stupidity” saying, November 8, 2013. (http://bitterrealities.wordpress.com ).

There are so many things I could say about Richie Incognito and the vocal group of Miami Dolphins and ex-NFL players who’ve been supporting him versus Jonathan Martin over the past six days. That NFL players are Neanderthals. Or that Black players and ex-players like Cris Carter, Warren Sapp and Ricky Williams need their own education on what is and isn’t racism or harassment. Or that ESPN and the NFL Network have pushed this story without bringing a more critical lens to it.

There are two points that emerged this week, though, that bother me more than anything else. The idea that Incognito is more “Black” than Martin. Because Martin doesn’t sound “Black,” doesn’t act out of willful stupidity like “Black” NFL players, because he’s biracial, because he attended Stanford University, because his parents are Ivy League-educated. Last I checked, on and off the field, Martin’s treated as Black, regardless of his “unique” background. And Incognito’s still a White guy, one that threatened his teammate and his family, calling him the N-word on and off the field. Aside from the fact that the idea of a White guy being an “honorary Black” guy is offensive in general (see Maya Angelou’s idiotic praise of neo-conservative President Bill Clinton as “our first Black President” for Exhibit A) there’s this reality. No matter how “Black” Incognito can allegedly act, it’s an act, one which comes out of his Whiteness, and with it, an ultimate sense of cultural superiority.

Richie Incognito, Miami vs Oakland, Oakland, CA, September 16, 2012. (June Rivera via Flickr.com/Wikipedia). Released to public domain.

The other equally disturbing point is that because the NFL locker room is a unique place of hyper-masculinity, that what goes on there isn’t subject to public scrutiny. If that’s the case, why not go back to the days of alcohol in the locker room, where players could shoot up steroids and amphetamines? Or have strippers and groupies in the locker room as well? The NFL locker room, like other work sites, is not a static place, but an evolving one. If it wasn’t, then seventy to eighty percent of the players in it these days wouldn’t be Black, Latino or Samoan. It’s a stupid argument, one exactly like those made by NYPD and LAPD officers, construction workers and White supremacists.

Luckily, there are players and ex-players like Brandon Marshall and Mark Schlereth whose understanding of and sensitivity toward this issue has been exemplary. They are in the minority among the professional athlete and sports world set so far, unfortunately. Martin’s former teammates have unified in their portrayal of him as a villain and traitor and Incognito as the “real nigga” on the football field and in the locker room.

The reason for this should be obvious, at least for those of us with either uncommon sense or with a social justice core. Humanity apparently has no place in the world of sports, especially in football and even more specifically where Black football players are concerned. For owners, front office managers and fans alike, they are merely commodities. Ones that all often criticized for or envied over their salaries and torn down publicly for their sins and crimes. The players and ex-players see themselves as warriors and gladiators, or, in the case of the media savvy, as cut-throat businessmen. None of this allows for any sympathy or empathy for football players who have been genuinely harassed or abused.

Beef cattle on Eefie Hill. North Atlantic in the background, United Kingdom, August 18, 2005. (John Comloquoy via http://geograph.org.uk). Released to public domain via Creative Commons Share-Alike 2.0.

It has meant that players like Incognito — or in previous generations, Michael Westbrook and Bill Romanowski — have fellow players willing to stand up for their criminal behavior, for in fact creating a hostile work environment. Players who suddenly respond like human beings to a dehumanizing workplace have found and do find themselves shunned by the fraternity. And to quit and air out the dirty laundry? It may well be easier to quit La Cosa Nostra and continue to live than it has been for Martin to quit the Miami Dolphins.

I, for one, don’t expect NFL locker rooms to change as a result of the ongoing investigation of Martin’s harassment allegations, no matter how true they may actually be. But I do suspect that even in the Dolphins’ locker room, there are players who haven’t forgotten their humanity, whose understanding of race and masculinity goes beyond a rap video or the N-word. At the very least, there will be much more to come in the form of dirty laundry, and not just from the Dolphins, either.

Cracking Skulls

10 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by decollins1969 in 1, Academia, Boy @ The Window, culture, race, University of Pittsburgh, Youth

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Alcoholism, Binge Drinking, Bullying, Depression, Dorms, Dust Mop Handle, Harassment, Lothrop Hall, Pitt, Pranks, Security, Self-Defense, Stereotype Threat, Violence

Bighorn sheep in Silver Canyon near the town of Bishop, California, October 24, 2007. Rhalden (copyright holder of this work, has released it into the public domain).

Originally posted January 10, 2011:

I’ve written about this before, but not completely from the context of violence. Twenty-eight years ago today, I had a violent incident in my college dorm. It was never reported, thank goodness, since it really didn’t do damage to anyone per se. But it did involve striking two human beings out of anger, in response to a prank and violence on the part of two of my Lothrop Hall dorm mates at the University of Pittsburgh, “Mike” and “Aaron.”

I came back to Pitt after the holiday season in January ’88, determined not to make the same mistakes I’d made the semester before, since another 2.63 GPA performance would mean losing my academic scholarship. Whatever homesickness I felt for Mount Vernon and New York was crushed by the realities of home life at 616 and the sheer lack of friends in Mount Vernon in general. I knew I needed to channel the anger, bitterness, hurt and embarrassment I felt regarding my Crush #2 into my second semester at Pitt.

Lothrop Hall (we lived on the third floor in 1987-88), University of Pittsburgh, June 8, 2008. (TheZachMorrisExperience via Wikipedia). Released to the public domain via CC-SA-3.0.

Lothrop Hall (we lived on the fourth floor in 1987-88), University of Pittsburgh, June 8, 2008. (TheZachMorrisExperience via Wikipedia). Released to the public domain via CC-SA-3.0.

The answer as to how to begin involved my dorm mates on the third floor, half of whom were on Pitt’s basketball team, the other half the folks I usually hung around (geeks who would make most of my high school Humanities classmates look like socialites by comparison). The latter group had spent most of November and December binge drinking and occasionally taking me along for the ride. Aaron had begun to build a pyramid of Busch beer cans in their room, one nearly five feet tall by the time I returned from the holiday break. I needed to figure out how to co-exist with these dorm mates, as they had enabled my holiday blues and sheer lack of caring about my grades with their morbid, drinking ways.

The opportunity I needed happened a few days after I straightened out my Pitt bill. As usual, I left my door open and walked down the hall to the bathroom, took a leak, and went back to the room to call my mother. When I called, my mother kept saying “Hello . . . Hello . . . Who’s there?” She apparently couldn’t here me. After my third attempt, I checked my phone to see what was wrong. One of my idiot dorm mates had unscrewed the phone and taken the transmitter piece out, which was why my mother couldn’t hear me. I couldn’t even make a call to report what they did! I set out looking for Aaron and Mike in their room. When Mike saw me, he ran and immediately closed his door, almost breaking my hand and bruising my foot as I kept slamming my body into his door and put my foot between the door and the door jam.

The Breakfas Club Screen Shot, “Cracking Skulls” line, january 9, 2011. Donald Earl Collins.

I thought about telling our RA, who was too busy screwing his girlfriend to notice that he had no control over our floor. So I took matters in my own hands. The next day, the stupid asses were next door in a mutual dorm mate’s room, bouncing balls off my wall and laughing like there was something funny about it. My anger turned into a rage I hadn’t felt since my fight with one of my classmates six years before. I grabbed my dust mop and unscrewed the handle, walked next door, and proceeded to smash Aaron and Mike — both drunk — on top of their heads. “I don’t hear anyone laughing now!,” I yelled. “If I don’t get my phone piece back by this time tomorrow, there’s going to be a fight, and I don’t intend to lose! We can ALL get kicked out of school!”

I’d never seen three White guys so scared and quiet. I knew I had crossed a line, but so had they. To make sure they knew that I meant business, I smashed my dust mop handle against the wall as hard as I could and said, “That’s what’s gonna happen to your heads if I don’t get my phone piece back.” They sent Samir, another dorm mate — the only other person of color in our group — as an emissary with the transmitter by the end of the day.

I didn’t allow myself to feel bad about going psycho or, from their perspective, “Black” on my dorm mates. With only a couple of exceptions, I saw everyone on my floor as the enemy for a while. And for the next couple of weeks, whenever I left the room at night for the bathroom or for something else on my floor, I kept my door locked and took the dust mop handle with me. I wasn’t crazy. I was as sane as I’d been in a long, long time.

===================================================

Could I have been expelled from the University of Pittsburgh for that incident? Possibly, but not likely. Was I crazy? Hardly. Still, it wasn’t my best moment, if you define good moment by always taking the high road. I suppose I could’ve reported Mike and Aaron to security and gotten the transmitter back that way. But at eighteen, I had already begun to get used to the idea that I had to take life on directly. That included taking risks and not following rules and procedures. I had to learn how to stand up for myself and for what I knew, even if it meant being seen as the angry Black guy or as a troublemaker.

On this day/date twenty-eight years ago, it worked. If only because the dorm mates I confronted probably had no business being in college in the first place.