Could you let me know where that 70 years old figure is coming from, the age of the person (s) she got in a fight with, or where the assumption that a mob beat her came from?
It's an estimate. I'm not the only one who ballparked it there in this thread or on Twitter. I don't think she's younger than 60. The other questions have no answers and don't really matter. It doesn't matter if it was more than one person - but it looked like it was just from what a messy scene that is and how many people were satisfied with that outcome. It doesn't matter what age the person(s) who beat her up was. Maybe she's 60 and another 60 year old did it. I don't care. That changes zero about the moral equation, for me. Torturing terrorists was not justice to me and this isn't either. That's just the way I feel about it.
What would change this impression for me, and maybe this is how it went down, is if she was confronted on the street and then started being violent herself. She was clearly all worked up, maybe that happened. If she was being physically threatening to another person, then yep, that's it for me. And if it comes out that's how she acted, I'll actually be kind of relieved because that's just repelling a threat.
But the escalation of words into violence against an old lady who had already left the bus? I'm not saying she didn't deserve retribution, and I'm not saying I don't feel a sense of schadenfreude and momentary satisfaction in seeing her getting hit, or that I don't understand the pent up anger that black people (and anyone who cares about social justice for that matter) are feeling these days, but I also can't say I want to live in a world where we all agree it's right to react violently over a word against someone who doesn't really seem able to defend themselves and isn't posing a threat of their own. I would also get a sense of momentary satisfaction from punching the person who was hostile to an idea I had recently right in the throat, but that wouldn't be right, either. Even "Stand Your Ground," which is a total abomination of a law, requires there to be a physical threat, and that's the closest we've come to sanctioning citizens being violent against each other in the street.
Or, take the Richard Spencer example. There's a guy who can punch back. There's a guy who is an actual practicing white supremacist in their day to day life. There's a guy who actually rallies others to the cause of racism. I have no problem with someone punching that motherfucker; he's trying to start a movement of violence against others. These are all difficult situations to sort out but it really comes down to how well the person can defend themselves, what power they have, and what kind of threat they are. This old lady leaving a bus checks none of those marks. And she got it way worse than Richard Spencer.
BTW, I'm glad there is no record of the event because I don't want the person(s) who fought her to catch charges. The justice system would totally do nothing about her hate speech and throw the book at the people who threw hands. I hope we never know if it truly was a mob or someone her age. But I also hope we have a discussion about where to draw the line re: violence. And if we're going to protect the people who were part of this situation, we're going to have to have that discussion here using the few seconds of video that exist.
It was also pretty funny that it was like (scene missing) and then it cuts to the aftermath.
