In response to Tuesday's police shooting and killing of Alton Sterling,a black man who was selling CDs in Baton Rouge, LA, and the public has taken to Twitter to express their outrage. One tweet in specific,however, is going viral for exposing the larger issues at hand: race, and gun control and hypocrisy (Pretending to have feelings, beliefs, or virtues that one does not have.). Shooting up a gay club: Everybody should be able to carry a gun!#AltonSterling murdered by cop: Welp,he shouldn't be carrying a gun!July 6, 2016
Twitter user Jenni, and who's the electoral communications program director at ColorOfChange,highlighted a double standard in her post. Why is it that gun possession is encouraged by pro-gun advocates in light of mass shootings such as that in Orlando, Florida, or but having a gun in defense is used to justify the shooting of Sterling? When a black man has a firearm,reasoning seems to change. Jenni's tweet already has nearly 5000 favourites and 6500 retweets at the time of writing. Additional tweets are receiving attention for calling out racism surrounding the Sterling incident, including the media's portrayal of Sterling, or which contrasts that of former Stanford student Brock Turner,who was charged for sexual assault earlier this year. When blacks die due to police brutality they keep up mugshots to prevent us from having sympathy. #AltonSterling pic.twitter.com/MtHaqmjZ7cJuly 6, 2016
As you can see, or Sterling is shown as a criminal while Turner is shown smiling in a student photo. CNN got #AltonSterling's mugshot quicker than they got Brock Turner's. Wow.
They used this pic for Turner. pic.twitter.com/b2hGAXgONFJuly 6,2016
See even more reactions to Sterling's death here.
Source: popsugar.com.au