@randahl I am sure the policemen on this picture are wondering what Marvel character she is impersonating.

@FrancoisPrague @randahl
I guess they both know, but react differently on it.

The one on the left holding her knows it is his '5 min of fame' picture of his lifetime. (And I guess he is right...)

can i hear some of your music
@randahl
Wow, what a perfect picture! Nothing describes the situation in the States as well as this picture.

@randahl

A fascinating photo with layer on layer of nuances! Truly a snapshot of the US now.

We don't know what charge, but the arrest shows how addle-brained the country is at this point.

Lady Liberty's smile suggests that she's pleased by the publicity provided by whomever ordered the arrest.

And the smirks of the cops (real police officers, not secret police goons!) suggest that they're just doing the job, doing it with humanity rather than brutality.

America's hurt, but not dead.

@oldclumsy_nowmad @randahl The lady herself is on instagram with handle @that.vvitch so if anyone here has an instagram account they might go invite her over to the Fediverse?

I saw her explain her arrest and she is acutely aware of how her privilege protected her from suffering more than 6 hours (12 hours on another occasion) detention. The responses of some people here referring to that, frankly, baffle me.

@randahl It's not really, though. It's a pretty white woman who will get released PDQ.

It's a pretty picture but it doesn't show the cruelty inherent in the system.

We shouldn't be distracted by this.

@muddle @randahl

White women are being repressed under the capitalist patriarchy too, albeit in different ways.

Comparing suffering does not help anyone.

Lady Libery's smile may well be a fawning reaction, which is a defense mechanism.

Those apparently complying w the mythical norm - white, male, young, slim, successful - like policeman in pic - suffer in this culture, too, cf Audre Lorde.

We the People, need to unite worldwide, against all oppression, including the current extreme forms we see in the US.

Let's go!

@spellfinder @randahl I'm sure this white woman will do just fine after her arrest.
@muddle @randahl You could try asking and listening 🤗
@spellfinder @randahl what should I ask and whom should I listen to?

@muddle @randahl

That's on you.
Not dismissing me, but asking a question, instead of positing your truth, could have been an option.
I'm sure you can think of someone else, as I am now starting my offline day.

Good luck! Actually listening is not always easy, but very rewarding 🤍

@spellfinder @randahl you're the one offering pseudo-truths here. If you want me to listen to you (as appears to be the case) then tell me plainly what you want me to hear.

@muddle @randahl

Alright. Although it is not my job to educate you, I will, out of courtesy and respect, for you, myself, and anyone else who cares enough to read, take time out of my day to explain myself.

You could appreciate the woman who made an effort and took a risk by dressing up and going out to protest.

Instead, you belittle her. Then, when I speak up, you belittle me.

You do the oppressors' work.

This is not helpful to what I assume is your cause, too.

Hope this helps.
Enjoy your day 🤍

@spellfinder @randahl I didn't really address your point that I was belittling the woman in the photo or you. That wasn't my intention at all. My point wasn't really directed at the woman at all. I was trying to make a point about the photo, symbolism and how we, as viewers are prone to making up comfortable narratives.

As soon as the woman dressed up as Liberty, she was assuming a (symbolic) character. She is inviting us to interpret her not necessarily as herself but as a symbol. You might think that I'm belittling the woman by not looking at her as herself, but I think she is explicitly giving us permission to do just that. She is allowing herself to become an object of analysis.

I might have been unkind by saying that she'll probably be out of jail very quickly, and this, perhaps does put the focus back on her unfairly. Some might read into that and think that I'm discounting her courage or her sacrifice. That's not what I was trying to say. I was trying to caution against easy narratives. So when Randahl describes the picture as "Trump's America in one picture," I'm really trying to push back on that interpretation. It's one interpretation and possibly a flawed one due to the amount of symbolic baggage that Liberty comes with.

You were absolutely right to also focus on and analyse the police guys, too. We should be looking at it from all the angles. But we should also, I think, come in with an attitude of scepticism, to some degree. To be able to see that this is just one artefact, one scene among many. And, as you pointed out, and I agree with you, everyone's suffering is valid and it shouldn't be like a scoreboard. I probably came across as someone who was OK with downgrading the validity of this woman's (or white women's in general) but the point I was trying to make is that it's often too easy and too comfortable to elevate "white suffering" over that of non-whites.

Anyway, I did get defensive because I thought you were accusing me of denigrating the woman and maybe white women in general. Sorry for getting a bit tetchy over that. I hope you can see that I was motivated by trying to go for a wider, more critical and more inclusive view.

Thanks for listening and I hope that if you're reading this, you had a nice net-free time.

@muddle @spellfinder @randahl Imagine the reaction if she was anyone else. In FL the very first thing that would happen is the sheriff's dept would ask ICE if they want to kidnap the person they are holding.

Here, every cop is effectively an ICE agent. We need to kill 287(g) with fire and bury the ashes in a toxic waste dump!

@LukefromDC @muddle @randahl

I am not free while any woman is unfree
Even if her shackles are very different from my own.

AUDRE LORDE - YOUR SILENCE WILL NOT PROTECT YOU - 1979

@spellfinder @LukefromDC @randahl you didn't answer either of my questions.
@muddle @spellfinder @randahl What question? Note that I am autistic and easily miss implied things.
@LukefromDC @spellfinder @randahl spellfinder told me to ask questions and listen (which, I suppose means listen to a woman... as if that's something I'm incapable of...) and I replied asking what I should ask and to whom I should listen. They never bothered to answer either of those.

@muddle Holy hell, you're insufferable.

Go look up 'sea-lioning'. It's about you.

@muddle No one owes you answers.

Get over yourself already.

@muddle @spellfinder @randahl Who, in your opinion, is allowed to protest, as white women are apparently disqualified?
@ahltorp @spellfinder @randahl I'm not trying to disqualify anyone. I've made a longer post elsewhere in this thread, but in summary, I'm trying to disagree with Randahl's summary of the pic as "Trump's America in one picture." I think that since the woman is performing a symbolic act, that it's OK to analyse and critique that act on a symbolic level. And also, without downgrading her act, we should be open to realising that there are many other stories out there that are just as valid and which, actually, be more true as a means of characterising "Trump's America."

@muddle Wow. You're not wrong, but this is some epic navel-gazing. You sound like most of the Ivy League sophomores I've ever met, which is many.

Go touch grass.

@randahl Brilliant move from the protesting woman - I like smart protester moves and this one is definitely one of them.

@randahl
Just had a closer look & the cop on the right is carrying her torch for her!

#LadyLiberty #StatueOfLiberty #lamp #torch #NoKings #protest #livingArt

@Su_G @randahl
It could have been used as a weapon!
@Salvo @randahl
Too right! A weapon of mass destruction - dangerous ideas of liberty & so on… 😬

@randahl

🧩 Microsoft built its federal cloud on top of decades of legacy code that it apparently can't fully document itself
👮 "Digital escorts" often ex-military with minimal software engineering backgrounds are the firewall between Chinese engineers working on the system and classified U.S. networks 🤦🏻‍♂️

Why are you bashing Chinese engineers, the problem is clearly with Microsoft and us regulators.

The legacy code mentioned is in part probably written by Bill gates in Basic 😉

@Kerplunk This comment might be more persuasive -- and informative -- if it was written more clearly and carefully. I can tell you're saying something that's probably worth knowing, but it's not clear to me what it is. As a result, your comment is just lost in the noise for me, I'm sorry.

@[email protected] Pretty sure if the person being arrested wasn't white it would be an even truer picture.

Still, yeah, pretty iconic picture.

@randahl
magnifique elle est la liberté et le flic qui l'accompagne le sait ...
@randahl LAPD is not really Trump's, though, is it? But maybe that even contributes to the layers of the picture.
@HeptaSean @randahl You're correct. LAPD is one of the thousands of local or state police departments in the US who operate idependently of the federal govt. That said, LAPD is also infamously corrupt.
@randahl they're all looking very pleased with themselves
@randahl instead of a real revolution, we get cosplay and a staged photoshoot.
@randahl - All answers are 100% Factual.