I got a task in International English to write a blog entry about either an article on what happened in Charlottesville, or an article about the flood in Texas. Since I haven’t heard anything about what was going on in Charlottesville, I chose to read the article about the event there.
The article was about a guy that had been called fake news because he filmed and uploaded a video on Twitter. It took place at the protest against the Unite the Right rally in Chralottesville, 12 of August. Brennan Glimore, the person that uploaded the video, was one of the people protesting. The video shows a car driving into a group of people and then reversing and got away. You can see the video he filmed here.
Not long after he published the video on twitter, American news and international press started to ask him for interviews. He used the whole next day to answer interviews. After an interview with MSNBC, a lot of conspiracy theories started to be spread about him being a part of the incident that happened. You can read more about it here in his article where he explain it from his point of view of the situation.
Now over to the actually task which was to comment on the article and answer some questions, rather than retell the article like i have so far. The questions was: How did it make you feel? What did you learn from it? What would you like to find out more about? Do you agree with the points made in the article? Why/why not?
So, how did it make me feel? At first I was a little worried about his family and himself, because he started the article of with saying he had gotten a phone call from his sister. She said that their parents home address had been posted on a Neo-Nazi conspiracy theorist message board and that he had death threats against him. Then when I continued on with the reading, I started to feel more annoyed and angry. The thought of how so many people can turn on a person because of conspiracy theory, annoys me. I don’t understand why some people would like to believe the alternative truth rather than the actually truth. I myself like conspiracy theories, but I feel like in this situation is just wrong and stupid to make one up. Maybe I know too little about the situation to be sure to make up an opinion? Any way, at the end I’m left being annoyed and slightly mad.
I learnt a little bit more about the situation, which is good, but I still feel like I just got another confirmation that the world is an f* up place, unfortunately. Maybe it just the US that is a weir place, who knows? I guess I also learned that sometimes when we make a decision, it can have a bigger consequent than we thought.
What I would like to find out more about is the different conspiracy theories. Why they think like they think, why did they make them? I would also like to know more about the background of the protest and why people would like to believe the theories. Also how he is so sure that the attacker is a Nazi? The way he says he know that the attacker identify himself as it, confuses me a little. How can you tell form a person driving a car, that he identify’s himself as a Nazi. I of course am aware that it’s most likely that the driver is one, considering it was a protest against people like minded like him, but still, how so sure? I’m not trying to act dumb or to attack the writer, I’m just curious, that’s all to it.
When it comes to the last question I’m not entirely sure what to say. To be honest, the article was a little long for my taste, so I zoned out a little. I do agree with the part he says that we should stand together against the white supremacy. I believe in a world with equality, where no matter your “race” or where you are from, you should still have a right to say something. No “race” is more dominant than the other, so therefore I agree with the point about us standing together against the white supremacy.
Once again here is the link to the article I’m talking about: How I Became Fake News – By Brennan Glimore
-CDS
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