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The Girl in the Kent State Photo

100 points by 8bitsrule 6y ago

hiisukun 6y ago
I cannot read this article without subscribing, and the title gives very little information. To save others a click: In 1970, an image of a dead protester immediately became iconic. But what happened to the 14-year-old kneeling next to him?
- INTPenis 6y ago
  I can't read it either but some googling says it was Mary Ann Veccio. So now you can research her yourself without paying the Post.
  - pmarreck 6y ago
    It is an excellently-written piece that would definitely outdo Wikipedia entries on her.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  Try reading it after turning off Javascript in your browser. It works fine from me in emacs-w3m, which does not understand Javascript. Also, try: https://archive.is/2pZGJ https://archive.is/2pZGJ
- andrewl 6y ago
  It's a story about the life course of Mary Ann Vecchio, the woman in the most famous photo from the day in 1970 when the National Guard killed four students at Kent State: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings I've known the photo for decades, but I did not know the woman in front of the body was only 14, and I knew nothing of her life before or after the shootings. The photo was always a frozen moment for me. Neil Young's song Ohio (with the famous refrain “four dead in Ohio”) is about that day.
- pomian 6y ago
  Can read the whole article, and it is well written and interesting; Using the HN 'materialistic' app.
  - baobabKoodaa 6y ago
    Not sure why you're shilling the Materialistic app for this, I also use it and am unable to read the article. When I click on the link it just renders a blank white page.
pjc50 6y ago
Extraordinary number of contemporary parallels. The FBI turning up to ask for the negatives. The reporter who interviewed her and then turned her in to the police. The people sending death threats to a fourteen year old girl, decades before twitter. And of course the wide public support for state sponsored murder.
- LocalH 6y ago
  If anything, it counteracts the notion that social media has "caused" this type of viciousness. Social media may be able to amplify it in a new way, presenting new challenges, but that viciousness has been a thread in humanity since almost the beginning of recorded history, and likely much further back.
throwaway8581 6y ago
Yes, sounds just like the case of Ashli Babbitt. Shot for breaking a window during an act of civil disobedience. The same people who think there was nothing wrong with shooting Babbitt also think it's wrong to shoot a teenager as they swing to stab someone. Babbitt was a right winger, so she is subhuman. Her death was covered up. We don't know who fired the shot or exactly why charges were not brought against them. Anyone who defends Babbitt gets a lot of internet hate and death threats.
- ska 6y ago
  > Yes, sounds just like the case of Ashli Babbitt. [original edited since this reply] Only in the most superficial way, i.e. "a protester was shot by someone there in a security role". Beyond that there doesn't seem to be much parallel.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  >The same people who think ... also think ... This is a common format of "fact" that we invent to rationalize our own hatreds. It's usually impossible to generalize to any meaningful degree. Not that it's never possible to construct a reasonable observation this way.
  - throwaway8581 6y ago
    No I mean literally the same people telling you to believe one tell you to believe the other. And that particular tribe is very obedient of their media leaders.
    - Talanes 6y ago
      But you don't mean that literally, hence your use of vague generalizations like "tribe" and "media leaders." You don't mean specific people, you mean a broad range of people that you have grouped into all holding singular opinions. Not the same thing.
    - simonh 6y ago
      That cuts both ways. There are a lot of people who see themselves as pro law and order, would deplore a protest in which a police officer was killed, would normally be horrified by protesters chanting “shoot him with his own gun” when they isolated an officer, yet sympathise with the Capitol protests where both of these things happened. The truth is most of the Capitol protesters probably had no intention to actually hurt anyone. The same is true of most of the people at BLM protests. Yet in both cases there are extreme elements that revel in violence for their respective cause. The problem isn’t left wing extremists or right wing extremists. The problem is extremists and those on either side that, while not violent themselves, offer aid comfort and support to those that are. That justify violence selectively in some cases while deploring it in others for partisan reasons.
Eduard 6y ago
https://archive.is/2pZGJ https://archive.is/2pZGJ
pmoriarty 6y ago
"Back in Kent, Ohio, local business owners ran an ad thanking the National Guard. Mail poured in to the mayor's office, blaming "dirty hippies," "longhairs" and "outside agitators" for the violence. Some Kent residents raised four fingers when they passed each other in the street, a silent signal that meant, "At least we got four of them." Nixon issued a statement saying that the students' actions had invited the tragedy. Privately, he called them "bums." And a Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans blamed the students for their own deaths; only 11 percent blamed the National Guard." "Back in Opa-locka, Mary Ann couldn't go to Royal Castle for a burger without reporters and hecklers following her. Death threats filled the Vecchio family mailbox. "It's too bad it wasn't you that was shot." "What you need is a good beating until you bleed red." "I hope you enjoyed sleeping with all those Negroes and dope fiends." "The deaths of the Kent State four lies on the conscience of yourself." When I read things like this I wonder: what the fuck is wrong with people that they are so vicious and lacking the smallest shred of empathy for a mere child who did nothing to deserve any of this, nor for the victims of a mass murder by people who's duty it was to protect them?
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  The day after the shooting, a banner was hung in the West Point cafeteria stating, "Us: 4, Them: 0". America has a non-negligible percent of population who I can only describe as "bloodthirsty for no good reason". They've been here a long time, and remain here today. When we try to discuss the problem, the noise from political side-taking usually overtakes the conversation.
  - adamcstephens 6y ago
    As long as we ignore the violent things done by our country for the past few hundred years, it will continue to poison our society. Reparations for slavery could be one approach, but it doesn’t account for enough of the pain we’ve caused. Genocide, slavery, civil war, imperial conquest, overthrowing democracies in favor of repressive regimes, to today’s bombing of people in other countries with drones. We don’t discuss these things because they’re painful, conflict with the narrative of ourselves we’ve been told, and are drowned out in modern media because both “sides” agree with the policies. America is bloodthirsty because we always have been, and have taken no meaningful steps to change it.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
For me, it’s hard now not to look at that photo and see a 14-year-old girl, unaware of how that single moment will shape her entire life. She’ll become a public figure — as a minor — with no consent and no control over her image or her reputation. And yet, she eventually defied the narrative that was written for her. She built a new life on her own terms. Far from the public glare that defined her as someone she never was, she’s now who she wants to be: someone whose life is both private and purposeful. It is, at least to some degree, a piece about issues alive today and amplified by the internet, social media, a larger world population, faster modes of transit, etc. The world has grown both larger and smaller at the same time and it will be some future generation that perhaps figures out how to deal with all this, while perhaps being caught flat-footed by their own current developments.

100 points by 8bitsrule 6y ago

I cannot read this article without subscribing, and the title gives very little information. To save others a click: In 1970, an image of a dead protester immediately became iconic. But what happened to the 14-year-old kneeling next to him?

INTPenis 6y ago
I can't read it either but some googling says it was Mary Ann Veccio. So now you can research her yourself without paying the Post.
- pmarreck 6y ago
  It is an excellently-written piece that would definitely outdo Wikipedia entries on her.
pmoriarty 6y ago
Try reading it after turning off Javascript in your browser. It works fine from me in emacs-w3m, which does not understand Javascript. Also, try: https://archive.is/2pZGJ https://archive.is/2pZGJ
andrewl 6y ago
It's a story about the life course of Mary Ann Vecchio, the woman in the most famous photo from the day in 1970 when the National Guard killed four students at Kent State: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings I've known the photo for decades, but I did not know the woman in front of the body was only 14, and I knew nothing of her life before or after the shootings. The photo was always a frozen moment for me. Neil Young's song Ohio (with the famous refrain “four dead in Ohio”) is about that day.
pomian 6y ago
Can read the whole article, and it is well written and interesting; Using the HN 'materialistic' app.
- baobabKoodaa 6y ago
  Not sure why you're shilling the Materialistic app for this, I also use it and am unable to read the article. When I click on the link it just renders a blank white page.

pjc50 6y ago

Extraordinary number of contemporary parallels. The FBI turning up to ask for the negatives. The reporter who interviewed her and then turned her in to the police. The people sending death threats to a fourteen year old girl, decades before twitter. And of course the wide public support for state sponsored murder.

LocalH 6y ago
If anything, it counteracts the notion that social media has "caused" this type of viciousness. Social media may be able to amplify it in a new way, presenting new challenges, but that viciousness has been a thread in humanity since almost the beginning of recorded history, and likely much further back.

throwaway8581 6y ago

Yes, sounds just like the case of Ashli Babbitt. Shot for breaking a window during an act of civil disobedience. The same people who think there was nothing wrong with shooting Babbitt also think it's wrong to shoot a teenager as they swing to stab someone. Babbitt was a right winger, so she is subhuman. Her death was covered up. We don't know who fired the shot or exactly why charges were not brought against them. Anyone who defends Babbitt gets a lot of internet hate and death threats.

ska 6y ago
> Yes, sounds just like the case of Ashli Babbitt. [original edited since this reply] Only in the most superficial way, i.e. "a protester was shot by someone there in a security role". Beyond that there doesn't seem to be much parallel.
happytoexplain 6y ago
>The same people who think ... also think ... This is a common format of "fact" that we invent to rationalize our own hatreds. It's usually impossible to generalize to any meaningful degree. Not that it's never possible to construct a reasonable observation this way.
- throwaway8581 6y ago
  No I mean literally the same people telling you to believe one tell you to believe the other. And that particular tribe is very obedient of their media leaders.
  - Talanes 6y ago
    But you don't mean that literally, hence your use of vague generalizations like "tribe" and "media leaders." You don't mean specific people, you mean a broad range of people that you have grouped into all holding singular opinions. Not the same thing.
  - simonh 6y ago
    That cuts both ways. There are a lot of people who see themselves as pro law and order, would deplore a protest in which a police officer was killed, would normally be horrified by protesters chanting “shoot him with his own gun” when they isolated an officer, yet sympathise with the Capitol protests where both of these things happened. The truth is most of the Capitol protesters probably had no intention to actually hurt anyone. The same is true of most of the people at BLM protests. Yet in both cases there are extreme elements that revel in violence for their respective cause. The problem isn’t left wing extremists or right wing extremists. The problem is extremists and those on either side that, while not violent themselves, offer aid comfort and support to those that are. That justify violence selectively in some cases while deploring it in others for partisan reasons.

Eduard 6y ago

https://archive.is/2pZGJ https://archive.is/2pZGJ

pmoriarty 6y ago

"Back in Kent, Ohio, local business owners ran an ad thanking the National Guard. Mail poured in to the mayor's office, blaming "dirty hippies," "longhairs" and "outside agitators" for the violence. Some Kent residents raised four fingers when they passed each other in the street, a silent signal that meant, "At least we got four of them." Nixon issued a statement saying that the students' actions had invited the tragedy. Privately, he called them "bums." And a Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans blamed the students for their own deaths; only 11 percent blamed the National Guard." "Back in Opa-locka, Mary Ann couldn't go to Royal Castle for a burger without reporters and hecklers following her. Death threats filled the Vecchio family mailbox. "It's too bad it wasn't you that was shot." "What you need is a good beating until you bleed red." "I hope you enjoyed sleeping with all those Negroes and dope fiends." "The deaths of the Kent State four lies on the conscience of yourself." When I read things like this I wonder: what the fuck is wrong with people that they are so vicious and lacking the smallest shred of empathy for a mere child who did nothing to deserve any of this, nor for the victims of a mass murder by people who's duty it was to protect them?

happytoexplain 6y ago
The day after the shooting, a banner was hung in the West Point cafeteria stating, "Us: 4, Them: 0". America has a non-negligible percent of population who I can only describe as "bloodthirsty for no good reason". They've been here a long time, and remain here today. When we try to discuss the problem, the noise from political side-taking usually overtakes the conversation.
- adamcstephens 6y ago
  As long as we ignore the violent things done by our country for the past few hundred years, it will continue to poison our society. Reparations for slavery could be one approach, but it doesn’t account for enough of the pain we’ve caused. Genocide, slavery, civil war, imperial conquest, overthrowing democracies in favor of repressive regimes, to today’s bombing of people in other countries with drones. We don’t discuss these things because they’re painful, conflict with the narrative of ourselves we’ve been told, and are drowned out in modern media because both “sides” agree with the policies. America is bloodthirsty because we always have been, and have taken no meaningful steps to change it.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

For me, it’s hard now not to look at that photo and see a 14-year-old girl, unaware of how that single moment will shape her entire life. She’ll become a public figure — as a minor — with no consent and no control over her image or her reputation. And yet, she eventually defied the narrative that was written for her. She built a new life on her own terms. Far from the public glare that defined her as someone she never was, she’s now who she wants to be: someone whose life is both private and purposeful. It is, at least to some degree, a piece about issues alive today and amplified by the internet, social media, a larger world population, faster modes of transit, etc. The world has grown both larger and smaller at the same time and it will be some future generation that perhaps figures out how to deal with all this, while perhaps being caught flat-footed by their own current developments.