Why do I feel sympathetic towards the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think we can conclude that people feel sympathy because he is white. I think people are expressing sympathy because he is young and attractive and these two traits make it difficult to fathom that he could be a monster. It would be easier for the mind to see old and ugly = monster.

Did you feel sympathy for the 9/11 terrorists, speculate about their upbringing, wonder went wrong in their upbringing to lead them to kill people?

If Dzhokhar were more brown and less white, "middle class kid" looking, no one would feel an ounce of sympathy. He and his brother did a horrible thing that required plenty of planning and premeditation. Their weapons of destructions literally tore people - including children - to shreds. He's a monster and while, of course, he started out life as someone's child, he was old enough to understand his actions.

What's also telling is that he didn't stop at the bombing. He and his brother then killed a policeman and engaged in a shootout. These are psychopaths.

I pretty much always wonder what makes people do the things they do. I don't believe that infants are born inherently evil so that means there is something about genetics and experience and nurture and other factors that turn them into who they become. I think the more we understand, the mor we can work to step in earlier to prevent some of this. For me it has nothing to do with his color or his appearance. His age - yes.

[Anonymous]

Did you feel sympathy for the 9/11 terrorists, speculate about their upbringing, wonder went wrong in their upbringing to lead them to kill people?

I don't feel sympathy for Dzhokhar. I am not speculating about his upbringing and in fact stated in a previous comment that we don't really have any facts beyond the crimes of which he is accused. I don't particularly care what led him to commit a premeditated attack on innocent people. I simply state that I do not think this a white vs brown borne sympathy that many are professing on this board. I think it is a young, attractive boy next door kind of rationalization.

BTW, I have no more sympathy, speculation or wonder about Dzhokhar than I did about the 9/11 terrorist. Premeditated murder is murder no matter what the exigent circumstance.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if these same posters felt this was about Adam Lanza?

[Anonymous]

If this story is true... it certainly doesn't sound like the boys had very good role models. It sounds like the father might have been a little radical himself.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/04/20/know-boston-bombers/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How does everyone feel about the Menendez brothers - Lyle and Eric shotgunned their parents in cold blood to get their hands on their parents' money? Think Eric was 19 and Lyle 21 at the time. They look whitish.

I did not feel sorry for them. Maybe out of self preservation, my brain rejected them as beyond comprehension.

In Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's case, maybe I still feel I could have done something if I was the parent. It is most likely wishful thinking and misplaced hope. Above all I think it is fear - how do I know I would not end up being one of THOSE parents, like Dylan Klebold's mother -

http://www.oprah.com/world/Susan-Klebolds-O-Magazine-Essay-I-Will-Never-Know-Why

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If this story is true... it certainly doesn't sound like the boys had very good role models. It sounds like the father might have been a little radical himself.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/04/20/know-boston-bombers/

Very interesting little window into their lives. Like others I of course have enormous sympathy for the victims, but I do feel a sadness for this young man who seemed to have so much going for him. I get the sense the older brother by nature was off, but I don't think that was the case with the Dzhokhar. none of this justifies his horrifying crime, but let's at least think about the environment around him. The most positive influences on him were his friends and teachers at the highschool. He attended a large university so he didn't have quite the buffer he had in highschool. If what I have read is true

-Grew up in an area with violence until moved to the US
-Family lived in poverty at times during time in US, father could not always make ends meet working as a mechanic
-Family discord-parents ended up separating, lots of arguing, sister encouraged to stay in a marriage where she was beaten multiple times
-Mom became more radical and extreme and had alarming views about 9-11 being a conspiracy (interesting that Dzhokhar became on citizen on 9-11 of a different year)
-Mom shoplifted
-Mom describes dad as crazy
-Lots of family estrangements
-Unstable brother who became increasingly radical, brother was physically abusive toward former girlfriend
-He worshiping brother "followed" him like a puppy according to one account and this was his only close family in the Boston area

No, this does not in any way justify his actions, but I do suspect all of these things influenced him strongly.

Again, I do not in any way condone anything he did. He is a terrorist. He is evil. I just don't think he started out evil by nature.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Did you feel sympathy for the 9/11 terrorists, speculate about their upbringing, wonder went wrong in their upbringing to lead them to kill people?

I don't feel sympathy for Dzhokhar. I am not speculating about his upbringing and in fact stated in a previous comment that we don't really have any facts beyond the crimes of which he is accused. I don't particularly care what led him to commit a premeditated attack on innocent people. I simply state that I do not think this a white vs brown borne sympathy that many are professing on this board. I think it is a young, attractive boy next door kind of rationalization.

BTW, I have no more sympathy, speculation or wonder about Dzhokhar than I did about the 9/11 terrorist. Premeditated murder is murder no matter what the exigent circumstance.

But what is it about him that makes him seem like the young. attractive boy next door, rather than a ruthless thug, if not his skin color and perceived class?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if these same posters felt this was about Adam Lanza?

No, because Adam Lanza wasn't attractive and had a "crazy look" in his eyes, as my mother put it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If this story is true... it certainly doesn't sound like the boys had very good role models. It sounds like the father might have been a little radical himself.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/04/20/know-boston-bombers/

Very interesting little window into their lives. Like others I of course have enormous sympathy for the victims, but I do feel a sadness for this young man who seemed to have so much going for him. I get the sense the older brother by nature was off, but I don't think that was the case with the Dzhokhar. none of this justifies his horrifying crime, but let's at least think about the environment around him. The most positive influences on him were his friends and teachers at the highschool. He attended a large university so he didn't have quite the buffer he had in highschool. If what I have read is true

-Grew up in an area with violence until moved to the US
-Family lived in poverty at times during time in US, father could not always make ends meet working as a mechanic
-Family discord-parents ended up separating, lots of arguing, sister encouraged to stay in a marriage where she was beaten multiple times
-Mom became more radical and extreme and had alarming views about 9-11 being a conspiracy (interesting that Dzhokhar became on citizen on 9-11 of a different year)
-Mom shoplifted
-Mom describes dad as crazy
-Lots of family estrangements
-Unstable brother who became increasingly radical, brother was physically abusive toward former girlfriend
-He worshiping brother "followed" him like a puppy according to one account and this was his only close family in the Boston area

No, this does not in any way justify his actions, but I do suspect all of these things influenced him strongly.

Again, I do not in any way condone anything he did. He is a terrorist. He is evil. I just don't think he started out evil by nature.

Sounds like the background of most any thug.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because he's white and good looking, basically. People are literally that dumb.

Yup. I've noticed that people have a lot more sympathy for the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and James Holmes than they did for Lee Boyd Malvo or Seung Cho. Many people react to the former two as tragic characters who had something that "turned" them wrong. And far more people react to the latter two as "they are evil". I heard so many people say that the black Malvo was destined to be a criminal because he's black and that Cho was a terrorist and that because of him we need to improve our border security because you can't trust "them."

So many people do react so subconsciously just seeing the non-white killers.

I don't know what planet you are living on, but I have never heard anyone express any kind of sympathy for James Holmes. Zero. The only responses ever expressed about. Him is that he is a scary, crazed monster.

This is not a race issue. The puzzle pieces don't appear to fit together on this kid. With the others, including the Columbine and Sandy Hook shooters, there were things about the kids that on face value provided some logic and with this terrorist there is nothing at first glance.

Do a google search on "Lee Boyd Malvo sympathy" and the only hits you get are ones talking about how he was sexually abused as a child. Do one on "Seung Cho sympathy" and you'll get no hits about people sympathetic to him other than because he was mentally ill. Now try "James Holmes sympathy" and you'll get pages of sites with people who feel sympathy that his life was so messed up and what would cause someone like him to do such a thing. try "Dzhokhar Tsarnaev" and even though he was only caught yesterday, there are already pages raising sympathy towards him and his troubled upbringing.

Yes, it is a race issue. Take off your rose colored glasses and see the world as it is. I assure you that despite all the white people who believe they live in a color-blind world/society, that from the other side of the coin, we know that our society is still extremely color-biased. There are many who claim to be color-blind, but still only go with subconscious feelings of what they are comfortable with, which is majority white.

[Anonymous]

I also feel sadness for Dzhokhar. I also felt sadness for Lee Boyd Malvo, Dylan Klebold, Sam Manzie (http://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/08/nyregion/eddie-was-murdered-sam-s-doing-70-years-but-who-is-to-blame.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm), Seung-Hui Cho, and even Jeffrey Dahmer, who, as a child, had selective mutism and collected road kill and kept the bones of the dead animals displayed on poles in his backyard. There could not have been more obvious signs of a problem, and no one helped.

It saddens me that in so many of these tragic cases there were signs that people ignored and that help wasn't available for the mentally unstable who eventually became murderers. But sometimes even when family and friends try to get help for their loved ones, nothing is done (Sam Manzie being the best example of this I can think of in recent history).

It's not to say that I can't understand the outrage that some feel when hearing people express sympathy for the perpetrators. It just that I feel it is somewhat necessary to feel sadness for them, because the ability to realize that we may not know the whole picture, and that we are so very fortunate that it wasn't our son or nephew doing the killing - that perspective is what keeps us human and it's what will hopefully help us spot the next one before it's too late.

[Anonymous]

Cho did get mental health help, even at the University. I believe that was reported?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He actually tweeted that there was no love in the city and for everyone to be safe after it happened, pretending he was looking out for his friends after the incident. HE DID IT. There is pure evil in the world. I'd rather spend my energies learning to keep our Nation safe from it than have any sympathy whatsoever towards this calculating monster. Enough people have died and been maimed.

Do you have a link that actually shows this?

[Anonymous]

I feel somewhat sympathetic towards most killers, especially young ones. I finally stopped watching The First 48 because I was so bummed for everyone: victim, victim's family, perpetrator, perpetrator's family, etc. A few bad decisions can end or ruin people's entire lives. That's upsetting!

I know people who had a family member murdered. I've been the victim of violent crime. I'm aware of the longterm costs of these crimes. I don't think sympathy for those involved comes at the exclusion of one side or the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it is likely that your children have empathy and would have the internal mechanism to NOT do something like this. His was broken. Maybe we'll find out why, but the fact remains that he didn't have it. This is what makes someone a sociopath. He is small and child like which would make anyone think of hi as being tender and impressionable. Would any of us feel the same way if he looked like a 250 lb thug or the face of a hardened criminal? I doubt it.

He is not like your children.

But there is no evidence from anyone around him that he didn't have empathy or that he had sociopathic traits - no evidence of fire setting or hurting people or animals. He wasn't a charmer, he wasn't odd. It seems no one had any idea he didn't have the internal mechanism necessary to stop himself which is what makes him scary because that could be exactly like any one of our kids. Maybe they are broken too but we don't know.

No evidence??? He set a frickin' bomb off next to an 8 year old??? How the fuck you you have sympathy for that shit?? He is evil. Let him rot like his evil brother already has.