There are few things more ghoulish than attempting to profit (financially or otherwise) off of someone’s death.
It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to make a buck or push a policy — taking advantage of a tragedy is despicable.
And yet, when most people engage in this abhorrent behavior, at least they have the facsimile of decency to pretend like their profiteering is for some altruistic purpose.
The friends of murdered social justice activist Ryan Carson apparently couldn’t even muster the effort to put up that pretense.
Carson became an overnight cautionary tale after the grisly video of his murder in New York City went viral online.
WARNING: The following video contains violence and images that viewers may find disturbing.
BREAKING: NYPost has obtained footage of radical leftist NYC activist Ryan Carson being confronted by a black male who stabbed him to death on a Brooklyn street on Oct. 2. The suspect remains at large. Carson became celebrated for his advocacy for more drug injection sites. He… pic.twitter.com/5POEjMuWY2
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) October 3, 2023
In the viral video, Carson and his girlfriend are accosted by a random stranger on the streets of Brooklyn early Monday morning.
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The man then proceeds to fatally stab Carson.
A suspect, 18-year-old Brian Dowling, was arrested on Thursday and charged with murder, according to the New York Post.
It’s a horrific tragedy all around, made all the worse by the fact that Carson appeared to be a victim of the very views he espoused — views that can generously be described as soft on crime.
But today’s not the day to criticize Carson’s beliefs. The man is dead, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.
His friends, meanwhile, are seemingly intent on capitalizing on his death.
As news of Carson’s murder began to spread, a GoFundMe was created by his friends, and they chose some interesting verbiage to explain what the donations would be going toward — namely, themselves.
“Hi everyone,” the page reads. “We are a collective of Ryan’s close friends, reeling from a brutal loss. We are asking for your help on behalf of his partner in easing the burden and stress of this horrifying situation.”
OK — so far, so good. They appear to be collecting money for a woman whose boyfriend was murdered in front of her. No problem there whatsoever.
That wasn’t the end of the sentence, though. Here’s how it ends: “so that we can have space and time to grieve, and remember Ryan.”
There is a bit of a problem with the next sentence, too: “Immediate needs are to offset the costs of working class people taking time off of work to properly mourn.”
Wait, when did this go from raising money “on behalf of his partner” to “offsetting the costs of working class people taking time off of work”?
Ryan Carson was a far-left activist who was killed in Brooklyn a few days ago.
Now his woke friends are fundraising off his death to get off from work.
Commies are the absolute worst people. pic.twitter.com/sOappTGzOX
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) October 5, 2023
Even if these “working class people” don’t have the option of paid time off, there is something undeniably icky about using a man’s death to raise funds for anything other than the deceased’s family and loved ones.
But the questionable move appears to have worked.
Donations on the page have blown past the stated goal of $20,000 and currently sit at over $70,000 — which would easily cover the costs of a whole lot of time off.
In the best-case scenario, perhaps this is all a matter of ridiculously poor wording. Maybe this isn’t quite the grift it appears to be and Carson’s friends just don’t know how to write clearly.
Worst-case scenario?
Well, the worst-case scenario is really for everyone but the people who organized the GoFundMe, because they’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.
