Looking for genuine discourse re:Jay-Z/NBA

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I'd actually love to engage, but, as I've said before, as long as you're making general/blanket judgments, then it won't go anywhere. These kind of statements make me bristle, so I make fun.

 

[Stoked]

I'd actually love to engage, but, as I've said before, as long as you're making general/blanket judgments, then it won't go anywhere. These kind of statements make me bristle, so I make fun.

Then it is your loss and only yours.

If you want to engage in a specific way then get specific with it instead of the broad general discussion that has been happening in this thread.

 

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Then it is your loss and only yours.

link?

If you want to engage in a specific way then get specific with it instead of the broad general discussion that has been happening in this thread.

I tried that. I think that was on page 10. There was a good volley of stuff that happened around those posts, but then you and Spazz brought your parade of judges through. And, here we are, back with you saying stuff like

sometimes the reaction should be larger than others. But sometimes they should be the exact same.

It appears that the loss is yours, since you're amazing at convincing yourself of stuff.

 

[Stoked]

I'd actually love to engage, but, as I've said before, as long as you're making general/blanket judgments, then it won't go anywhere. These kind of statements make me bristle, so I make fun.

link?


I tried that. I think that was on page 10. There was a good volley of stuff that happened around those posts, but then you and Spazz brought your parade of judges through. And, here we are, back with you saying stuff like



It appears that the loss is yours, since you're amazing at convincing yourself of stuff.

To me that is a loss. You are letting one generalized statement in a thread full of them "make you briste". I'm not emotionaly worked up about it. Despite what you might want to think.

Spazz engaged with you far more than I did. I mostly just watched you two bicker like an old married couple. As you and I directly. All we talked about is why I do not engage franklin directly. if you have a problem with why I do not than to bad. Not my concern.

So you won't get into a specific discussion with me? Fine, then stop complaining about it.

 

[Jazz Spazz]

I tried that. I think that was on page 10. There was a good volley of stuff that happened around those posts, but then you and Spazz brought your parade of judges through. And, here we are, back with you saying stuff like

Spazz engaged with you far more than I did. I mostly just watched you two bicker like an old married couple. As you and I directly. All we talked about is why I do not engage franklin directly. if you have a problem with why I do not than to bad. Not my concern.

So you won't get into a specific discussion with me? Fine, then stop complaining about it.

Don't let him troll you Stoked. He's big on pretending he wants to have a conversation but blaming other people on why he cant, because it has to be on his terms. He is like Emperor Kuzko and we have thrown off his groove. We don't speak his language, we don't do things his way, so it's our fault if the conversation doesn't go the way he wants it to. He needs a stage to show people how smart he is.

Ok, done giving him a hard time for this post.
Really though it's more like we both want the other to at least acknowledge we understand the other persons take but both feel like we have to be right, and we tend to naturally push each others buttons, then once it gets going we escalate it because we are competitive and have to "win" or get the last word in, so rarely does anything useful come of it.
I don't have anything against /size, I just think we communicate differently and see things differently. No biggie imo. One year, we may even be able to have a decent conversation in a thread. I'm holding out hope. It might start to happen when I stop tossing stones at him and giving him crap. I think I did it once for a day or so.. but it might be because I didn't log in or post.

 

[Stoked]

Don't let him troll you Stoked. He's big on pretending he wants to have a conversation but blaming other people on why he cant, because it has to be on his terms. He is like Emperor Kuzko and we have thrown off his groove. We don't speak his language, we don't do things his way, so it's our fault if the conversation doesn't go the way he wants it to. He needs a stage to show people how smart he is.

Ok, done giving him a hard time for this post.
Really though it's more like we both want the other to at least acknowledge we understand the other persons take but both feel like we have to be right, and we tend to naturally push each others buttons, then once it gets going we escalate it because we are competitive and have to "win" or get the last word in, so rarely does anything useful come of it.
I don't have anything against /size, I just think we communicate differently and see things differently. No biggie imo. One year, we may even be able to have a decent conversation in a thread. I'm holding out hope. It might start to happen when I stop tossing stones at him and giving him crap. I think I did it once for a day or so.. but it might be because I didn't log in or post.

I'm here for entertainment. Him going off fits into that.

Neither do I.

 

[One Brow]

Hmm, sometimes the reaction should be larger than others. But sometimes they should be the exact same. You have to look at more than just who said it.

I agree. There are always a variety of levels of context that will alter the level of the reaction. Part of the context will be societal racism, but there are other factors that will also play into it.

 

[One Brow]

I'd actually love to engage, but, as I've said before, as long as you're making general/blanket judgments, then it won't go anywhere. These kind of statements make me bristle, so I make fun.

Any chance on engaging me over what you perceive as my liberal blind spots? We can go to PM if you would rather not embarrass me publicly.

 

[Stoked]

I agree. There are always a variety of levels of context that will alter the level of the reaction. Part of the context will be societal racism, but there are other factors that will also play into it.

In the case of Sterling his views carried more weight then the average guy on the street saying the same thing. He was in a position of power and has tremendous influence among certain circles (such as his chosen profesion). The response of banning him and finning him were excellent decisions. I would not be in favor of that same level of response for one of the guys that places the court together before games. Even if he said the exact same thing.

Now if two men, one white and one black, who are in the exact same position of power (take the guys placing the court together before games for example) said the same level of racist comments then the same level of response would be appropriate in my eyes.

 

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Any chance on engaging me over what you perceive as my liberal blind spots? We can go to PM if you would rather not embarrass me publicly.

Did you catch the article on the decline of the Left published recently in Harper's? That'd be a cool place to start.

I'm definitely not going to bash you publicly.

 

[sirkickyass]

Hmm, I wonder if there are any studies on that. The social trend seems to be pointing towards middle skin tones. From what I have seen in my personal experiences at least. I've seen much more mocking of pale skin tones over olive ones. By far.

The trend you're viewing isn't a tilt towards darker skin tones. It's a slow (and slight) removal of bias towards lighter skin tones.

There are sufficient studies on this that the anti-discrimination laws on the books, and the relevant case precedent, support workplace discrimination bias cases for light skin african american discrimination against dark skin african americans. I know that sounds crazy if you've never been exposed to the concept before and are born white, but it's true.

Here's an example of a quick google search explaining the kinds of studies that have been done for "colorism" https://newsone.com/2000618/light-skin-vs-dark-skin/

A deeper treatment on the issue is here: https://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/Colorism_JASP_Article.pdf Specifically starting around page 4. One of the more compelling statements in this study is that the difference between being a dark skinned african american and white skinned african american is virtually the same as the difference between being white or any type of african american.

This goes back hundreds of years where color differentiation was one of the qualities used to determine which slaves were house slaves and which slaves were field slaves. I even remember recently listening to Charles Barkley say that he used to tease Michael Jordan for being ugly on the court on the basis that he was "so damn black." You see it in South America, with roots in race relations between the colonists and the colonized. And you especially see it in current Japanese and South Korean standards of beauty.

My reaction was, in part, due to the way that I was piled on over several pages of posts by several posters. I made a couple stale attempts at being witty and was the recipient of at least a few derogatory remarks. I did not realize what I was igniting.

If you think that Kicky was "peaceable" I invite you to re-read his first two posts directed toward me in this thread. He was dismissive right from the start. How can we have any sort of meaningful exchange that way? I don't have a problem with you disagreeing with me. I simply want to understand and be understood. If you respect my right to have an opinion I will gladly return that respect. I am open to learning more than I know, and I never claimed to be an expert on racism.

First: One Brow quoted the posts in question. I stand by them. I was not directing hostility towards you but towards the ideas you expressed. And those ideas are, and always will be, patently offensive. I respect your right to have an opinion. I also respect my own right to tell you that the opinion you hold is racist and vile.

Second: Have you been on this board in the last ten years? Of course I was dismissive.

Third: I continue to stand by my statements that what you've described here as stale attempts at being witty, in larger context of what you were posting, very clearly indicated latent racial biases. I don't think there's any level of freshman-level linguistic analysis that wouldn't come to that conclusion. I'm sorry, but I'm not shakeable on that issue. I do not feel any need to apologize for calling you out on it. I, like One Brow, 100% believe you that you did not intend to post in a racially provocative manner. I also believe that virtually everyone who does so doesn't understand the full import of what they are doing.

My initial intent posting in this thread was simply to comment on something I found to be bizarre, not to parade around any "white privilege". You ask me why I'm trying to defend something, but I'm not quite sure what you think I'm defending? Do you suppose that I am trying to defend being racist? If so, that was absolutely not my intent. I'm willing to discuss if I don't get piled on again.

OB's description of white privilege above is spot on.

Look, I have had feelings in the past related to feeling like being white was a disadvantage. I remember very well applying to law schools and receiving a very high score on my LSATs. A roommate of mine, who happened to be a second generation immigrant of North African descent, received an identical LSAT score. We went to the same high-end private college, we had the same standardized test scores, we had nearly identical GPAs (I think he was .02 higher, which is essentially one letter grade in a single class over four years) and we were even in the same major. Long story short: He went to Harvard, I went to Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt is a very good school, but Harvard is Harvard. At 20 years old, I distinctly remember feeling that this was unfair. I even spent significant amounts of time trolling websites like lawschoolnumbers.com and entering the user provided data into excel spreadsheets so that I could do regression analysis on various schools to determine just how many LSAT points various schools impliedly "gave" you for being a minority (if you're curious, the numbers were large except at UNC-Chapel Hill, where it was actually a disadvantage). The point here is that I went deep on this issue.

My old roommate has had a wonderful career, he's even worked for the NBAPA and is one of my sources for inside the league gossip. But the guy had a hell of a time in Boston and dealt with more police incidents in three years than I or anyone in my family have dealt with during their entire lives combined. I know he's just a regular guy, but for some reason he kept getting stopped, searched, questioned, etc. In speaking with him, it became apparent that these problems persisted basically everywhere he lived that wasn't his original college in suburban Atlanta. I've also gotten acquainted over time with his family situation and seen how, honestly, everything is just harder when you're an immigrant and a minority.

Ten years down the line, I can honestly say that he deserved it and I didn't. It's questionable whether I even deserved to go to Vanderbilt. In some sense, I always treated a good education as my birthright, and lo and behold it happened despite virtually every decision I made that could have derailed it. The assumption was always that everything was going to work out. That's a thing I recognize that I could get away with because there weren't any structural obstacles for me personally.

Understanding white privilege, in some respect, requires trying to conceptualize what your life would have been like under totally different circumstances. It's an exercise in empathy, and I'm ashamed to say that I wasn't capable of that at 18, 19, 20 years old. I spent a lot of time in the intervening years involved in a charity educational program in inner city schools in Atlanta and Nashville. Those schools were primarily poor and black. That was my period of time spent even observing other people dealing with their own structural burdens, even at the basic level of feeling like school for them was handled as if it was child prison. The assumption was never that these kids would succeed. As a result, yes I find it patently offensive when people complain about some level of reverse racism. I see the evil in myself from a decade ago examining a single data point that measured a solitary result and acting like there is some equivalence versus and entire lifetime and pre-lifetime of systemic harm. It's like trying to learn to swim when someone keeps pushing you under. Telling that aquatic violence victim that learning to swim sucks because you keep getting water up your nose is bound to induce rage.

This got overlong, rambly and kind of personal, sorry about that. I'll go back to work now. Everyone should stop being racist.

 

[One Brow]

Now if two men, one white and one black, who are in the exact same position of power (take the guys placing the court together before games for example) said the same level of racist comments then the same level of response would be appropriate in my eyes.

Your privilege allows you to think of those two men as being at the same level of social power. They are not.