As You Would Expect, James Dolan Has a Terrible Take on George Floyd

I can only see a part of the letter on that Twitter pic…

dolan may have signed off on it, but, it is definitely not his writing…way too literate for that…

sounds like he’s trying to use that jordan: “republicans buy sneakers too” line…

I’ll tell you, the fact that dolan is the owner always hits hard whenever it looks like maybe this team might just be ready to dig themselves out of a hole…

Is this really surprising? Dolan is a known Trump supporter.

As sure as the sun sets in the west, Dolan will make the wrong decision. If his drapes were on fire and he was holding a glass of water and a glass of kerosene, he’s tossing that kerosene.

He is an awful, awful little man.

“Our company is committed to upholding our values, which includes creating a respectful workplace for all.”

Haha. Okay. Shall we stroll down memory lane…

“Would you find it offensive also for a black male to call a black woman a bitch?” he was asked. Thomas responded, “Not as much and I’m sorry to say, I do make a distinction.”

According to Browne Sanders, not only did the Knicks do nothing to end the harassment or discipline Thomas, they fired her.

And Mills was her friend! He’s the one who brought her aboard! That’s why I always found Mills to be of low character.

Just look at the response from winners: Mark Cuban, Greg Popovich, LeBron James and Steve Kerr just to mention a few. We know what we have in Dolan.

Whether or not they put out a public statement or not doesn’t matter, in my opinion. That stuff is all for show anyway, and doesn’t indicate a greater level of care, concern, or action from an organization. It’s what people do that matters, particularly when no one knows or are watching. Not what they say. And certainly not what they say through press releases.

I have no issue pointing out issues with Dolan. I am not pissed off at him for this.

Strat you can cycle through usernames as much as you want, if you keep firing off takes like this, and doing the whole “smart teams are coming for Ntilikina” thing, people are going to know.

In all seriousness, if James Dolan/MSG/The New York Knicks had a history of operating in a manner that demonstrated the slightest bit of concern for marginalized people, perhaps they could be forgiven for not issuing a public statement right now.

This is the organization that is still paying all its employees despite them having no work because of the virus and which made significant contributions to charity for others affected by the virus. So I forgive them for not making a public statement.

If you want my take, I’d be glad to give to you in the next post

The hardest pass of all time.

RIP Wes Unseld

>The hardest pass of all time.<

You owe me and even the forum an apology you dickhead.

Don't ever accuse me or anyone else of saying something they didn't say on a forum like this.

stratomatic:
>The hardest pass of all time.<

You owe me and even the forum an apology you dickhead.

Don't ever accuse me or anyone else of saying something they didn't say on a forum like this.

I think you misunderstood him, friend. He just meant he didn’t want to hear your take.

Welcome back. Let’s not cause any strife about this. Not a time to stand out with contrarianism. This is one of those rare things where there is really just one take.

>I think you misunderstood him, friend.>

I know he didn’t want to hear my take.

Earlier in the thread someone else posted something he thought was a terrible take and he accused me of saying it via a different ID. That was not me. That was way out of line. If some asshole comes here some day and says some terrible things, how would you like it if I attributed those words to you and said it was your burner account or another ID. You’d rightfully be very pissed off at me. He owes me and the forum an apology.

You just want to hate on Dolan. You can’t admit he might have good points as well as bad points.

If some asshole comes here some day and says some terrible things, how would you like it if I attributed those words to you and said it was your burner account or another ID. You’d rightfully be very pissed off at me.

I feel you. While you were away, some asshole spent three days attributing all sorts of words I didn’t say to me.

But it does seem like you began posting under the Lockwood moniker. It’s understandable to think you might do it again.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m sure many are willing to accept that you’re not NativeNYer if you say so.

Don’t worry. Just because you are an asshole when you are young does not mean you will remain asshole your entire life. There’s plenty of time to outgrow it.

I plan to live my life in a way that leaves people like you thinking I am asshole

You just want to hate on Dolan. You can’t admit he might have good points as well as bad points.

Gonna substantively respond to the point that plenty of well-known racists have hired Black employees or nah?

“And racism isn’t an all or nothing proposal. Trump may hire Black people (Omarosa, Ben Carson, etc.) and still call peaceful Black protesters “thugs” ….”

Mike I understand this is your site but I have to call absolute Bullshit on you for this torturing of reason. Trump’s actual quote is below:

“These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” he tweeted. “Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

You would have to be the looniest of the loonies to read that statement and think Trump was calling “peaceful Protesters “THUGS”

The THUGS he was referring to were clearly the looters and the firebombers….. not the peaceful protesters. How on God’s green earth could peaceful protesters dishonor the memory of Mr. Floyd?

Trump says plenty of silly shit but it is not necessary to make shit up.

You want to be angry at someone…. try these two beauties out:

https://jonathanturley.org/2020/06/01/two-new-york-attorneys-arrested-for-throwing-molotov-cocktail-at-police/

That’s not the only time he’s used the words thugs in regard to protesters.

Just one of many examples: “The organized group of people, many of them thugs, who shut down our First Amendment rights in Chicago, have totally energized America!” -Trump, 2016

He said protesters should be roughed up at almost every campaign rally he had in the summer/fall of 2016. They weren’t looting. Their only crime was not supporting him.

We’re really gonna debate whether “thugs” is a dog whistle word? The fuck outta here with that.

I guess when you’re a dog, it just sounds like a regular whistle.

Sigh…
I..
Lookit..
I’ve got so much to say about the climate we’re in. It’s such an emotionally stressful time, that I often don’t say what I should when I should. But I will say this:

There are too many people lookin at the surface and either erroneously focusing on the surface, or not taking it seriously enough to give them a chance to see the underlying issues. Historically, we’ve been citizens, but not humans to the (for lack of a better phrase) powers that be. Our entire existence in America, we(and I mean people of African descent) have either been property, or a threat. Or at least that’s the way we’ve been handled. It hurts. Bad. As a black man, I really REALLY appreciate those of other races and in other countries protesting the atrocities that happen far too much in America. But what we need is not people standing alongside us protesting because American society hurts- disparate effect or not- blacks. It’s been going on for too long. What we need is help getting the people who dehumanize and demonize us to see the human as well as the color. We need the whites of this country to stand against America’s crimes against humanity. I mean, there are people who don’t even realize the pain caused by the bigoty they perpetuate because it’s been normalized. Society has been conditioned to be desensitized to it. It’s gonna be a helluva fight, but isn’t it worth it?

I know there are plenty of people who don’t agree with that POV, but the dialogue has to start somewhere adjacent at least. We have to have these painful conversations, ask the hard questions, and do the self reflection- because if we just stand by then we are all guilty by association.

I consider his hiring record suggestive of lack of racism, even if you don’t.

So I guess Donald Sterling is not a racist because he hired Elgin Baylor to run his franchise for 22 years.

““WeLL, aCcOrDiNg tO MeRrIam WeBsTer, ThUg iS dEfInEd aS…”

Hmmmmmm…. should I listen to the Webster dictionary or the dishonorable cock jowels…. tough question.

I mean JK said all you need to know. Bob is not going to acknowledge that “thug” is a loaded word, because the entire strategy behind using words like it as opposed to more on-the-nose racial terms revolves around people like Bob maintaining thinly plausible deniability.

***Is there as reasonable person who read Trump’s quote an actually thought he was calling peaceful protesters “THUGS” and not the looters and firebombers?***

What about these, Bob?

“The protesters in New Mexico were thugs who were flying the Mexican flag. The rally inside was big and beautiful, but outside, criminals!” -Donald Trump, on non-violent protesters

“We have a protester! By the way, were you paid $1,500 to be a thug?” -Donald Trump, on non-violent protesters

“The Mayor of San Jose did a terrible job of ordering the protection of innocent people. The thugs were lucky supporters remained peaceful!” -Donald Trump, on rewarding his supporters for not being violent to non-violent protesters

“Many of the thugs that attacked the peaceful Trump supporters in San Jose were illegals. They burned the American flag and laughed at police.” -Donald Trump, on protesters that violently laughed

***Is there as reasonable person who read Trump’s quote an actually thought he was calling peaceful protesters “THUGS” and not the looters and firebombers?***

What about these, Bob?

“The protesters in New Mexico were thugs who were flying the Mexican flag. The rally inside was big and beautiful, but outside, criminals!” -Donald Trump, on non-violent protesters

“We have a protester! By the way, were you paid $1,500 to be a thug?” -Donald Trump, on non-violent protesters

“The Mayor of San Jose did a terrible job of ordering the protection of innocent people. The thugs were lucky supporters remained peaceful!” -Donald Trump, on rewarding his supporters for not being violent to non-violent protesters

“Many of the thugs that attacked the peaceful Trump supporters in San Jose were illegals. They burned the American flag and laughed at police.” -Donald Trump, on non-violent protesters (that violently laughed?)

What we need is help getting the people who dehumanize and demonize us to see the human as well as the color.

sadly, i don’t think that is ever happening…people hate, just to hate…it’s a part of who they are…we need transparency and better oversight of our police forces…

two things that have really stuck with me the last few days has been Kareem’s characterization of racism:
“In his L.A. Times op-ed, Abdul-Jabbar described racism as like dust, barely visible, permeating the air.”

“Have you ever been in a room and you feel a little something itching in your nose?” he said. “There’s something in the air, a dust or pollen that you can’t see. But if you take a flashlight and shine it through the air, you see all these little dust motes in the air and little particles.

“Racism is like that. It’s ingrained in our society. And it’s taken for granted. And all of the things that are taken for granted can accumulate and be deadly on certain segments of the population. It comes down on the heads of poor people and people of color.”

and will smith’s quote:
“racism isn’t getting worse. It’s getting filmed.”

i don’t know, probably foolish optimism, but, hopefully this time – positive change will follow these recent tragic events…

Any word can become loaded if the media defines it as such and even if by its actual definition it’s not loaded.

Since “thug” (like “posse”) as defined by the media and SJWs are now loaded (even though technically they shouldn’t be), they are now loaded. That means you are better off not using them no matter what your intent. Even if your intent is to talk about criminal acts (thugs) or close friends (posse) it will be interpreted as racist. That defeats your effort to communicate clearly and opens you up to attack by your enemies. It was a dumb word to use. It should go on the long and growing list of words that used to mean something else but are now barred from use.

I don’t even want to respond to Bob as he’s just the worst sort of twisted apologist for what is a shit stain on our country, but Trump did not specifically call out the looters as thugs. As he has so often done since well before he took office, and throughout his term (remember Mexicans are rapists?) he paints a broad swath of people with the most foul sort of racist trope. It’s what he does, over and over. For people to try and defend it (oh no, he meant just the rapist Mexicans!) is the most base kind of hypocrisy.

“Sure…. does the President of the United States have the right to move at his convenience from point A to point B in Washington, DC ….. hmmmmmm that a tough one….. I would say yes.

Did the authorities ask the protesters to move and they refused, or did the authorities come out with guns blazing just for shits and giggles. If it is the later they would be wrong…… if it was the former then they got what they deserved.

If the secret service tells people to move 200 meters to the right so the President can safely pass and they refuse, well….. then they are going to move you whether you like it or not.

So this is the big injustice…. the secret service/DC police moving a crowd so the President can pass….. but not uncontrolled looting and firebombing nation wide….. you fellas are’t the least bit concerned about that????”

I would guess the conversation inside the White House went something like this:

“Mr. President, maybe we should postpone the photo op, there’s a ton of protestors out there and we could just do it another time”

Trump: ” Hell no, do you know they’re making fun of me for holing up in a bunker? Fuck the protesters, do what it takes to get them off the street. No one tells me what to do!”

“(sigh) whatever you say Mr. President”

“I don’t even want to respond to Bob as he’s just the worst sort of twisted apologist for what is a shit stain on our country, but Trump did not specifically call out the looters as thugs.”

You wanna know what hypocrisy is? Try advocating nullifying Federal Law for years and then being surprised when a large swath of the populace believes it can disregard ANY law it cares to and you end up with anarchy.

The chickens have come home to roost to quote one of my favorite philosophers….. enjoy your city……

My 2 cents is the following:
1- Everyone should be appalled at what happened to George Floyd
2- The way the police is recruited, trained, managed, and overseen needs overhaul
3- Most cops are probably (yes, I said probably) good, decent, or not bad people.
4- Trump is not a good man.
5- The response to the killing should be different. Peaceful protests are fine. I don’t care if people go down to wall street and lay down to keep the economy from running, they deserve to. But this video I literally just got of a forklift tearing down a Target? DC on fire? Rodeo Drive broken? Peaceful citizens hurt? Cops killed? Macy’s and the rest of NYC looted? No cops in sight in NYC, probably because they don’t want to risk their lives and careers for a public that hates them? So-
6. There should absolutely be policing going on right now. Looters, rioters, anarchists, people who want to assault and beat people who are defending their lives and property should be found, arrested, and prosecuted.

We do live in a country of law and order, despite whatever twitch that causes you to feel. And I work in the most inner of inner city areas in Brooklyn- I am scared to go to work, and I haven’t seen any cops near my hospital for a couple of days now, which is weird.

I agree with every word of this message…..

Seems like a lot of the looting in Los Angeles at least is being done by coordinated and organized groups. There’s a stew of legit protestors, agitators, anarchists and regular old thieves out there on the streets. Presumably from across the ideological spectrum.

This is what happens though when cops fuck up over and over again and nobody ever gets held accountable. Eventually you spark a revolt that’s too big to contain and opportunists take advantage. Maybe try not being murderous power-abusing cunts for a period of time and see how that goes, and you won’t create opportunities for people to loot the Target.

“I would guess the conversation inside the White House went something like this:

“Mr. President, maybe we should postpone the photo op, there’s a ton of protestors out there and we could just do it another time”

Trump: ” Hell no, do you know they’re making fun of me for holing up in a bunker? Fuck the protesters, do what it takes to get them off the street. No one tells me what to do!”

“(sigh) whatever you say Mr. President”

So you are saying the President of the United States doesn’t have the right to move around the capital whenever he pleases? Duly noted. Or maybe he SHOULD kowtow to protesters? Sorry I don’t agree.

Dolan’s hiring of black people is based on a psychological urge I’ve already taken a stab at explaining and that urge is premised on their status as black people. I’ll leave it to others to decide whether that’s racist.

The killing of George Floyd was awful and the story of him calling for his mother when he realized his doom and his fate was heartbreaking. It’s another in a long line that soil the country’s history and are properly and honorably protested.

Beyond that, the events and the actions following the murder, and their meaning, are too complicated to distill into a format suitable for internet message boards and social media, and those forms and the critical methods they foster are insufficient to the task of analysis, so I won’t bother. I will say that those communications vehicles are meant to do something other than analyze and deliberate and to foster analysis and deliberation. Keep in mind that there are very valuable businesses — extremely valuable businesses — who make their money from stoking perpetual outrage, hitting our brains with drug-like tidbits that tap into the outrage chambers, and that favor the loud, the quick, and the obnoxious. Those businesses have become a clear and present danger to the country.

So you are saying the President of the United States doesn’t have the right to move around the capital whenever he pleases? Duly noted. Or maybe he SHOULD kowtow to protesters? Sorry I don’t agree.

Shocking as it may seem, there are people who wish the President had any ability whatsoever to consider the fates of people who aren’t himself.

Anyway, I’m sure you would feel the exact same way if President Obama forcefully dispersed a Tea Party protest because he wanted a picture taken. 100%. For sure. Just ruthless consistency from people like you.

“If I’m understanding this discharge of Fox News Brain correctly, there are protesters acting badly because of New York City’s policy regarding local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities.”

No Vizzini…. the protesters (actual legitimate protesters) aren’t acting badly for the most part…. the THUGS are acting badly as expected. THUGS being defined as violent people especially criminals.

Legitimate protesters don’t burn down storefronts and firebomb police…. Thugs do…. capisce?

It’s not really hard …. even for a lawyer.

I wonder how much all this gathering and rioting is going to impact Covid-19 cases and deaths.

The sad irony is that more people might die from complications related to extra Covid cases as a result this than from burnt out, badly trained, and racist cops over the next few years.

I don’t like you because you seem to be really preoccupied with making sure nobody says anything bad about white people. The fact that you’re so offended by the 1619 project says a lot about you. Your comments today fit right in with that. We get it, WHITE PEOPLE JUST HAVE IT SO ROUGH.

Thanks for your work at the hospitals but your takes are lame.

“Anyway, I’m sure you would feel the exact same way if President Obama forcefully dispersed a Tea Party protest because he wanted a picture taken. 100%. For sure. Just ruthless consistency from people like you.”

This is so where you suffer from epic cluelessness. With the exception of the tax code, I try to follow the law as best I can. If President Obama was trying to go from point A to Point B for whatever reason and the secret service told a crowd of Tea Party people to move, they had best fucking move tout de suite.

Unlike you, I believe in the law. That doesn’t mean I agree with every one on the books, but individuals don’t get to pick and choose. Once that process begins it necessarily ends up in anarchy and a shit storm. There is a legislative remedy for such things and work to elect people who agree with your POV.

Democracy can’t function without the consent of the governed.

yeah, it’s going to be hard to ever forget the year 2020…hopefully it brings change for the better…i know i need to pay a lot closer attention to the people and measures on these ballots…

Sorry, had to rant, and scream. My sincere apologies. Needed an outlet. My mask is really painful too, it’s been a long time, my patients seem to be acutely aware of my whiteness, and I hate everything about everything in the last 3.5 months

i can feel what you are saying…pretty hard to see the whole forest when you’re busy trying to save one tree at a time…sometimes just taking it one day at a time doesn’t even work…keep yourself healthy and strong bandit…

i know we’re accountable for our thoughts and words…personally, i think a person’s actions are much more telling of their nature…

Twitter, Facebook, blah blah, ignorant takes are ignorant, period. I’m not really in the mood to be polite to “this country wasn’t built on slavery” white fragility bullshit today, and probably not ever again. Calling out that bullshit forcefully is important.

The country was not founded on racism. Racism existed at its founding, and it made the hideously poor decision to compromise with the slave states, but it was not founded on racism.

After its founding, racism continued to exist, including in its state-sponsored form in the same states with whom the founders shouldn’t have compromised and those decisions are still with us, and there are still racists and racist policemen to this day.

But the country wasn’t founded on racism. We probably couldn’t have even gotten this much of the racism out of it — most, but not all — if not for the institutions and principles on which it was actually founded.

Why don’t you go ahead and google “lynching of black Americans” and tell me how many of those gatherings were organized through social media platforms?

If they’d had social media back then, the lynchings would have been far more prevalent. Probably would have wound up in flat-out genocide. Social media is a tool that would have enhanced those attitudes and made the lynchings even easier to organize. (*) Every time a black guy looked the wrong way at a white woman, it would have been posted to Twitter. Lies about it happening would have been posted to Twitter. What would have happened after that is obvious.

But more to the point I was making, this exchange is yet another example. I wrote something, you used it as a jumping-off point to chide me for, instead, not expressing outrage about something unrelated to my point.

(*) Just as Twitter is making it easier to organize looting locales.

stratomatic: I wonder how much all this gathering and rioting is going to impact Covid-19 cases and deaths.

Yeah, well, Stay At Home isn’t trending anymore so now it’s ok to ignore Dr Fauci, the CDC, and the imperial college report that said 2,000,000 people will die if we don’t avoid mass gatherings.

this is learned behavior, behavior we have been conditioned to engage in by companies like Twitter and Facebook who have made billions of dollars from the behavior in which they have conditioned us and encouraged us to engage. This is not our natural state; this is our induced state. We are the rats scientists experiment on, like the ones they give the cocaine clicker to by way of seeing how bad the addiction can get. The results of the experiment are now clear. We cannot continue to function if this process of perpetual inducement continues as it is today. I have no idea how to change this, beyond things like banning Twitter and Facebook, which can’t be done. But we are in just a terrible place now and the reasons are pretty clear.

i missed your words E, glad to see you back…i disagree though about adversarial engagement not being a part of who we are as a species…i think it is definitely a part of our core…shit, just pick any random day of the year and read our posts…it’s in our nature to fight and compete…it’s so sad that so little has changed since rodney king and ’91…

the trick is, how do we transcend…how do we develop systems that protect us from what we are…

genocide and slavery is still alive and well in the world today – and hell, most of that ain’t even about the color of someone’s skin…

The country was not founded on racism.

So the condition that black people could be kept as slaves, by threat of violence, was not racist.

So the condition that black people could not vote until 1868 was not racist.

So the condition that black people could not testify in a court of law until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment was not racist.

So the use of law enforcement and militia groups to seize black bodies and trade or transport them to white owners, even after the abolition of slavery, was not racist.

Got it.

They were racist, but they weren’t the principles on which the country was founded. The country wasn’t founded so that black people couldn’t vote anymore than it was founded so that women couldn’t vote or that people under 21 couldn’t vote. Those were things present at the founding, but were not the reasons for the founding.

Another example where you’re inviting me to be outraged about those things, and I’m happy to agree they’re outrageous, but I’m making an actual point unrelated to the expression of outrage. I’m outraged about slavery, I’m outraged about Jim Crow, I’m outraged by a lot of things in our history, but I’m making a different point. My outrage doesn’t make true things false, or false things true. They’re different things.

EDIT: I’m outraged about Roger Taney’s infamous Dred Scott decision ….

This thread is like a textbook example of white fragility, the inability of some white folks to confront the issue of racism.

I don’t really know how you fix anything when you have otherwise intelligent people who are making the argument “this country wasn’t founded on racism” with a straight face. It’s 2020 and the country is on fire and this kind of attitude is a serious problem.

This is why I didn’t really want to engage on the substance, for the reasons I laid out in my initial posts, and it was a mistake for me to dip my toes in. I’m done. Carry on with the outrage, I’ll hang up and listen.

Wow. Ok I’m out. I’m so out.

Wow. Ok I’m out. I’m so out.

Because you’re acknowledging that your opinion is historically inaccurate, or because you think this is an opinion you’re entitled to carry as though it were based on fact?

I will say that I did enjoy expressing a socio-cultural hypothesis about our times and modern media and then seeing it case-study proven to a virtual “T” within like half an hour. Unexpected, but nice. Leads me to think it’s not too far off.

Do you think we’re not familiar with the term “troll?”

Then stop being a racist who creates fictitious histories of America.

Do you think we’re not familiar with the term “troll?”

“Unexpected.”

Because you’re acknowledging that your opinion is historically inaccurate, or because you think this is an opinion you’re entitled to carry as though it were based on fact?

No… because I was called a racist too many times for daring to have a different opinion than you.

because you think this is an opinion you’re entitled to carry as though it were based on fact?

a different opinion than you

an opinion you’re entitled to

opinion

How about this opinion? The sun is an enormous radiant space heater (made in America, by a shadowy shell company funded by the CIA) placed in the sky 30 years ago after the original one died, located approximately 3,000 feet above the flat earth that was created 6,000 years ago by the sun god RZA. And birds are robots planted by the Chinese government to spy on us.

Respect my opinion.

Not founded on racism?

Got talk to a few Native Americans on a reservation…see what they have to tell you…..

The Floyd case will get its day in court

Do the courts serve justice equally and impartially?

To me the very fact that this discussion is about race when 1 cop was white, 1 Asian, and 2 either Latino or some combination of black/brown (not sure) and they all participated in kneeling on him and all looked the other way when it got extreme shows how screwed up people are.

This particular case had very little to do with his race. It had to do with poorly trained, angry, power hungry, burnt out cops abusing their position on a man that happened to be black.

The same shit happens to whites, Asians, Hispanics, Middle Eastern etc.. in every combination possible. The data controlled for demographics and crime in the area is out there.

That racism is sometimes part of it is unquestioned by anyone! But the very premise of the debate today is wrong and so are the protests, violence, and looting unless you are protesting the very general poor policing problem we have in the US because this case was not about race.

This particular case had very little to do with his race.

Hahahah, this is some real Boomer shit.

See, I don’t get it. “This site is awesome”, except that it’s political views “fuck up an otherwise great site”?

The site is an opinion site generated entirely by the community. There aren’t even original pieces written for it anymore. It is nothing but posters posting their opinion.

And we are educated, and intelligent, and, more often than not, right about basketball and the Knicks. But none of us are professional basketball pundits. So what’s the point of telling us to “stay in our lane”, or “stick to basketball”. Many of us are experts in diverse fields. Why shouldn’t we come together and discuss things unrelated to basketball? And when we do, it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine we are going to agree. Stupid basketball moves get shit on here, stupid governmental moves get shit on here. People with opinions that are valid are celebrated, and people with opinions that are base, oblivious, and are wrought with hypocrisy are dismissed.

There aren’t even original pieces written for it anymore.

you leave Farfa alone, you swine

JK47:
This thread is like a textbook example of white fragility, the inability of some white folks to confront the issue of racism.

I don’t really know how you fix anything when you have otherwise intelligent people who are making the argument “this country wasn’t founded on racism” with a straight face. It’s 2020 and the country is on fire and this kind of attitude is a serious problem.

Exasperating right? Now imagine if you were black.

““We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Written by a man who owned slaves.”

OK…. it all sux because it was written by old racist white guys on dead animal skins. Got it.

The Founders were also the GOAT of political theorists. They were of their time and imperfect. America paid its dues in blood 1861-5 and it took another 100 years for a semblance of justice to prevail. Everyone acknolowedges this.

Look, the colonies were established

“I can at least respect bobneptune at some level because he doesn’t cry about it when somebody challenges his dumb ass opinions.”

That is simply because I never hold any dumb assed opinions…..

I must admit I do enjoy a nice verbal joust. But really some of you fellas need to “tape an aspirin” to it and stop sniveling under assault .

But it has a distinct political bent – this part is fine- but is completely intolerant of other people’s opinions.

Broken record, but that intolerance is a direct result of Twitter and social media. It’s a little more subtle than old-school intolerance, though; a big part of it is the manner of how one gets attention on Twitter. Coin of the realm on Twitter, et al. isn’t to debate; it’s to self-validate through the very act of expression.

It’s a little weird, right? We’re not really debating here in any true sense. We’re talking and we’re a group, but it’s more like we’re talking with each other than to each other. But the real coin of the realm is self-validation — “I’m outraged.” To the extent there’s any debating, it isn’t over substance but instead about why the “other side” isn’t also outraged. Even if you agree — “Yes, I’m outraged” — it still isn’t enough. You must accept every iteration of the ever-growing outrage, in precisely the form in which it’s expressed. Anything else is unsatisfactory.

I have to go to a meeting so this might not work, but there’s probably some valid analogy with a bunch of kids hanging out together but all independently looking at their phones that illuminates all this.

“Stop moving goalposts.

He didn’t say is all sux… The point mentioned in this case is that racism has been embedded in America since its founding. If that’s not the point you’re arguing (for or against), what exactly are you railing against?”

I wasn’t responding to you ego boy…. I was making a general statement in response to Donnie Walsh

Broken record, but that intolerance is a direct result of Twitter and social media. It’s a little more subtle than old-school intolerance, though; a big part of it is the manner of how one gets attention on Twitter. Coin of the realm on Twitter, et al. isn’t to debate; it’s to self-validate through the very act of expression.

Can you cite an example of “intolerance” in this thread? Because someone (e.g. bobneptune or Strat) saying something, and then having it responded to with factual information as to why it’s false is not “intolerance.”

It all has to be controlled for crime in the area and race of cops to understand when it’s race and when it’s not.

Yeah, you see, when an unarmed Black person is murdered by cops, it’s actually okay if other Black people, unbeknownst to the murder victim, may have committed crimes in the general vicinity.

This is the kind of nuance you can only learn through watching a lot of horse racing!

Generally though, white people (especially in the media) don’t care much if some redneck with a few missing teeth, illegal guns, and a bourbon still in his backyard gave some troopers a tough time and they knocked the rest of teeth out.

You know what, Strat? I’mma try hard to be nice to you here.

A man got a knee put to his neck for nine minutes, he begged for his life and cried out for his momma and they kept the knee on him for three full minutes after he stopped crying out and it was tragic and awful and a clear example of how police simply do not value the lives of people of color. He was subdued and posed no threat and they (yes THEY) had no regard for his safety. He died a painful and agonizing death. This apparently doesn’t mean shit to you, and you’re content to piss on his grave by telling us his race had nothing to do with it. I’m embarrassed for you. You are absolutely humiliating yourself on this thread and you should stop.

So don’t tell me about the hypothetical redneck getting his teeth knocked out and the hypocrite libs not caring about it. That is an affront to decency. An actual man died in a horrific and brutal way. Nobody gives a fuck about your idiotic hypothetical situation. Show some fucking respect. You’re better than this.

Generally though, white people (especially in the media) don’t care much if some redneck with a few missing teeth, illegal guns, and a bourbon still in his backyard gave some troopers a tough time and they knocked the rest of teeth out. They don’t even care if the police dumped his body in a ditch or shot him in the back when he started to run. White liberals hate that guy. Pretty much no one cares about that guy at all. His own family probably thinks he was an asshole and deserved it. lol

Talking out yer ass again Strat. Look up the Daniel Shaver shooting. Many of the people who called for the cops to be held accountable for his murder are the same people who want the cops to be held accountable for Floyd’s murder (full disclosure: I’m one of them). ‘White liberals’ also made a big deal about cops murdering Kelly Thomas and a bunch of other white people. This shit was all widely reported in the media.

Get it together man.

>>How come it’s never a white guy getting choked out on the street, begging for his life, crying for his momma and desperately crying “I can’t breathe?”>>>

I do know of four friends of mine who were beaten by TA police on a platform at Penn Station and then were taken into a holding cell in Penn Station and beaten with night sticks while handcuffed to a pipe defenseless til they needed 5 days in the hospital. Then they found they were charged with assaulting the TA cops.

Interestingly and coincidentally enough both cameras on the platform and in the holding cell “malfunctioned” that day. Imagine that!

I know because I had to loan one of the guys $10,000 to hire Marvin Kornberg (a friend from the horse business) to pick up the phone to keep him out of jail.

I do know of four friends of mine who were beaten by TA police on a platform at Penn Station and then were taken into a holding cell in Penn Station and beaten with night sticks while handcuffed to a pipe defenseless til they needed 5 days in the hospital. Then they found they were charged with assaulting the TA cops.

That’s horrible, and another data point to suggest that way too many cops are violent pieces of corrupt shit, and the whole system needs massive reform.

How many of them died of asphyxiation while begging for their lives? Right on camera, with a crowd of bystanders watching? Lemme guess, none?

TNFH,

I consider the personal insults and ad hominem attacks to be intolerant. They are all too common recently.

Strat, you are assuming that because someone is not white that they can’t be racist towards other non-whites. That isn’t the case at all.

“That’s horrible, and another data point to suggest that way too many cops are violent pieces of corrupt shit, and the whole system needs massive reform.”

Anyone who violates the law needs to receive swift and sure justice. Assuming they are guilty giving long jail terms will give the next guy pause. Guys who have multiple complaints (legitimate) should be fired before that can snap.

The police departments/unions need to be serious about this sort of stuff.

Z, you are putting words in my mouth that I didn’t say. I did say that I didn’t take Dolan’s letter as evidence he was racist. I also said that he hired an all black front office and that unless there was evidence other than the letter that he is racist, I personally doubt he is.

I don’t doubt most slave owners were racist no matter who they used as an overseer, because the old south was clearly a racist culture.

Never responded to my question about Donald Sterling. Was he a racist? Elgin Baylor was his sole GM for 22 years.

Oh no Strat, that’s gonna do some damage…

That’s horrible, and another data point to suggest that way too many cops are violent pieces of corrupt shit, and the whole system needs massive reform.

Exactly this — the whole system needs major reform. There were red flags galore about this shithead, and his right to carry a gun and police society with force should have been taken away years ago. It’s inexplicable that it wasn’t. Start there.

There really should be a zero-tolerance policy for any misplaced violence by a cop. One time, you lose your gun. You can maybe stay in your job, but you’re right to use gun and force against a citizen is gone for good. Then add something like yearly psych tests administered by a honestly-unbiased administrator and if things aren’t up to snuff on that, no more gun and force.

bobneptune
June 2, 2020 at 4:42 pm
“That’s horrible, and another data point to suggest that way too many cops are violent pieces of corrupt shit, and the whole system needs massive reform.”
Anyone who violates the law needs to receive swift and sure justice. Assuming they are guilty giving long jail terms will give the next guy pause. Guys who have multiple complaints (legitimate) should be fired before that can snap.

*

This is true, and something we can agree on, but first there needs to be trust from the people that the law is going to be enforced equally, and justice is going to be executed blindly.

And that can’t happen until we have an economic and political system that creates at least a pathway toward an equality of conditions.

It’s so easy for older white men to say “I believe in the rule of law, and if you break the law you should get swift punishment”. But in reality, blacks make up 14% of the US population, but 34% of the US prison population. If you see the discrepancy as being unjust, then stop with the “anyone who violates the law needs to receive swift and sure justice” talk. And, If you don’t see the discrepancy as being unjust, and you think blacks are 250% more criminal than non-blacks, then you are a racist.

bobneptune
June 2, 2020 at 4:42 pm
“That’s horrible, and another data point to suggest that way too many cops are violent pieces of corrupt shit, and the whole system needs massive reform.”
Anyone who violates the law needs to receive swift and sure justice. Assuming they are guilty giving long jail terms will give the next guy pause. Guys who have multiple complaints (legitimate) should be fired before that can snap.

*

This is true, and something we can agree on, but first there needs to be trust from the people that the law is going to be enforced equally, and justice is going to be executed blindly.

And that can’t happen until we have an economic and political system that creates at least a pathway toward an equality of conditions.

It’s so easy for older white men to say “I believe in the rule of law, and if you break the law you should get swift punishment”. But in reality, blacks make up 14% of the US population, but 34% of the US prison population. If you see the discrepancy as being unjust, then stop with the “anyone who violates the law needs to receive swift and sure justice” talk. And, If you don’t see the discrepancy as being unjust, and you think blacks are 250% more likely to violate the law simply because they are black, then you are a racist.

Brian,

If you can check the IP address or anything else to verify that please do. It will prove that I am telling the truth.

On my mother’s life “Native NYer” was not me and I am pissed off at thenoblefacehumper because I think he’s a know nothing prick that was attacking me for someone else’s post. And to be honest I’m not so thrilled that you are saying the same thing even though it’s not true.

Strat’s reactions to things:

-Watching a man slowly get asphyxiated to death by those sworn to serve and protect him: well you see, it’s very complicated. You need to look at crime rates in the area.

-Getting incorrectly accused of making a post on a New York Knicks based internet forum: MOTHERFUCKER I AM COMING FOR YOUR THROAT.

But does anybody believe for one fucking second that the situation would have played out that way if I wasn’t a dorky white guy in Buddy Holly glasses? Is there any doubt to any of you that I would have had my ass hauled off to the dungeon in a rather unfriendly manner if I happened to be black?

This is WHITE PRIVILEGE.

It had a better chance of being class privilege.(*)

I mean, let’s face it, if George Floyd had committed his financial crime through something like insider trading in his job as a Goldman analyst, he would have been allowed to surrender himself and quietly booked at the station. That’s the way upper-middle and upper class people rip people off and they rip off way more than $20.

Mr. Floyd ripped his guy off the way lower-middle and lower class people rip people off, and therein lies the main difference.

The racist part is that black people don’t have the same pathways to the classes that surrender themselves when they rip people off, instead of being pursued and cuffed on the street and thrown in the cop car. They have some pathways, but not as many and not all the same types.

America is a massively classist society, and it’s gotten much more so. There’s a stupid, pernicious, status-quo-reinforcing myth that we’re a classless society — a howler for the ages — and this myth gets in the way of fully accurate social/cultural analysis.

(*) And class, not whiteness, is what your invocation of dorkiness and Holly glasses was really aimed at. Those are class signifiers, not race signifiers.

Donnie Walsh: The first line of our first national document was:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Written by a man who owned slaves.

He was writing about white people, and only white people. It couldn’t be more clear.

This is the old “Intentional Fallacy”, written by Wimsatt and Beardsley. We used to have these argument’s all the time in college. It essentially states that the author’s intent is irrelevant, all that matters is the text.

The principle is not racist. The people who wrote it were, as were the people who wrote its laws.

So, founded with racism? Absolutely. And it creeped into every institution and we’ve needed to fix that over the course of our history.

But founded on racism? It’s not in the text.

It’s a little weird, right? We’re not really debating here in any true sense. We’re talking and we’re a group, but it’s more like we’re talking with each other than to each other. But the real coin of the realm is self-validation

i have an inherent weakness towards your particular brand of cynicism, you raise some really interesting points on the influence and effect social media is having on us…but, yeah, the answer as to why we engage: to commiserate and self-validate…

ugh strat – how old are you sir – who gives a fuck what any of us think…you got sixty something years of living…outside of family and friends, who gives a fuck what anyone says or thinks…the true end game (outside of “legacy” i guess): ashes to ashes (funk to funky) and all – but, it is not in your health’s best interest to engage on this level…

wet bandit was a little late getting there, but, he got it right: fuck everyone…once you have that established – then you can cautiously let others in…

i know you got shit to say and share…just fire away and find cover, stop standing up in your foxhole…

stop empowering others to hurt you…say what you think and feel, and, let it go…

i think your stress, makes me stress – so, stop stressing strat 🙂

We turned cops into heroes after 9/11, in part because they committed great acts of heroism and sacrifice, but it’s boomeranged out of control. Maybe this will be, finally, the pushback that changes things. I for one am long tired of turning every cop and every soldier into some kind of fucking hero and for police forces and the military branches to be the constant source of celebration. That stuff clearly fundamentally changed police attitudes.

>Also, do you know how a lot of neighborhoods, demographics and economic opportunities in a city were created? There was a whole institution of racist practices that prevented black people from getting loans at the same rates as whites. Redlining is not a myth and the impact of decades and decades of such policies can not be understated. Because the downstream effects of such practices are extremely damaging.<

I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of racism in this country where other people are arguing. I already know how racist this country was and still is.

I am saying 2 simple things.

1. When you control for crime statistics and demographics (most important crime statistics because that's where most stats studies on the subject fail) you'll find that racism in the police force is less frequent than the perception. There are loads of bad cops for sure, but they come in all colors and so do their victims. Whatever the actual racism component of it is, it's a lot lower than the perception.

2. In this case, it's hard to demonstrate racism even though the victim was black because of the ethnic and racial makeup of the 4 cops. Also, to my knowledge no words were used to indicate race was a factor. What's at work is a bias towards thinking it was racism because of the perception about cops in general. These were very bad cops, but not necessarily racist cops.

>Not true! If you were to say something like “systemic racism is a major problem in America” or “Austrian economics is a bunch of empirically falsified bullshit” or “Phil Jackson was a bad NBA executive” I would back you up wholeheartedly.<

Bullshit.

You come here looking through my posts trying to find things to attack me for because you are an ass (and a know nothing ass on top of that). You made that clear earlier today.

And you are wrong on 2 of 3 of those things.

the older i get, the less i like being around people – thank god though for all those people out there today doing what’s right…gathering with others to do the work that needs to be done…

shit, i’m just sitting here watching it on tv…getting ready to go to work, thinking about my next meal, worrying about my family…thank god for those whom have the will to take action…

the next ballot i fill out, i’ll try to do a much better time of giving it the effort and focus it truly deserves…

2. In this case, it’s hard to demonstrate racism even though the victim was black because of the ethnic and racial makeup of the 4 cops. Also, to my knowledge no words were used to indicate race was a factor. What’s at work is a bias towards thinking it was racism because of the perception about cops in general. These were very bad cops, but not necessarily racist cops.

Gotta say, this is a good point. No one does anything racist without declaring “I am hereby carrying out this action due to my racism.”

Sorry, Strat, you’re even wrong about this. Data are plural.

And if you’re wrong about this, then maybe… maybe… ah, never mind.

Also, to my knowledge no words were used to indicate race was a factor. What’s at work is a bias towards thinking it was racism because of the perception about cops in general.

OMGGGGGG

I mean the lack of empathy here is really just astounding. It honestly blows my fucking mind that this is the SECOND “I can’t breathe” incident in recent memory, the SECOND time a black man has begged for his life while being slowly choked to death by a white cop and we’re going with “maybe it wasn’t racism” and pretending that’s a valid viewpoint to have.

THIS IS WHY THE SHIT DOES NOT GET SOLVED. This was a fucking outrage. This DOES NOT HAPPEN TO WHITE PEOPLE. There is no white Eric Garner, no white George Floyd begging to be allowed to take a breath while the camera rolls and instead being slowly and painfully asphyxiated.

It’s just completely fucking ghoulish to me to suggest that racism was not involved here. I can’t wrap my head around it. I’m stunned.

By the way, if you want to argue that non white cops are also biased against black men, that could be true. But that’s obviously a somewhat different thing that the standard white against black racism we are talking about. It’s more likely the result of PTSD and other stress factors and experiences related to their job that all cops go through. The stress of being a cop has to be pretty tough over time. Regular mental health checks and a willingness to take cops off the street when they are burnt out has to be part of the solution even after better recruiting.

Go Pete Alonso!

Sorry, Strat, you’re even wrong about this. Data are plural.

Is it technically correct to use “was” if he were using the (rapidly-becoming-archaic) subjunctive, though?

JK47,

You aren’t thinking clearly.

I can feel disgusted by what I was saw and think it was horrific and still conclude there isn’t any evidence it was motivated by race. If the main guy was clearly a racist, his partners would surely know that of him and have done something to stop him during the incident. Yet at least 2 others actively participated in kneeling on Floyd also (it’s on video) and neither of of them was white. So that means we are assuming 4 cops of 4 different ethnic backgrounds (one I believe is at least partially black) are all racist against black males even though they never said or did anything else to indicate race was a motivating factor (I guess it’s possible). More likely we are dealing with 4 bad power crazed, stressed out, poorly trained, irresponsible bad cops.

I would be mildly surprised if “hate crime” was added to the list of charges and very surprised if they were convicted when there is no indication of that. They will all go away for murder, manslaughter, or lesser crimes depending on their individual involvement.

>Is it technically correct to use “was” if he were using the (rapidly-becoming-archaic) subjunctive, though?<

OK, at least we are getting a little lighter now. 🙂

My writing skills were never my strong suit. It's a clear limitation. The way you express yourself is sometimes more important than the case you make.

Donnie Walsh: “I am the least racist person you’ll ever meet,” Trump said, pointing to Don King, in the crowd at his rally, for validation.

So, per the “all that matters is text, author’s intention should be ignored” fallacy, Donald Trump is, literally, the least racist person I’ll ever meet?

I don’t think there is a principle that suggests all words uttered are true.

Donnie Walsh: The founding documents are clear. They said “all men are created equal, endowed by the creator with inalienable human rights like liberty”, but they didn’t really mean all men. That doesn’t mean we need to throw them away. It means we need to acknowledge where they were wrong, and work toward fixing it, so that we can become a more perfect union.

I agree with all this.

That doesn’t mean the country was founded ON racism. It just means racism was prevalent at the time of its founding, and it was practiced by those who founded it, and racist intentions are ingrained in the institutions that we developed and need to be weeded out.

It may seem semantic, but it’s a point of pride that the principles themselves speak something that is not racist at all. It’s a very forward thinking set of principles that, like you said, we’ve been working 245 years on actualizing.

Most countries ARE founded on racism. The whole point of France was that their tribe is different and better than the neighboring tribe. We’re founded on ideals that went beyond the racism of the era and laid the groundwork for progress to be made.

After the protests, violence, and looting finally ends and these cops get prosecuted, imo a LOT of people are going to consider looking for a safer place to live and/or to restart their business. Given that some of the hardest hit areas are already in need of investment and help, that’s going to leave the remaining people in even worse shape than they are now and add to the very problems we want to correct.

I’m already having that conversation with my girlfriend.

We’ve been thinking about getting a larger place together. The idea was to stay in the same general area. Now she’s talking about moving upstate or getting a 2nd home further away so we can leave during pandemics, race riots, and other disasters in the city.

Why would anyone want to live or invest in a business in a higher risk area when it can all be taken away in a moment?

The next flight out of the cities is going to start once the pandemic and these other issues settle down.

You aren’t thinking clearly.

I can feel disgusted by what I was saw and think it was horrific and still conclude there isn’t any evidence it was motivated by race.

Holy shit, these two sentences side by side are pure gold. The irony! The fucking irony!

Despite the infighting, both extremes in this argument acknowledge some core premises here:

George Floyd was heinously murdered, and there is a tragically long and well-documented history of police brutality in the United States, especially of its most marginalized people. There is an equally long and well-documented history of failings by the justice system to prosecute and convict officers guilty of said brutality.

Also givens:
A system that consistently produces outcomes like this is clearly dysfunctional, reform is crucial ASAFP, and protests that serve to expedite said reform are good thing (with masks, personal space, etc. sufficient to minimize public health/pandemic hazard). Firebombing and wanton violence are not.

Lots of the disagreement is to what degree the failings of the police and justice systems are attributable to racism. I’m an extraordinarily privileged and light skinned dude. My role in “the conversation” doesn’t extend beyond the scope of personal condemnation and the little political capital I can marshal. But I (and anyone else who’s ever spent a day in his life running regressions) know how control variables work. And Strat, this “data control” drum you’ve been beating doesn’t the have the resonant timbre you think it does.

The raw numbers are very clear: POC are disproportionately affected by the police and justice systems, in terms of both legal enforcement and flagrant excesses. An underlying control variable for crime would be useful only if it also accounted for income inequality, an extremely well documented confounding variable. If not, the study, at best would shift the implied causality from:
(a) direct personal racism of the murderers with badges involved, to
(b) hundreds of years of woefully persistent political and economic disenfranchisement.

Either way, institutionalized racism would be a contributing factor. Whether the blame lies directly with the perpetrators or indirectly with a shitty…

To me, the single most chilling detail of the Floyd video was Chauvin’s body language as he dug his knee into Floyd’s windpipe for nine agonizing minutes. The officer did not appear to be under any real duress or in the throes of some “heat of the moment” adrenaline rush. Rather, he just sat there, cool as can be, hands in pockets, as if he were some bored clock-puncher whiling through another day on the job en route to the end of his shift. Real banality of evil shit.

I have no idea what makes Derrick Chauvin tick. I have not read the specifics the 16 previous excessive force complaints against him. I don’t know what was in his head at that moment. Whether he was thinking about the stories he’d tell the fellas at the next Boogaloo Bois meetup, his inability to satisfy his wife, or his decimated 401K while he sat blandly crushing the life out of George Floyd, I couldn’t say. But he KNEW there was a host of bystanders witnessing his actions; he KNEW he was likely being filmed and yet he appeared utterly unfazed by that knowledge. As if he also KNEW that no matter what the outcome, he and his partners would likely face minimal consequences for it.

Now that’s racism. Chauvin may not have been feeling a white hot burning hatred for the Other at that moment. Although that’s how racism is commonly portrayed in the movies and on TV, it’s not the only kind. There’s also the kind that allows a police officer to coolly choke the life out of a man, ignore that man’s anguished pleas for relief, all while witnesses are standing by. Would Chauvin have behaved in a like manner had Floyd been a white man? If the answer to that is “no,” then QED

The only fucking way you can take a knee to someone’s neck for minutes until that person dies is if you have a perception that that person is less human than you. That can come in many flavors, the person can be perceived as less human because it’s a trans person, a LGBT person, a black person, just a white “communist”, a woman, a jew, a lot of things. Floyd was a black guy, which put him into the position to be dehumanized, so that’s why the conversation is shifting towards racism. It’s a system that organizes death and hits the most vulnerable people at insanely high rates. If you can’t see racism, you’re a racist, it’s simple.

>Gotta say, this is a good point. No one does anything racist without declaring “I am hereby carrying out this action due to my racism.”<

Your point is well taken, but generally in hate crime cases there actually has to be some evidence that race was a motivating factor. There's nothing like that here yet. As of now it's a vile act with an assumption of racism by some people because that's the way they are wired to think and because the worst offender of the 4 multi racial cops was white and the victim was black.

Here's some background on hate crimes. I'm not holding speculation to the same standard as a courtroom, but it's worth reading.

"Not every crime committed against a racial minority or a person who is gay is a hate crime. In order to convict a defendant of a hate crime, the prosecutor must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime because of the victim’s race or sexual orientation or for some other prohibited reason. Proving that the defendant acted with hate crime intent can be challenging, unless the defendant admits (to police or others) that the crime was motivated by bias"

"Aside from defendant’s own statements, relevant evidence of bias might include:

defendant’s membership in a group that espouses hatred for certain groups (such as a black separatist group or an online chat group that opposes homosexuality)

defendant’s possession of literature or symbols associated with bias, such as Nazi memorabilia or anti-Semitic texts

defendant’s own writings, graffiti, or tattoos

the use of biased slurs or graffiti during or at the site of the crime

the date of the incident, if it coincides with a significant holiday or anniversary, and other hate crimes committed by defendant".

Strat — Has anyone else mentioned hate crimes on this thread?

Why are you bringing up hate crimes?

“The only fucking way you can take a knee to someone’s neck for minutes until that person dies is if you have a perception that that person is less human than you. That can come in many flavors, the person can be perceived as less human because it’s a trans person, a LGBT person, a black person, just a white “communist”, a woman, a jew, a lot of things. .”

Everything you are saying is essentially true except there are also fucked up cops of every color that do fucked up things to people of the same color, same sexual orientation, same sex, same political affiliation etc… because they are power mad lunatics that never should have been cops to begin with or because they are burned out psychos full of range and anger from their job as cops and should no longer be cops.

Being burnt out is a fundamental problem with policing. A lot of these guys are in the same mental shape as men that return from war. They have to removed from duty or at least from the streets at the first sign of psychological problems.

From the person who ran the club where Chauvin worked as a bouncer.

“She said Chauvin got along well with the club’s Latino regulars, but his tactics toward unruly customers on what she referred to as “African American” nights led her to speak to him about it.

“I told him I thought this is unnecessary to be pepper-sprayed. The knee-jerk reaction of being afraid, it seemed overkill,” Santamaria said. “It was a concern and I did voice my opinion, but police officers have a way of justifying what they do.”

he must be snorting hydroxycholorquine…

We aren’t in a fucking courtroom. And your compulsion to advance this pedantic argument is so far beyond the point that it raises questions to me about your motivation.

Like, are you really trying to argue that people on this random Knicks stats blog aren’t proving beyond reasonable doubt that this individual murder was motivated by racial prejudice? Well no shit. It’s a group of internet commenters, not a legal team. If your point is that the arguments on this blog wouldn’t be sufficient to convict, it wouldn’t be shocking (if it were true) and more importantly, it’s completely out of scope of what matters here. It’s a pointless tangent that the people who engage will inevitably spiral through.

And beyond that, why are you citing random studies you haven’t even read with data that you don’t seem to understand? Or that because there were some “mixed brown” (wtf dude?) officers, therefore no racism. It’s a pointless aside that you’re defending tenaciously with shitty arguments?

And why is the standard you’re applying to other voices completely out of sync with your own arguments. Honestly, is it just because your arguments happen to line up with your preconceived notions developed over decades of extremely subjective experience? This “I’m old, therefore I know what I’m talking about even though I can’t justify it and therefore everyone else is wrong” schtick just reeks of bad faith, and I think it’s one of the reasons why some of your comments are so inflammatory.

You’re not being bullied. You’re just being really insensitive to some serious shit, derailing the conversation with pointless minutia, failing to support your claims, accusing the board of failing to support its claims, and crying foul when people like tnfh don’t like what you have to say. I hate falling victim to the latest iteration of reductio ad hitlerum, but it’s no wonder you tend to sympathize with 45

Here it comes, the same old sob story about how people won’t recognize nuance and whatever.

There is no nuance. As long as I choose to discuss with you, I have to confer some validity to the claims you are making to make it an actual discussion. I cannot, and will not, accept the validity of the claim that “structural racism isn’t everywhere”, or that you somehow need to find hard evidence that a crime was racially motivated to see the racial aspects involved in it. If you can’t, for once, shut up for a second and actually listen to the people who are protesting about what angers them, and instead you choose to make the debate around what you personally think in your very limited experience on the subject, you’re directly making this only about yourself. Not that any of this is surprising, because it obviously isn’t.

I’ll go back to my self-imposed exile.

It isn’t “nuance”. It’s just pointless. Out of scope, overzealously defended, and under researched. And the fact that you’re so precious about this tripe is irritating. Especially because you seem like an altogether decent fellow. I think most here like to engage in arguments when there’s a chance that it’s a good faith discussion

Strat – Do you like have a “Jump to Conclusions” doormat, but one that you make sure never to jump on?

Thank you for your assiduous efforts in preventing us from seeing racism where it may not exist but does.

Ok I definitely don’t fit in here.

You have literally said on this very board that America was not founded on racist principles, which is, I assure you, racist. You might not say the n-word, and you might have black friends, and you might be polite and kind to your POC patients

Yeah.

Your point is well taken, but generally in hate crime cases”

Who the hell is talking about hate crime cases? Do you really think it’s unfair to infer that an action was racist unless it meets the fucking threshold for being able to successfully prosecute a hate crime? That’s insane.

If you can’t, for once, shut up for a second and actually listen to the people who are protesting about what angers them, and instead you choose to make the debate around what you personally think in your very limited experience on the subject, you’re directly making this only about yourself.

This is the issue with everything right now. Right wingers (or perhaps Trump supporters or whatever you want to call the immovable conservatives) will only believe the sensory information they’ve experienced — not the experiences of others, nor the work of scientists, nor accredited reporters, none of it.

The world contains way too much information for a single person to ever take in. Believe women, believe minorities, believe scientists.

***Brian,

I’d still prefer you block my ID so I am not even tempted to read this forum. It’s best for me and the forum.***

Don’t be a pussy. Man up and walk the fuck out if you think that’s what’s best.

I’m still scratching my head about the hate crime prosecution guidelines’ connection to the murder, and delayed prosecution, of George Floyd. I think I need to start researching the Frye standard so I can use it against Lady Jowles next time we get into a domestic spat. Might help me understand Strat a little better.

Dolan used his mulligan. Might have scraped over the bar.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/02/knicks-owner-james-dolan-defends-his-silence-george-floyds-death-protests/

And here is Rex Chapman. Coming a long way from being the king of fail videos….

https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article243210281.html

Wes Unseld was a true badass.

Maybe when the season restarts they will honor him appropriately.

I was just thinking earlier about Unseld and just about how impressive it is to win the MVP in the NBA period. Look at how many amazing players never achieved it. Heck, look at the amazing players just this season alone who aren’t going to win it! It’s really one of the more impressive awards around. The basketball Hall of Fame is a bit of a joke, but even with that in mind, it’s still interesting that the NBA MVP Award is pretty much the only award where, just by virtue of winning it, you’re pretty much a Hall of Famer. The only exception in NBA (and ABA!) history is Derrick Rose, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. Also, though, A. Rose shouldn’t have won the MVP over Lebron that year and B. Rose had a career-altering injury at the way too young age of 23.

Keep explaining yourself, Jimmy. Keep explaining yourself.

treatment of wetbandit in this thread was pathetic. if you have any useful intent as opposed to scoring points in the ether or spewing cathartic netrage, ‘fuck off you racist’ whether you want to brand it intolerant or bilious is literally counterproductive. you don’t have to be a dissonance ninja to know that shit pushes people away from any inkling of a possible rethink. some posters are incorrigible, whether by design or as victims of their own inexorably hardwired thought loops. kick the accidentrolls or don’t it really doesn’t matter. i find it fun. i hardly ever agree with wetbandit, including about basketball, but he’s plainly not on the immutable end of that continuum. precisely everyone here is a fucking racist sometimes somehow so let’s save the generalizations for the more extreme cases.

They’re not on our side.

Oaktrees
June 3, 2020 at 8:40 am
Has anyone ever had an encounter with police where their presence ever helped and made a situation better?
They’re not on our side.

Hmmmmm… I’ll go with the words of John Mayall….. “Don’t throw rocks at policemen…. but get the knots of the law untied.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5ROJctoIVs

Makes two of us, but how long can you suck their ass for doing their job one day nearly twenty years ago.

You don’t help police. They brutalize, lie and look out for themselves and state above all else. Don’t kid yourself and believe they have your best interests at hand.

The question is…. what’s the remedy or the best course of action? is burning down thousands of minority businesses a wise course of action? Is shooting 4 cops in St Louis or 1 in the head in Vegas the appropriate response?

The police aren’t exactly garnering any sympathy with the hundreds (maybe more now) of videos showing them brutalize peaceful protesters. New polls are showing a majority of Americans (57%) now believe the police are more likely to use excessive force against black people. 20 points higher than it was in 2014 or 2016. The public is more likely to support police reform now than at any point in our country’s history.

As I said upthread a good place to start would be much stronger civilian complaint review boards. Wouldn’t even need police or mayoral support, the US Justice Department could mandate it like they did in Newark. Giving civilians the power to subponea police documents and to force cops to testify is a must. If we can’t get rid of police unions then strong CCRBs are a good way to counter them. It won’t come close to fixing everything but it would be a start.

And until the day comes where I can say, ah thank goodness the police showed up, they made a bad situation better. I will be vehemently anti police. If and when that ever happens, I’ll gladly change my tune.

Well, there are courageous cops who put their life on the line and who do the right thing and also bad cops who commit despicable acts. Maybe I am naive but it seems to me that that making blanket generalizations about classes of people is what we are fighting against, no? Unless they work in editorial content at Fox News. Those people are the devil.

treatment of wetbandit in this thread was pathetic. if you have any useful intent as opposed to scoring points in the ether or spewing cathartic netrage, ‘fuck off you racist’ whether you want to brand it intolerant or bilious is literally counterproductive. you don’t have to be a dissonance ninja to know that shit pushes people away from any inkling of a possible rethink. some posters are incorrigible, whether by design or as victims of their own inexorably hardwired thought loops. kick the accidentrolls or don’t it really doesn’t matter. i find it fun. i hardly ever agree with wetbandit, including about basketball, but he’s plainly not on the immutable end of that continuum. precisely everyone here is a fucking racist sometimes somehow so let’s save the generalizations for the more extreme cases.

I don’t think you’re entirely off-base and my response to wetbandit was “[l]et me ask you, what efforts have you made to see the point of view of people who say racism is deeply embedded in American society, as opposed to just being a problem we encounter from a few individuals?” Make of that what you will.

However, I do think you’re being unrealistically optimistic about his willingness to change his mind given both the substance and the tone of his posts. Basically I think he’s further down the continuum than you acknowledge. If you read his posts and thought “this is a person with some misguided ideas, but who is open to hearing other points of view,” god bless you.

If we defund the police and a woman gets beaten by her husband or raped by a stranger, who is she going to call to have the beater or the rapist arrested?

As Oaktrees said, part of the problem is this:

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/1033_program

If you read his posts and thought “this is a person with some misguided ideas, but who is open to hearing other points of view,” god bless you.

A friend of mine who’s interested in this weird “Cock Jowles” alter-ego wrote this after reading the thread:

[6:09 PM, 6/2/2020] I try to only engage when the other person is acting in good faith
[6:09 PM, 6/2/2020] Otherwise it’s wasted energy

She may have been referring to my intermezzo railing against the phrase “true facts” (not for its redundancy, but for the quality of opinion that often accompanies it) but I think it’s relevant here.

The defunding question is pretty simple: why are police budgets historically high when crime rates are historically low? No one seems to have a good answer besides “cops have a lot of political power.”

If we defund the police and a woman gets beaten by her husband or raped by a stranger, who is she going to call to have the beater or the rapist arrested? Is the idea that everyone just has their own private bodyguards, like a lot of celebrities do now? What if they can’t afford one?

Total non-sequitur. Even full-on police abolitionists acknowledge the need for some kind of service one can utilize when there is real danger. The fact of the matter is it would be both more cost-efficient and more ethical to deal with plenty of situations currently dealt with by police via some combination of social work and community involvement.

Me too Hubert, me too.

Someone earlier up mentioned how they got treated when they were caught smoking a doob in Central Park. I had something very similar. Drinking a beer on the platform of the Marcy J (yeah, young and dumb). Anyway, two sips in, the backwards hats booted goons show up. The actually let us CONTINUE drinking and FINISH our beers as they wrote a summons for a $35 dollar mail in fine. I remember these black kids looking at us with their jaws open. It was embarrassing, but really drove home how there are two systems, things could of gone very differently.

Hopefully a real change comes from all this.

Maybe everybody when they turn 18 should have to go to basic police training, then serve 4 years as a police man/woman, policing their own neighborhood.

I’ve always wondered how do you not become a worse human when you interact with the worse segments of our society…

when people instinctively lie to you all the time…when you’re consistently charged with dealing with the worse of humanity…

I don’t have an answer…I would imagine policing attracts a certain personality type…different from our soldiers, teachers, firefighters, health care workers – others whom serve our society…

policing seems like a pretty shitty job to me…I’m thankful though there are folks whom do want that responsibility…

somehow though our society needs to control their actions…it just feels like they have a blank check to act in any manner…