NardDogNation wrote:misterearl wrote:smackeddog wrote:misterearl wrote:Scant racismI have personally seen only scant racism in my 44 years of life lving in Brooklyn Westport and Madison CT with a vacation home in Naples CT.
I repeat
Despite the election of our nation's first African-American president, African Americans remain by far the most frequent victims of hate crimes. Of the 7,624 hate crime incidents reported nationwide in 2007, the most recent year for which data is available, 34 percent (2,659) were perpetrated against African Americans, a number and percentage of incidents that has changed little over the past 10 years. According to the FBI's HCSA report, more than twice as many hate crimes were reported against African Americans as against any other group.
BRIGGS - thank you. You just nailed why you struggle to describe what race matters are about. It is only about your experience with race. Not history, not intellectual curiosity, not any informed analysis... Just your narrow world view from your front porch.
You completely ignored the statistics which were posted to suit your claim that this singular crime is the worst of the past 20 years. The willful ignorance is staggering.
Until you open your eyes and see through an Emmitt Till or James Meredith, or even a Martin Luther King... you will never understand matters of race beyond your television set.
I don't even follow the logic of 'I don't see it, so it can't exist'. I've never seen anyone get raped or murdered, so should I therefore conclude that it doesn't happen?! And that people who have experienced it or know someone who has are lying?! Crazy!
smackeddog - you are absolutely correct.
Any substantial conversation over race must get beyond superficial, personal telescopes and open wide to the root causes and effects of generations of institutionalized bias.
BRIGGS' rating one case as a watershed for 20 years only highlights a selective reasoning that prefers to ignore hundreds of years, right up to the current day. Of course, any informed second grader can tell the difference between opinion and fact.
The fact is that the same perceptions of race shape our opinion on things like basketball. Why else would there be the added layer of resentment towards a Carmelo Anthony... or the stereotypical opinion of a white player having a high basketball IQ?
Has there ever been a white basketball player with a low IQ?
I cannot think of a single one.
Plus-f**king-one. Basketball use to be considered "the thinking man's game" when Jews were the majority. Sprinkle a few brown faces into the mix and all of a sudden you get the stereotype of the "stupid, undeserving athlete".
Back then it was a game about passing and has evolved into a more athletic sport. Sprinkle in Bill Russell, wilt, Oscar, Jabbar and the game became great, then sprinkle in the self entitled spoiled AAU star who thinks their stature in life is above the law, above politeness since the 8th grade and you have the "Stupid, underserving athlete".
The two biggest athletes who became global icons were Ali and Jordan. Above all you the Kobe's and Lebron's who are not "Black atheletes" but are "simply Ali, Mike, Kobe and Lebron". No last names and they are the biggest names on the planet.
The money corrupts many. We celebrate the Diva athlete and label them stars. Marbury is a great example of a great talent but not a well rounded person. Compared to Bill Russell who put winning above everything. Pretty stark difference.
black or white we should celebrate the players who used their pro careers to move to different ones. Mike Doleac going on to Medical school. Junior Bridgeman who with his partners operates a silly number of wendy's restaurants and recently with additional investors (Chauncy Billups included) bought a bunch more. these guys used their brains and their body's.
Magic Johnson is nearly as famous for his business AFTER his career was over.
The perception was basketball was a "thinking mans game" was because of segregation and in the 50's college ball was bigger than the pro game, and the NIT and NCAA was basically white only. With passing being the primary weapon in the early version of the game, and the "champions" were taken form a pool of segregated white schools it was an obvious stereotype. Fair or not, black players had to conform to the white college if they wanted to play. When socially and academically black players were able to assimilate into a hostile environment in numbers then the game evolved. Over time racial barriers came down and the best players were recruited.
For purpose of brevity I am leaving a lot out but one might understand the history of the Jews in america and understand that in Europe Jews were persecuted and not given the same rights as others. Not able to own land was one such that prevented Jews from agricultural which forced them into being shop keepers, or into the academic life. From there is how many teachers, banksers, Doctors and engineers came to be in larger numbers. The trend continued when they came to America as well. Immigration to the cities a high number became shopkeepers whose children were steered into education, and its there in the organized world is where many played ball.
Another bit stereotype is "communism is a jew creation", in part true because Karl Marx (Das Kapital) saw the inequity that was industrial England and thought humankind would be better with a more "social" system of equity distribution. Even here, turn of the century economics favored few and the great depression did prove more government intervention is needed. I digress, but the point is Jews were stereotyped as "Basketball suits them because of their socialized tendencies". In the academic world Jews were prone to stick together they came from ghettoes in europe, gettoes in cities, and like many races or ethinic cutures, live among themselves.
The game evolved and black americans became the majority population in the pro game when society allowed the best players to be the best players regardless of race.
