Bradley is not the first to speak of racism at the supposedly Friendly Confines. Former Cubs LaTroy Hawkins, Jacque Jones and Dusty Baker, and current first baseman Derrek Lee have had similar experiences.
“Unfortunately, there are ignorant people out there,” Lee said Thursday. “Like I’ve told Milton, the best thing to do is let it go, because it’s not indicative of his character, it’s indicative of their character. Let them be foolish and ignorant, and it shouldn’t bother us.”
Incidents this extreme are certainly the exception, but the media does its part to stoke even detached racism. Anecdotally, I can share an unsettling experience from this year’s All-Star Game. Charged with editing a covering reporter’s copy, I was disappointed to discover the scribe marveling ad infinitum at the “athleticism” of an all-black American League outfield of Carl Crawford, Curtis Granderson and Adam Jones. I brought it to the attention of my supervisor, who shook his head and simply told me to axe the entire paragraph.
...There are a handful of explanations for this, the most popular among them the game’s slow pace and the relative difficulty in reaching its highest level (as opposed to the NFL and NBA, in which players are drafted directly to the bigs). But it’s time to consider a simpler, more malignant explanation: Baseball is owned by white men, played by white and Latino men, consumed by white and Latino fans, and covered by a white media.
By all accounts, Bradley is a headache, emotionally unstable and hypersensitive to criticism. Booing is part of the game, and he needs to understand it comes with the territory. But the dehumanizing treatment to which he’s been subjected probably would have outreached the imagination of even Robinson, who bore that cross over 60 years ago so men like Bradley wouldn’t have to.
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I understand the sensitivity towards the "athleticism" designation in some quarters on this subject. It gets overdone pretty regularly but an outfield made up of Crawford, Granderson and Jones is spectacularly athletic, it is an apt description.
Isn't this (well the white part) pretty true of the NFL as well? Maybe not the fan portion but the owners and media look the same to me as MLB.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the writer seems to be saying that African-Americans don't have the patience for a slower paced game. That seems to be similar to the "athleticism" comment he was critical of a couple of paragraphs before.
Why would this be any less true of football, which is also owned mostly by white men and covered by a white media?
Mennella ignores the most obvious explanation - youth baseball in the US, like golf and tennis, has become a game in which you need to be fairly affluent to have an opportunity to play at high levels.
Actually, I doubt very much that the dehumanizing treatment of Bradley is anything close to the travails of Robinson - because Robinson's was far *worse* than anything Bradley has faced.
-- MWE
Well, racism remains an issue in the world (though there are plenty among us who are willfully blind to it). Why would anyone expect the National Pastime to be a zone of exemption?
I doubt very much that the dehumanizing treatment of Bradley is anything close to the travails of Robinson - because Robinson's was far *worse* than anything Bradley has faced.
Word.
I don't know what "high levels" means here, but this is not really true of tennis. Balls are cheap and a decent racket is not very expensive, and is largely a 1-time cost. And most places have public courts which are easily accessible.
And, of course, of the top 2 female and top 2 male tennis players in the US right now, 2.5 of them are black.
When trying to avoid stereotyping, I think it could be worded differently. Like "Those three get to everything", or something like that.
It could be that Bradley feels like he's been singled out for criticism (or "hate") because he's black. But I'd sort of like to see the evidence of that before concluding that "baseball has a racial problem" is a reasonable inference from "Milton Bradley gets booed a lot." Which is not to say that baseball _doesn't_ have a racial problem, only to question whether Milton Bradley's indignation is linked to it.
Wise advice from Derek Lee. I am not a Cubs fan by any means. But I have always thought that Lee is a really good guy.
WTF? Are you kidding? Word.?
Did you turn your ballcap backwards before you hit enter?
Such as this...
If Grady Sizemore were starting instead of Granderson, the writer probably would have written the same thing, and I guess it would have been acceptable then.
so is matt kemp, before you go there. unless you are complaining because they ain't "all the way Black"
try nate mclouth
I adore you.
Seems to me Farve would take substatially more #### if he were black.
I thought he was Greek or Lebanese or something.
"athletic" seems to translate directly as "run fast"
guess them ol White boys and Asian boys just cain't keep up
You have a large contract and there were large expectations of you which you haven't lived up to, Milton. That's why we boo you. Your HR and RBI totals from last season have been cut in half, and you're slugging .150 less in the "easier" league, Milton. That's why we boo you.
You helped flat-out kill this team from April-July, Milton. That's why we boo you.
Translation: "I don't want to watch that overpaid, lazy n-word out in left field anymore."
This isn't written very clearly. I don't understand which of these is the basis for editing the paragraph:
(a) "marveling ad infinitum" (b) using the word "athleticism" (c) identifying the outfield as "all-black" in combination with (b).
I suppose (a) could be a reasonable basis for editing the paragraph. I can understand editing the paragraph for (c). But (b) alone doesn't seem like a problem.
I half agree. A good racket can cost < $100 and last you practically forever, stringing it runs you about $30 and lasts for an entire season if you play semi-regularly. 2 cans of balls are about $6. Equipment-wise, it doesn't get much cheaper than tennis.
However, some neighborhoods have tennis courts, but I don't agree that they're quite so commonplace. The ones in gated communities often do have them, certainly, and it seems a neighborhood has to be above a certain threshold of income/space to have tennis courts. Unlike equipment, playing field requirements for tennis are pretty strict; you can't just play in an empty field or a backyard like almost every other sport. You need the net, the standard court markings, the fences, and lights if you want to play in the evening, all of which are expensive to build and require regular maintenance. All this, for a structure in which four whole people can play on at one time. If you live in an inner-city, low income neighborhood and your school isn't big on tennis you can forget about it.
After them, however, ...
Both the Williams sisters and James Blake are steadily approaching 30, aka "retirement age" in tennis, and there don't appear to be American successors on the horizon with the same level of potential (black or not). The Williams sisters in particular are a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing; they're not going to be around meeting each other in Grand Slam finals forever. Not that many Americans seem to notice anyways; most non-tennis fans seem to recognize their "mannishness" before their decade-long dominance of a sport otherwise lacking in US representation. Blake, for all his accomplishments, hasn't come close to winning a major.
Most of the US pros were brought up in some academy in either SoCal or Florida, and I'm not entirely sure how you get your kid enrolled in such a (presumably) prestigious place. Scouting, I suppose? But how do you get scouts to look at your kid if you live in a low-income area with a high school that doesn't have a tennis team/facility?
Fair enough, sir. I don't argue with lawyers when they start throwing their fancypants "facts" around. :-)
Maybe the Cubs used him improperly from day 1. Maybe we should hit him 1st or 2nd all year and count on him to be an OBP machine instead of an RBI one. I do know he's had 74 AB w/RISP and is hitting .230 in those. He's had 233 AB in the 3rd, 4th, or 5th spots and has 20 RBI to show for it in those AB. Every Cub opening day starter has more RBI except for Geovany Soto, and he missed a lot of time (and has sucked). Jake Fox has 1 less RBI in half the AB.
Bradley may not be striking out as much as I thought w/RISP, but he's certainly doing something other than hitting.
Milton Bradley has not been the Cubs' problem this year. The real problem is the pitching went to hell right when he finally got back on track.
Bradley got cut zero slack this year. Zero. He had a lousy start, and right off the bat the boos started. I don't blame him for getting pissed and taking it personal when morons in the bleachers still boo him and give him crap after he's been one of the team's hot hitters for the last two months, and a contributing player for the last four. Hell, even Hundley got through April before the fans turned on him.
That is all.
So if I'm totally indifferent to him I'm not a racist? Yes!
Runners On: 285/434/438
Bases Empty: 246/361/395
RISP: 230/420/365
It looks like he's been pitched around a bit with runners on base and he's been ineffective in "late and close" situations, but I expected something a lot more dramatic given subj's claims.
His claims should be exhibit A in the counter-argument to "You have to see him play..." The fans who are booing him are booing a stat line they read in the papers or online. How many of them realize that he is hitting like an All-Star (.317/.432/.530) at home? Not many, because that's not the kind of thing that is easy to pick up by merely "watching him play", even if it is every day.
I thought he was from Yonkers. #### him, then.
I think we can't allow this type of thinking to continue in the game, it justifies guys like Bradley who are the real problem.
http://nybaseballdigest.com/?p=15037
His "average" June (which I believe you were going for, above): .273/.377/.348/.725. 3 RBI. Good for a top of the lineup or 7-hole hitter. NOT good for a middle-of-the-order guy.
Past 7 days: .550/.625/1.000/1.625 20 AB 11 H 8 R 3 2B 2 HR 5 RBI 4 BB 4 SO
All of Aug.: .318/.431/.506/.937 85 AB 27 H 17 R 7 2B 3 HR 10 RBI 14 BB 21 SO
Aug. NOT past 7 days: .246/.372/.354/.726 65 AB 16 H 9 R 4 2B 1 HR 5 RBI 10 BB 17 SO
IOW: he's pumping up his numbers with a REALLY good week. The cynical would point out (in fact, one radio talk show host has) that he's doing this when the Cubs were already 8-9 games out.
He did have a good May/July. I'll give him that.
What? WHAT?!?! The Cubs' pitching absolutely was the only thing keeping this sorry-ass team afloat from May-July. Even with the Aaron Heilman/Carlos Marmol Walk Machine/Kevin Gregg clown car coming in from the 'pen almost every night, they've given up the 5th fewest runs in the NL, have a 3.97 team ERA and a 111 team ERA+. Their 2nd half numbers are worse mostly because Gregg can't keep the damn ball in the park and the whole staff got obliterated 4 games in Colorado. To call out "the pitching" as a whole for the reason this team is bad is woefully misguided.
Bull-####. I was at the infamous April 16th game vs. the Cardinals where Bradley struck out looking while PH'ing with the bags loaded and 1 out, "bumped" the ump, and got his suspension. I was also at the May 28th game vs. the Dodgers; a classic 2009 2-1 Cubs loss where the team managed 1 run on 9 hits (the one run being a solo HR) and getting 2 on in the 8th and bases loaded in the 9th and Epic Failing both times. Bradley was cheered wildly before and during his PH in the first game, and we were booing the ump we thought screwed Milton afterwards, not Milton himself. In the Dodger game, Milton was cheered each time he came up and booed afterwards if he failed to get on, because we'd already seen enough of the "offense" as a whole to that point in the season. The same thing was happening to one Alfonso Soriano. And Geovany Soto. And Mike Fontenot.
For the record, MY real hardcore Milton-disgust didn't start until that June game vs. Minnesota where he misplayed the one ball in the sun and then threw the other up into the stands. That was, I think, the first real time that I thought: "I want this guy off my team."
My real "hate him the moment he signed" was Aaron Miles. :-)
...and then, being a real Cubs fan, you watch almost every road game as well, and you realize (.208/.354/.298/.652 9 total XBH, 10 RBI) how much your shiny, brand-new, expensive, middle-of-the-order run-producer has been killing your team all season.
I'm not making this up. I'm really not. Milton Bradley's struggles are one significant reason this team couldn't get much above .500 all year while the rest of the division was also struggling.
Dear Mike,
i am more than delighted to discover that baseball fans are color blind, judge each player only on his baseball playing abilities and not his appearance - CERTAINLY not by measurement of his "hustle" or "scrappiness", those qualities unfortunately being completely incompatable with infestation by Black blood. I am also delighted to learn that every Black man who has related his experience with receiving racial taunts, not booing, while playing in the outfield at Wrigley, or anywhere else, is "misinterpreting" the words.
I guess it has nothing to do with race if an underperforming Asian or Caucasian is not booed but those crazy n-words are perceiving their own treatment differently.
Jacque Jones and LaTroy Hawkins did, in fact, play for the Cubs. Dusty Baker was their manager. As for opposing players, you might could try asking Mike Cameron, who has also imagined he heard racial taunts. You could ask Willy Taveras or Michael Bourn, or, as you suggest, Curtis Granderson (if he remembers one series in 2006) or Carl Crawford (if he remembers one series back in 2003) or any other baseball player who could be described as, oh, what is that adjective?
Oh yeah. Got it.
"Athletic."
A term which is, for some unknown reason, never applied to Josh Hamilton, Colby Rasmus, Hunter Pence or Nate McLouth.
You may think that Bradley is a stone liar as well as a crazy n-word, but you should at least first attempt to, you know, like, interview other dark skinned ballplayers with African ancestry to obtain other points of view before simply dismissing Bradley's claim. Or you could try sitting in the bleachers at Wrigley instead of your nice, cosy press box, and listening to what is actually said, instead of assuming based only on your preconceived notion of who Bradley is that he MUST be lying.
As for your statement that fans only want "the best players" available no matter their ancestry/color/experience, all I can say is that if you really think that fans want the best baseball player possible playing for their own team, you need to read a few team blogs and you certainly need to listen to just one hour of sportstalk radio to discover that fans like or dislike all sorts of players for all sorts of reasons that have very little to do with the players' actual statistics. For example, David Wright is not "clutch" and is not a "leader" and should be traded.
Paul O'Neill never got into it with umpires? Oh cmon. He got into it with umpires every single AB unless he hit the first pitch, or all pitches were called balls. Now he never had an umpire verbally attack him without any provocation, as Mike Winters did Bradley - and, in case you have forgotten, Sean Casey backed that crazy n-word and it was the umpire who was disciplined by MLB and NOT Bradley. Behaviour like O'Neill's was termed "competitive" and "intense" and praised. Had O'Neill not been Caucasian? Can you name even ONE Black man who behaves in every way like O'Neill and is not criticized for not knowing his place, um, I mean, having, uh, temperament issues?
O'Neill had a foul temperament which was tolerated because he was a very good player on a winning team. Any temperament other than Tony Clark/Curtis Granderson/Doug Glanville is simply not tolerated in Black players and they are always portrayed by the media as either bad people or somehow crazy and discussion of their temperament somehow always overshadows their accomplishments on the field.
The election of Obama has no relevance whatsoever to whether or not there are people among the few thousand in the Wrigley bleachers who feel perfectly comfortable hurling racial names or even preferring to heckle players who don't fit their own particular definition of what a good outfielder should be, namely, uh, "scrappy." I promise you that the election of Obama has not suddenly eradicated racial stereotypes and all peoples' long held stereotypes of proper behaviour for Those People.
- as for bradley himself, well, we all knew he'd have to come out hitting like pujols and continue that way in order not to get shtt from either the fans or media. personally, i think he was foolish to sign at a place like wrigley, given his personality - the "security" ain't worth the high blood/headaches
- and as for the bleacher fans in wrigley, well, i never sat in them my own self, but the Box gets infested with em 3 times a year and at least up in the cheap seats, there is always a few get thrown out for getting drunk and shouting out stuff that isn't ok. you just can NOT yell anything racial here, even in those expensive behind the visitors dugout seats. you get thrown out for that right quick
- bradley's struggles are one of MANY reasons that the cubs are not winning more - aramis got hurt, soriano has had a terrible year, dlee started off slow, marmol had problems, gregg has been teh sukc, zambrano has been hurt, not pitched near as well as he should have etcetcetc. but bradley has been THE focus
Uh, what? I think I'm going to notice a guy who rakes like that at home, and struggles on the road. That's not so hard to see.
I've been in the bleachers at Wrigley and heard some nasty racial comments. (Why would anyone say anthing negative about Andre Dawson?) That crosses the line, pure and simple..........even if the target is a nut-case.
As disappointing as Bradley has been, I'm not going to lie and say I didn't want him. I thought it was a good signing for a team (I don't worry about the money they pay; it's not my money and I'm not a shareholder) that had an incredibly over-rated and un-clutch offense. (Obviously, at this point my judgement is as bad as Hendry's.) Still haven't figured out why they did what they did with DeRosa. To me, that was Hendry's greatest blunder.
African Americans are, statistically speaking, virtually inconsequential at this time. They make up a limited percentage of the players and a miniscule portion of the fan base. The whining of one or two players is not significant enough to trash the entire fan base.
The real racism in baseball is between the latinos and whites. They are as segregated as you can be. The language barrier is a part of it. If you are ever friendly with a player, especially on the minor league level, you will hear story after story.........whether it's protecting your own keeping the pitch charts, (i.e., you write down 95mph for your buddy, but 91 for the guy you can't stand), throwing at a guy, not staqnding up for a teammate, or the general animosity that exists. It's a politically correct hot-button issue, but don't think for a second that it didn't play into the Bernazard affair with the Mets.
As for the "athletic" issue, blacks are more athletic than whites............there, I wrote. I believe it. MY eyes tell me it's true. The numbers tell me it's true. You figure out which positions are the most athletically demanding (I would say wide receiver, cornerback and a hockey goalie,) and tell me what percentage of those positions are played by blacks relative to the general population.
Why is is so insulting to acknowledge this?
Why is is so insulting to acknowledge this?
Because while it may be the case that the sample of athletes you see and pay attention to may include superior "athleticism" (however we wish to define it) from its representatives with significantly African ancestry, to conclude from this that "blacks are more athletic than whites" is about as anti-scientific as possible.
Among the many reasons for this:
- There are a myriad of social/economic issues that contribute enormous selection bias to who it is we see as prominent athletic performers
- Elite athletes comprise a tiny fraction of the broader population of any ethnicity
- Fundamentally, the terms "blacks" and "whites" are impossibly vague and have no meaningful genetic basis
And, of course, the insulting aspect is the insinuation, based on centuries of patterns of social/economic/political exploitation of peoples of color in much of the world, that "athleticsm" is a "natural gift" (as opposed to something developed through training and effort), and, of course, is understood to be generally counterbalanced by inferior "intelligence."
Again, only if you pay attention to cumulative stats and splits. Bradley has the exact same number of ABs at home as on the road. He's got 55 hits at home, 35 on the road. That's 4 hits a month. He's got 8 HR at home, 3 on the road. That's 1 a month. How is anyone supposed to notice that simply by watching him play and not otherwise counting the good and bad AB's?
thank you for the explanation. other wise i would have had to ask deja if we could define adam everett as "athletic"
greg q
wandy rodriguez is my favorite baseball player. he ain't real too much to look at. he's a lil guy 5-9, 150, but he's one of the best lefty pitchers in the NL - heck he's one of THE best pitchers in the NL. took him a while to get where he's at.
smile
reminds me of me. only i'm prettier and i smell better
The Cub offense as a whole, and most of their parts, score noticeably more runs at home than on the road. You really think that we couldn't tell that Milton Bradley hits better at home than on the road without looking at the stats? Or Derrek Lee? Or Ryan Theriot? Or seemingly the whole damn team?
Again, look at those splits:
Home: .327/.441/.542/.983
Away: .208/.354/.298/.652
You really think we can't tell the difference?
And those 4 hits a month don't happen in a vacuum. Those 4 hits a month can extend rallies or drive in runs that die on the bases on the road. Those missing 4 hits a month lead to those 3-2 losses.
Those 4 hits a month matter.
they matter for THE WHOLE DAMM TEAM
but i sure don't hear the other guys getting it like milton does
First, to address some ambiguities in the language of my original piece:
The final paragraph in which I write, "the dehumanizing treatment to which Bradley has been subjected probably would have outreached the imagination of Robinson ..." My intention was to say that, Robinson might have had difficulty imagining such a thing for Bradley 62 years after he (Robinson) broke the color barrier.
Also, I in no way endorse the theory that blacks have an aversion to baseball because of its slower pace. I merely reiterate it in the piece as a common argument bandied about in the past couple years to explain the decline in black participation in baseball.
As for the semantics of the “athletic” outfield, I think it goes without saying that any Major League outfield is athletic. Sure, you might have a Matt Stairs type out there, but otherwise the game is played by world-class athletes. I’m hardly the first to raise this issue, and I’m sure I won’t be the last. Because we've heard these arguments before doesn’t mean they’re any less true. White, blue-collar players are “scrappy.” Black players are “athletes, raw talents,” etc.
But, perhaps greater than all these issues is the fundamental inference inherent to my argument, one that seems to be the sticking point of Mike Silva’s disagreement with my column. I contend that Bradley has not played well and must cope with boos, even if the boos are racially motivated. What is a racist boo, after all? However, I’ve inferred from Bradley comments (as well as the statements of Lee, Baker, Jones and Hawkins) that Bradley encountered racism -- whether it be in the form of slurs or similar treatment -- and that it remains a problem in baseball.
Silva and some others I’ve read here contend that Bradley, Jones, Baker, Hawkins and Lee have misconstrued fan ire for racism. I think that sort of speaks for itself in terms of those folks' agendas ...
interesting that those people are invariably of the non-minority persuasion
stereotypes/racism go every way there is. and don't let me forget sexism while i'm all about the isms
But, it goes beyond mere stereotyping. Racism/sexism/ism-ism is deeply endemic to all classes.
i'll forget it when i stop getting pulled over for DWB and forced to get out of the car and humiliated in front of my children while the cops search my car for the drugs/weapons that all Us People must be carrying
as for endemic, the raping, beating, selling, murdering of females is also endemic to all classes. doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do something about wickedness - or at the very least, point it out
What's also endemic is that of the top twenty indcators of mortality, males lead in nineteen of them.
Cry me a river.
I think they concluded that one should document it, deescalate and then turn in the evidence later.
They also touched on the fact that it's still racist even if you didn't choose your best possible recourse, if you are more likely be placed in the situation due to the color of your skin.
complaining about getting pulled over and asked - do you have any business in this neighborhood - get nowheres.
morty
i will cry you a river after you check out the statistics about the ratio of females beating/raping/murdering/enslaving males. males murder/rape/enslave females at a far greater ratio than members of my race doing anything whatsoever to members of your race
as for the top 20 indicators of mortality in this country - being a black female is a heck of a lot worse than being a white male
it is so good we are both doing all this crying about the indignities perpetrated on each other by Those People. helps with understanding
This link is broken.
In the media, probably. With some fans, maybe. However, the boos, taunts, and swearing have been awfully loud at Wrigley this year for Kevin Gregg, Carlos Marmol, Alfonso Soriano, Mike Fontenot, etc as well as Milton.
I have no doubt that racist things like "n-word" and worse have been yelled at Wrigley. I also have no doubt they they've also been yelled at all 29 other parks in the majors. Get any large group of people together and you'll find stupid, racist a-holes in the group. Mix with beer and it gets even worse.
On the subject of "driving while...": I've twice in my life been pulled over for "driving while Hispanic". Once was in a lily-white suburb of Chicago, and it was worse then because I was (while 19) "driving while a Hispanic teenager with other teenagers in the car". The second time was in the middle of a weekday afternoon by a Michigan State Highway patrolman, about 10 minutes from crossing the Michigan/Indiana border.
The first time I endured a five-minute conversation with the officer; "where are you'all going/let me see your license/how old are these guys?" At the end he gave me a "warning" for having a "loud muffler". Suffice it to say my muffler was perfectly fine. In Michigan, I got to endure a 20 MINUTE conversation/car search because I was "speeding", like everyone else on the road. Didn't even get a ticket.
And what did I do either time? Nothing. "Yes sir, no sir, thank you sir." I even joke now that I've been "racially profiled". Could I have gotten the guy's (they were, of course, middle-aged white guys both times; they could have been believable extras in any cop drama) badge number and caused a stink with his force, or argued with them on the spot about my rights and "probable cause"? Sure. But what good would it have done? If you want to call me "I did nothing while the Gestapo took over" apathetic", be my guest.
Look, in the real world, people who aren't wealthy white males are more likely to have bad #### happen to them occasionally. I would never presume to tell any of my fellow "non-wealthy-white-male bretheren or sisteren" how to react in those situations. In my own life, I think the key is to decide when it's worth fighting about.
Kind of like how people can't tell the difference between 50 times caught looking with RISP and 20 times striking out total with RISP. It's not a moral failing; it's just not something that's easy to do. One remembers what's memorable (to state a near-tautology), not cumulative events over a period of time.
Reflect on the Jenna, Louisiana incident: six black youths kick the sxit out of a lone white boy and who gets the sympathy?
Or if you prefer, James Watson dares to moot a question about race and IQ, and he is immediately hounded from our midst, no explanation, no excuse, accepted. (I mean, after all, what could James Watson possibly have to tell us about biology?)
Do you have an understanding of the context and timeline of the incident?
Jena is an excellent data point for what can happen to a minority population when they don't take measures to have some voice in the political and power structure of their community however you feel about the handling of the incident you choose--inexplicably--to isolate.
And we suffer so deeply from it. Oh, how we suffer. Woe is us.
You’ve gotten the last genuflection from me simply because you’re Black and Female.
(That disport in ecumenicalism went by at rabbit climax speed. Was it good for you? Let’s bask. Here, have a cigarette?)
Statistics are illuminating. No doubt men commit violent crimes more than women (at least the way they is defined now, anyway). Of course, it’s telling how our culture reacts differently to the two sexes committing the same crimes.
But, consider this:
Out of all the violent crimes males commit, who do they commit them more against--males or females?
Out of all the violent crimes females commit, do they commit them more against females or more against males?
Of course, there’s always an understanding way of looking at the actions of one group and not of another group. Who would you say society tends to alibi for more—Blacks or Whites, Females or Males. If Whites commit violent crimes against Blacks at a rate way below their percentage of the total population, and if Blacks do it against Whites at three times their pro-rata share, which will tend to be explained away in racist terms and which in non-racist ways?
Since the end of apartheid in this country, there have more killings and violence committed by Blacks against Whites in New Orleans alone, I dare say, than all the Black lynchings everywhere in American history put together,
Whenever this discussion arises, I remember something Dwight Evans said. This was during that period when Wade Boggs seemed to be the possible second coming of Ted Williams. Writers were always saying how batting in front of Boggs had to make it so much easier for him. His reply: “All I know is that pitchers are trying to get me out.”
Oh, there were definitely racial incidents in Jena over this whole thing, but those happened <u>after</u> the so-called "Jena 6" became a racial cause celebre. There's no actual evidence race played any role in "the incident" or the events allegedly leading up to it.
Still driving the now 10 year old Corolla so I should probably expect to be pulled over again.
This is laughable. Just because white men don't have the same absolute power they did in the 60s doesn't mean they're being discriminated against.
I like this quote. It's a fine example of the "Screw everybody else, I got mine," morality that so-called liberals like Treder pretend to deplore when exhibited by people who disagree with him. As is typical in people with no integrity, right and wrong just comes down to whose ox is being gored.
OK, how about this, Morty: [points, laughs]
Because I, for one, consider your statement not worthy of snark, but of absolute mockery.
EDIT: Please be advised the laughing and pointing increased upon reading Bonifacio's hilarious bit.
According to wikipedia, "Nearly 5,000 African Americans were lynched between 1890 and 1960." Considering how things were before 1890, 5000 is an awfully low number. But in order to get to 5,000 dead white New Orleaners, you need to come up with 100 a year since 1960... I don't think you can do it.
Now, that's uncalled for.
There's nothing "so-called" about my liberalism.
???
Not sure where that saying comes from but I like it... Unless you recently had an ox gored then I apologize.
That is pre-eminently non-principled naked racism, and if that's the way it is, then I can say with similar justifications, what's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. If there are no higher principles than f**king people over based on class, of getting your way because you "feel" you should, then no one can complain. Hey, bud, this is my only life, and I ain't living it giving it up to the concept that me and my kind are history's villain. We can play it like a game where the ideal constantly before us is that the rules will be applied the same to everyone, or we can accede to the proposition that it's all up for grabs and it's about try grappling for position and carving out special niches. It's all up to us how we want to be. We've spent forty years, ever since the Old Left became the New Left, subverting principle and demoralizing the hugely dominant class because it's somehow perversely right, and cynicism rife throughout our culture is what has come to fruition.
You've said this a couple of times in this thread in different ways; it'd be helpful, if you wish to avoid the mockery you've received in a couple of responses, to at least do us the favor of telling us what you're talking about. Affirmative action, and/or something else? (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here. If you're talking about things like AA in employment/admissions, I can at least see your argument. But it seems to me you're applying it to all sorts of other contexts (Jena, etc.), which is where you lose me.)
And if you're not talking about AA, what Ryan said. Eliminating the discrimination from which white men historically benefited /= discrimination against white men.
I hold you to that--if it applies to both races. If not, stick it where the moon don't shine. I'm sick and tired of having to understand the "other" while he gets to tell me that I just have to stuff my concerns. We're either on an equal footing in principle or we're not.
wikipedia cites to:
On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-first Century by Sherrilyn A. Ifill (Beacon Press, 2007) ISBN 978-0807009871
Link to the wikipedia page, "Lynching"
True, but if this is to be believed, they were often lynched for aiding blacks, or generally opposing the existing power structure. In other words, their lynching was part and parcel of the same societal racism that spawned lynchings of blacks.
I will admit it's not something I've done much research on, and this is just one source.
Thanks for the cite. I haven't read the book mentioned immediately after the cite, but will try to find it in my library.
retro: absolutely agree. I don't mean my post to diminish the horror and specifically racial horror associated with lynching.
Bradley says racist fans hurl racially charged invective.
People like Silva say that he deserves to be booed because he is playing badly.
Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who says that someone DESERVES to face racist abuse is an idiot.
It applies to any and all races. Someone--of any race--who wants to rob someone else looks for people--of any race--who look like they've got something worth stealing and might give it up without too much trouble. It just happens that, due to economic factors, in some percentage of instances the muggers--who are muggers because they've given up hope of making money any other way, which is an economic situation, not a racial or cultural one--are black and the muggees are white, which tends often to correlate with--rather than being the cause of--appearing to be worthwhile targets. Occasionally incidents of that type turn violent.
Then there is gang violence, which accounts for many more actual instances of violence than mugging does. Gangs tend to form in urban areas, because young people lose hope of making their way in legitimate society due to economic and other social factors. Nowadays, the populations of many U.S. inner cities are largely non-white, and so a disproportionate number of gang members are non-white. Some gangs form along racial lines, as well. But earlier in the 20th century, all-white gangs, that also formed among the poor and working class in inner cities, were in full flourish. The most important impetus for the creation and activities of gangs is economic and social standing, not race.
Anyone who claims that Bradley's complaints are about him being booed. Silva for example. He said that Bradley should shut up about racism because he is playing bad and deserves their ire.
Not agreeing with him, but that is how I read him.
In the heyday, there wouldn't have been any reason to hide it. You could just just set graduate students on reading old newspapers (and non science/math/computing graduate students are cheaper than piss. Science/math/computing graduate students are actually worth their weight in piss.)
JC, according to the 1937 World Almanac, between 1882 and 1935, there were 3,370 lynching of blacks and 1,311 lynchings of whites in the United States. The 1950 World Alamanac brings it up to 1948, and adds 52 lynchings of blacks and 2 more of whites for the 1936-48 period. So between 1882 and 1948 the totals would be 3,422 blacks and 1,313 whites who were lynched. That's a total of 4,735.
That is exactly what he said. What I am saying is that when someone complains that they are suffering rascist attacks and you counter by saying he shouldn't complain about being booed, he is saying there is no difference between being booed and being called... well, whatever you want to imagine.
I am saying there is a difference. A BIG difference.
Even if you think it is okay to boo a player, it is NEVER okay to use racial epithets against them, no matter how well or how badly they are playing.
Period.
A kind of funny, anecdotal story that backs up this idea was Bob Dylan of all people being profiled a couple of weeks ago for being in the "wrong neighborhood", because the younger cops had no idea who he was and thought he might be looking to buy drugs or something.
He is looking a bit haggard these days.
It is no longer even a factor.
Well said, phredbird. This was an important point in my original piece, one I think that was obscured by some in this thread.
There's a pretty stark difference between a boo and a racial slur.
Bradley talks about "hatred" at Wrigley, but he never said he was a victim of racial taunts. He talked about the "hatred" when he goes out to restaurants and such. IMO, he's being Milton Bradley, being overly sensitive and having a chip on his shoulder. Lots of players get booed Wrigley Field. Ask Todd Hundley or Kent Mercker or Kevin Gregg. It happens.
And Bradley was wildly cheered early in the season, he was booed when he failed. Then he spouted off to the media and now the fans boo him all the time.
I would be shocked if anyone at Wrigley stood up and called him a racial slur so loud so he could hear it. I'd be really shocked if he heard that sort of thing at restaurants. It seems to me that Bradley is pissed because he's getting booed - just like he always get pissed whenver someone "disrespects" him - and now it's taken on a racial turn because that sells newspapers.
In the Tribune article he never mentions having racial slurs thrown at him.
That's not what Derrek Lee told the Tribune.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-28-cubs-nationals-chicago-aug28,0,5817998.story
Sometimes they're booing you because you suck, or because you're a jerk, not because you're black.
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