No. But the OP knew what he was doing and framing the OP the way he did he knew the Dope would be outraged, outraged, outraged! The OP is trolling.
I don’t think anyone who was in the arena that night thought the shirts were actually racist (as the Indians and Tedskins, I agree, are).
I’d prefer zero errors.
But none of that matters. I’m talking about individual acts. One act doesn’t justify another.
And since false accusations destroy credibility and trust, I think they have a far greater impact on delaying the erasure of real racism than you think.
I don’t even understand why you feel the need to make a comparison. If they are bad, they are bad. What concerns me is someone who excuses them altogether. Let’s say false accusations of racism are probably not as big a concern.
What if those things are true though?
Let people just make their argument, then you respond, etc. If they are full of shit, you’ll show they are full of shit.
That’s one of the effects of false accusations I was talking about. People see so many ridiculous, flimsy claims of racism that when another one comes along they pile on. But I suppose just as I said one shouldn’t call out people as defensive, one shouldn’t pile on this way.
(This makes me think back to a poster on this board a while back who literally told me that because he knew my race, he knew me better than I know myself. He has never met me and doesn’t even know my real name, of course, but he knew I was racist, even if I didn’t, because of my own race. That’s not entirely related but it points out the ridiculous crap some people feel entitled to say with a straight face.)
Racist! 
I would not be so sanguine about false accusations. Do you feel the same way about accusations of child abuse, murder, or other terrible things? Do you think it is better that there are false allegations of racism so that we catch more genuine acts of racism?
*
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”* You’ve turned this on its head.
Bone, how come you skipped my response in post #228?
Absolutely! Do you really feel that false accusations of rape or murder are close to as bad as actual rape and murder? It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone feels differently.
And false accusations are really bad! I’m against them. But I think they’re actually quite rare, and they sometimes start good and productive conversations – even the fired (and later rehired) guy in lance’s example, Mr. Howard, thought there was a silver lining.
Saying racist things isn’t (and shouldn’t be) a crime, and this isn’t remotely comparable. We should welcome these discussions, even on the off chance that they’re started by a misunderstanding.
Bringing it back to the original topic, this was a good thing and a good discussion. Reasonable concerns were had, shared, and addressed. The celebration continued.
Me too. Considering that we’re all human, if you had to err on one side, which side would you shoot for?
False accusations are bad. I just don’t think they’re very common, and I think, when addressed properly, they can actually improve understanding by all parties (as your example in the DC government did). That was a good thing coming out of a bad thing.
They weren’t true in this case, and in these kinds of threads I find them far more common then actual false accusations of racism. So, if we want to be glib, we could spin this into a discussion of false accusations of false accusations of racism.
Again, I think actual false accusations of racism are pretty rare.
Let’s bring it back to the original topic – was this a false accusation of racism, or was it a reasonable concern brought to the management, reasonably addressed, and explained with emotion (which ought to be fine, I think)?
Do you think management addressed the accusations because they thought they were reasonable, or because they were coming from one of their star players, upon whose back they make a lot of money, was the one making them and they just want to keep him happy?
The latter is much more likely. Let’s put it this way, if you or I had had brought this concern to the team, would they have given a shit? They didn’t respond because they were made aware of a problem, they responded because Cousins’ happiness (while he still wears their uniform) is more important to their bottom line than a t shirt.
I say this just to point out that the fact that management responded is not evidence that the accusation was reasonable.
Likely both. It was a reasonable concern. Do you think it wasn’t? I doubt most people in Sacramento (or any US town) know a whole lot about Chinese New Year, so I can imagine that this could cause possible offense and confusion on the first day of Black History Month. Why not continue the celebration with imagery that won’t do this, or present it in a different way? Which is what they did, of course. What’s the problem with what happened?
There was no accusation.
I read it. I didn’t see any questions to respond to and I didn’t note any particular statement that I wanted to add to. I don’t necessarily agree with the characterization, but not enough to raise objection.
Yes, the false accusations are clearly not as bad as the actual harm. I wouldn’t say that false accusations are a hummingbird…that seems to trivialize them. False accusations can be devastating and life altering. In addition, false accusations make actual instances harder to believe.
A silver lining sure, but ultimately a net negative. And I don’t think false accusations of racism are rare at all. Casual accusations of racism are commonplace and it impacts general discourse.
No, I don’t agree. I would have preferred the outcome where someone raised this concern, and society collectively told Cousins to get over himself in the same way if he thought being called a chair was racist. When someone gets all in a hough about using the word “niggardly”, the appropriate response is to tell that person to shut the fuck up. But no, we are at a place where everyone will think twice about that type of action.
I shared this story in my house. The response, “that’s fucking stupid, but that’s the world we live in.”
Note the quote that I was quoting and therefore directly responding to (bolding mine) for the reason that I used that word, so not seeing what your attempt is here:
I think it wasn’t remotely a reasonable concern. I live in San Francisco, where Chinese culture is pretty prevalent. Chinese New Year is a pretty huge deal. The animal representing that new year is a pretty huge deal. I assure you that the folks in nearby Sacramento, are more than familiar with Chinese New Year. The Chinese market for the NBA is a super huge deal. This is a confluence of huge deals that makes this sort of promotion a no brainer, and by the way, culturally nice to see. And it’s sad when something intended toward cultural inclusiveness is ruined by looking for offense where obviously none was intended. This feigned offense does way more to divide than unite.
How was it ruined? Would a hypothetical Hindu cultural celebration be “ruined” if the swastikas were removed (or downplayed) and/or it was moved to a day other than Holocaust Remembrance Day?
I don’t see how a little bit of sensitivity “ruins” something like this. It only seems to divide if one is intent on being divided and avoiding any bit of sensitivity, in my opinion.
That’s no fun.
I think casual accusations of racism are commonplace as well, but I also think casual racism is commonplace. That may be the difference in our opinions. Casual accusations can be true, obviously.
What if they kept the t-shirts and Cousins was right, and a bunch of fans ended up confused or offended? Why is that a better outcome then being a bit more sensitive while still having the celebration? Again, would it be terrible if a hypothetical Hindu cultural celebration removed (or downplayed) the swastikas and/or moved the celebration to a day other than Holocaust Remembrance Day? Wouldn’t that actually be the most prudent action?
I bow to the wisdom of Bone’s house. You’ve broken the back of my argument. 
Reasonableness? In the Pit! It’s the End of Days…
Good on you for being reasonable, though.
I’m not nearly familiar enough with Hindu cultural references to comment on that part. But in this example, if they kept the shirts and people were offended or confused, tough. It’s a teaching moment. I think that lesson is better than the lesson we have to be hyper sensitive and avoid any possibility of offending people.
It’s not like I think monkeys must be on Tshirts. It may have been better to not start out like that, but they did. Backing down to acquiesce to nonsense is worse.
FWIW here’s the Daily Show’s take:
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article58624108.html
[QUOTE=iiandyiiii]
What if they kept the t-shirts and Cousins was right, and a bunch of fans ended up confused or offended? Why is that a better outcome then being a bit more sensitive while still having the celebration?
[/quote]
What of the several thousand people that missed out on a cool t-shirt?
What about the bunch of people offended by the snub of CNY?
What about the people offended by PC run amok?
The best outcome if someone really is offended or confused is to explain the reasons behind the t-shirt. Cross cultural understanding is increased, people get monkey t-shirts, it’s win win. If they’re still mad after learning about CNY then fuck em. We shouldn’t have to change to make idiots feel better about themselves.
Why should Indians change/abandon something that has been part of their culture for two thousand yeas because of some asshole Germans?
A little bit of feigned sensitivity to a feigned offense ruins something like this because next time something real comes up, someone will use this pretend outrage as an example of over sensitivity and they will be correct.
Apparently we can all repeat this until we’re blue in the face and it’s just easier to hand-wave it away and then stick it in the Ignore bin. It’s much more fun this way.
It’s also a win-win to be sensitive – why not a multi-week long lead up, explaining the CNY, and all the cool animals and stuff, and then a stylized monkey wearing Chinese battle armor defeating the mascots of the Kings’ opponents?
It seems nuts to me that it’s wrong to take others feelings into account – a great celebration presented sensitively is not a snub of CNY – it’s a celebration.
How is changing the day of the celebration from the Holocaust Remembrance Day abandoning anything? Or if it has to be that day, how is using other Hindu imagery abandoning anything? Is it really that bad to try and eliminate the chance of giving a Holocaust survivor a heart attack?
What if it’s real sensitivity to the potential for real offense? Isn’t it possible that some Jews might be hurt by swastikas displayed on Holocaust Remembrance Day?