Oh no. Not at all. I strongly suspect that race is the absolute basis for their reluctance to venture downtown. No one says if, of course, but it’s right below the surface.
Didn’t mean my post to come across as defending my neighbors beliefs. I suspect they are all what my brother calls “basement racists”. They have a US flag flying from their stoop flagpole, but a confederate flag on the wall in their basement.
Personally, I don’t think ignorance is the same thing as racist. When you’ve got middle class suburban white folks that are fairly isolated from lower class minorities, I can understand where that fear comes from. Especially when you have these “White Savior” movies like “The Blind Side” that pretty much reinforce that fear. Movies whose take away message is; “Hey, unless you’re able to white wash these black folks, they’re dangerous! I mean, just look at the environment this kid grew up in! Why, if it weren’t for good ol’ Sandra Bullock, this gentle giant probably would have grown up to be a full on thug!”
And this is widely viewed as a “Feel Good” movie. [rolleyes]
OK. My apologies; I shouldn’t have made it sound like you were going down that road when it wasn’t clear in your post. Thank you for explaining.
You’re correct about the isolation and the impression people get from, for example, the media. But racism can be born of ignorance. You’re talking about making generalizations about people based on their race - in this case the generalization that black people are dangerous criminals. Yes, that’s racist. It’s kind of crazy to call it anything else. Again, racism is not just burning a cross. If you refuse to call it what it is, you do end up playing into the hands of bigots. People may not be aware of their own prejudices and you don’t have to treat them as the worst humans on earth because they have some kind of racist attitude they haven’t fully examined, but it’s racism. (In before Shodan or magellan01 or some other dipshit will surely post some crime stats in a moment, echoing Shodan’s bit about fathers in the other thread.)
You know, there are still older subdivisions up here with (unenforced) race restrictions in their covenants? And a lot of these 'burbs grew up around old Sunshine towns. When I drive up to Sawnee Mountain to hike, I pass through the shade of an old tree from which a lynching victim was hanged.
Suburbanites will tell you they don’t go to Atlanta as much as they like because of the traffic and parking, but then they would never let MARTA run up here (on the same tracks that sit two blocks from my house). Any guesses why that is?
You’ve heard the saying: “once you leave Atlanta, you’re back in Georgia.”
Not to get off the subject … but it is pretty grotty downtown, though; you got to admit that. Not so much that it would keep me from doing something I really wanted to do, but I’ve lived in places like Ft. Greene and Hell’s Kitchen and so I’m not so rattled by aggressive panhandlers and the like.
For a large segment of the population here in Georgia downtown Atlanta is one of the main circles of Hell and you take your life in your hands by going down there, even in broad daylight. Are they justified in this attitude? Maybe not, but here’s something that was on the news a couple of weeks ago that didn’t give suburbanites a warm and fuzzy feeling neither.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/gsu-police-officer-recovering-after-stabbing-near-/nhBdp/
That was in the middle of the afternoon.
Statements about race (‘racial’ statements) are different from racist statements, even if those racial statements are things you don’t want to hear. People of normal intelligence (which apparently doesn’t include you, more’s the pity) know this.
Thus pointing out that most black children in the US grow up without their father’s presenceis not a racist statement, and your assumption that anyone who says so is a racist simply means that you are a hypocritical ass.
Regards,
Shodan
You bought it up to defend Levenson’s weird-ass comment that “there are few fathers and sons at the games.” It was one of the few comments he made that was not obviously race-related, and you actually went out of your way to inject race into it. It’s actually kind of hilarious because you were - belatedly, sarcastically, lazily - trying to defend him from the charge of racism and you explicitly illuminated the nasty stereotype behind his views. And you used a different (bad) cite:
You were being a dick, and hiding behind phony gentility doesn’t work. Gee, I wonder why.
Regards,
Marley23
It’s so awesome that racism isn’t a thing anymore! By the way, if something looks like racism, it’s definitely not. Because racism is over.
Here’s the thing:
Even if a statement is factual, you can’t just assert it’s not racist without regard to context. If you say “Most black children in the U.S. grow up without their father’s presence” and your server says “Sir, I asked if you wanted the soup or the salad,” then yes, you will come off as a racist. And that’s pretty much what you did in the Game Room thread. Your posts were a load of drive-by shit, and while your capacity for self-deception is considerable, I suspect you know that. You also managed to get a bunch of facts wrong in that drive-by.You would have come off better if you’d tried to actually engage with the subject matter. That would have been less entertaining for you, and ironically it would have been less amusing to me because your performance demonstrated some of the stereotyping that underlies Levenson’s position even as you rejected the possibility that he’d said anything untoward. Here, on the other hand, is a story (anecdotal, but still) about the multiracial sports scene in Atlanta and how Levenson has failed to tap into it. That’s because he’s a shitty businessman- or at least he’s sucks as the controlling owner of an NBA team. You’re pulling a Bruce-Levenson-esque performance in your discussion of this issue.
And you type that because why? No one is saying racism is over. The issue is how broadly you and others want to define racism.
Here’s a serious question for you: what do gain by NOT defining it more narrowly? In a way in which everyone would agree—or let’s just say people like Shodan and I would agree—that a statement is, in fact, racist.
No, that isn’t what I did. Levenson said that not many black father-son combinations were coming to his games. I gave a non-racist reason why that might be true. Any you flew off the handle because it is true. And since you are a weak debater when you are emotionally disraught, and since you get emotionally disraught as a Pavlovian response to seeing or hearing the word “racism”, you had no options to respond other than with the usual frothing foolishness.
No I didn’t, you lying troll. The facts asserted were that white people in the US have, on average, more money than black people, and that most black children grow up without their fathers. Both of these are documented facts, both are relevant to the things Levenson said in his e-mail, and both are embarassing to you because they do not allow you to pitch a sufficiently satisfying tantrum.
If you would like to claim that racism means saying things that are documented facts and relevant to a discussion, even if they are unflattering to black people, go ahead. But get used to being laughed at or dismissed.
I did engage the subject, which was Levenson’s e-mail. I just made points that interfered with your knee-jerk accusations of racism.
Regards,
Shodan
Because self-righteous outrage is easier and more fun than rational thought.
Regards,
Shodan
Count me another who feel this a ploy to get a better price for his team.
“My e-mails were racially insensitive, so I will sell my team for some of that Sterling money.”
If selling the team were not the goal, why not release the e-mails and give a mea culpa? Make a statement that you now now see this attitude in a different light and you are working to change your attitudes and practices? Embrace the black community and sell some more damn tickets and merchandise!
Nope, a ploy.
That’s not at all clear. It’s *possible *that’s what he meant, but given the overall theme of the email I think it’s more likely he was saying that people (especially white people) don’t see Hawks games as a safe, wholesome, family activities because of the predominantly black crowd, and therefore don’t bring their kids.
But that actually has very little to do with what *you *were saying. No one was debating what he said about fathers & sons, and you certainly weren’t responding to anyone else there. It didn’t even really have anything to do with your own post; it seems like a non sequitur. You were just using the opportunity to take a shot at black people.
I always try to read others’ posts generously, but nothing in your posting history leads me to grant the benefit of the doubt in this case.
How does that work? If he wants to sell his team, what’s wrong with just saying, “the team is for sale”? Someone who’s known to be a motivated seller can expect to get a *lower *price, not a higher one.
More background on how this email came to light. Again, the prime mover in this situation is not Levenson. It’s another Hawks owner who dislikes both Levenson and Ferry. But whatever his motivations, he’s right that about Ferry’s repulsive statements.
Bull. A lot of people say things like that. Just a couple of weeks ago, Shodan tried to stir up some shit in GD by saying Obama was responsible for the idea that the U.S. is now “post-racial,” which dates back to around the time of his election. (And I think it’s fair to use that term as equivalent to ‘racism is dead.’ It’s the same concept.)
I get to use the word appropriately and skip a lot of arguments that excuse racism, either by intent or just in effect. For example, using the word appropriately, I can say people who insist Africans are dumber than everyone else are racists. Or I can say people who devote lots of energy to insisting it’s plausible that Africans are dumb are racists. Because that shit is really racist. It’s absurd to insist that the word racism be reserved only for the use of racial slurs or people who admit they don’t like people of other races. I’m glad we all agree that’s a horrible thing, but there are plenty of other types of prejudice and discrimination that play a much larger role in the world than the few unreconstructed bigots who will admit they hate people based on their race. When people refuse to acknowledge that race plays a role in larger types of discrimination, they miss a lot of important big picture stuff - and again, while it’s all well and good to discuss what people are saying, it’s ridiculous to watch people contort themselves over and over again to try to find a way that some kind of anti-black comment isn’t really racist.
You’re doing it again. He did not mention race there. The whole sentence was “there are few fathers and sons at the games.” While he refers to race a bunch of times in that part of the email, he’s also talking about getting more suburban white dads and their kids to buy season tickets. Since he is glad their audience is less black, you can hardly think he’s wishing there were more black guys with their kids at these games. And again, the whole thing had very little to do with the topic in the first place.
That’s kind of a reinvention of your posts, which read in full:
and
Nobody asserted that saying ‘white people have more money than black people’ is racist. Nobody said hiring some white cheerleaders and changing the background music was discriminating against black people. That was all discussed in detail in that thread and again in this one. (And for the record I also showed the Hawks have always had white cheerleaders.) So you strolled into the middle of discussion, threw around a lot of straw, and then scurried off to shit somewhere else. Why are you acting surprised you’re being called an asshole?
Yes, however will I live knowing that you and magellan01 don’t think much of me? I guess I’ll settle for trying to win approval from intelligent people.
If an owner said, “Our audience is 90% white; what can we do to diversify?”, nobody would think it wrong.
No, because our society and his city aren’t 90% white. Levenson has a diverse audience already and he seems to want a less-diverse one.
Correct, because it isn’t wrong. But saying “we want to discourage whites from coming to our games” is. Can you not see the difference?