Naw its great…those Chinese will eat, wait I meant offend anything.
Accidental Martyr:
Looking at Wikipedia, I was right. In addition to the Suns, the Kings had one also, until 1997.
In an ideal world, sure, everyone should voluntarily learn about other cultures so as to not be accidentally offended at something innocent. But knowing something causes offense, even if by mistake, we should at least take the offended person’s feelings into consideration. In this case, monkeys are a highly racial imagery when applied to black people, so in a sport with predominantly black players, it represents a bit of ignorance on the part of the Kings. The Kings backed off. In other situations, maybe they don’t back off, and that may be fine too.
And you’re wrong that it has nothing to do with black people. CNY may not have anything to do with them, but a monkey with Kings colors may be seen as a player even if that wasn’t the intent. In my job, we are taught in sexual harassment training that it doesn’t matter what the offender think is offensive, it is determined by the person who takes offense. Obviously there’s subjectivity there, a man with a picture of his wife shouldn’t be forced to take it down because someone else is gay and took offense, but if a man puts up a bikini calendar, the female workers shouldn’t be forced to endure it because the man doesn’t think its offensive. In this case the Kings felt that offending their best player wasn’t worth it, I’m in agreement
That’s not to say that any monkey imagery during February is wrong. An innocent movie like that is on the low end of offense. When we get angry about perceived offense, we shouldn’t pretend that all offenses are equal. Demarcus Cousins probably wouldn’t wear a shirt with a monkey on it any month, but maybe some black players will. And if the Kings bend over backwards to make Cousins happy, that doesn’t mean they’re required to wipe all imagery he personally deems offensive
What makes you think they don’t know about Chinese culture? That’s a pretty insulting assumption on your part.
Who said we do? Saying something could be construed as insensitive doesn’t mean anyone is trying to pretend things don’t exist.
Geez. No one is saying the picture of a money is de facto racist. No one is saying the people who approved the shirt are racist. What some people on the team are saying is they find the shirt insensitive. Why? Partly because athletes are routinely exposed to racism from fans and others who love to take every opportunity to denigrate them in any way they can. In soccer, Black players often have bananas thrown at them. Fucking bananas. People actually go out of their way to bring bananas to a professional soccer game just to throw at Black players; and I would bet you a million dollars most of those people deny they are racists.
So while you may correctly see a picture of a money as just a money, or a guy holding a banana as just a guy holding a banana, you need to recognize that you are not regularly subject to to reckless behavior that makes those things triggers for you or other people who are gonna hold it against you. Moreover, you are not generally subject to the judgments of those people and others based on how well you fit an unfair and racist stereotype. You know, like when you say something is insensitive, and people assume it’s because you, “haven’t taken the time to learn about other cultures”, rather than you just dislike it for completely unrelated reasons. Perhaps their reasons are not wanting to be subject to more racism no matter how innocuous the impetus for those attacks are.
Now of course most people who don’t have to walk this tightrope argue you should just ignore these terrible racists who twist these gestures of outreach into a racist symbol. However, most people don’t have that luxury when those people aren’t some random others, but people who are governors, presidential candidates, teachers, etc, etc. The sad part is those people only exposed themselves because the talk a lot and got complacent. Most people are not that stupid. That’s part of the reason we can be relatively sure those attitudes are far more common. It’s not a small percentage of people who act out racism, and it’s an even larger percentage who harbor racist thoughts. That is an unfortunate part of life that explains why some minorities will go out of their way not to be fodder for racists, or make it easier for people to brutalize them.
People in the spotlight are often overly cautious for those reasons and more, and it goes double for Black people. Just like you are likely not gonna find many Black pro athletes who want to hawk fired chicken or watermelon on TV even if they personally like those things. As a Black person, you unfortunately have to modify your behavior and conduct based on the fact that the US is generally infected with White supremacy. Black people are judged if we want to wear a hoodie, if we walk too fact or too slow, if we want to eat certain things in public, if we do anything that reminds people of the negative associations they’ve internalized about Black people.
So yeah, I can see why Cousins, a important Black basketball player doesn’t like the shirt. He may not think you are racist, or that you will equate Black people to monkeys, but he knows some non-zero percentage of people will, and he doesn’t like that. Lucky for him, as someone who is powerful and integral to the organization he works for, his opinion is more important than the opinion of avowed “non-racists” who are bummed because they won’t be able to enjoy a free t-shirt given to them at a game they never planned to attend. I get that in your reality, monkeys are monkeys and Black people are black people, and almost no one uses the stereotype to diminish others, but unfortunately, that is NOT the reality many people live. You don’t have to agree with it, but please stop acting as if Cousins and others are crazy to feel the way they do in large part because of their lived experiences.
Are you serious? If so, clutch your pearls tightly because there is an NBA team with a mascot that is a gorilla in a basketball uniform:
http://i.cdn.turner.com/nba/nba/teamsites/images/legacy/suns/DSC_1200.JPG
These two sentences directly contradict each other. Either there is subjectivity in determining if something is offensive or it’s up to the offendee.
Guess again:
http://www.donbleek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/FullSizeRender-2-554x600.jpg
http://www.donbleek.com/2015/12/01/demarcus-cousins-spotted-in-a-givenchy-two-monkey-graphic-sweatshirt/
I got it. It’s the year of the monkey so they should suspend the NBA season. Why? Gotta be a racist angle to play up somewhere. I blame the moon.
Yep, couldn’t have said it better myself. :dubious:
Makes sense to me. If I were a black guy- particularly one that’s in the media a lot - I wouldn’t really want to wear a t-shirt with a monkey on it, given the history of the racist usage of that imagery with black people. That doesn’t mean that all monkey pictures are racist, or that Chinese astrology is racist, or whatever other strawman has shown up in this thread. It’s an innocent gesture with some unfortunate, but unintended, connotations.
Since it’s just a bullshit t-shirt giveaway, and not anything actually important, the Kings decided to just stop the giveaway.
Naturally, this will not stop the usual herd of bloviating white people showing up in this thread explain at length why this is another example of black people being stupid.
See this is the problem. You start with a statement that is as racist as you can be without being explicit.
Then we move onto Trump. Trump has been explicit in his dislike of immigrants. He said they’re basically a country sending us the worst part of their population. Everyone ignores that part and just shortens it to “Trump says Mexicans are rapists”.
Then the last one is your teacher who said:
Neither of those is racist.
The problem with looking for racism everywhere is that you generally find what you are looking for. It usually doesn’t get as absurd as finding it in a year of hte monkey t-shirt, but constantly searching for racism isn’t going to lead to good results.
Here’s the guy in question wearing a shirt with monkeys on it:
http://www.donbleek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/FullSizeRender-2-554x600.jpg
How dare you? That’s nothing but sane rational talk!
or that this monkey picture is racist.
I’m only vaguely aware of “the history of the racist usage of that imagery with black people,” but that particular monkey picture really doesn’t resemble any racist images I recall seeing.
My impression, from the article linked to in the OP, is that part of the problem was that “NBA coaches and players were wearing Black History Month T-shirts in pregame warmups,” and the timing might have led people to (perhaps unconsciously) associate the monkey pictures on the other shirts with a “black history thing.”
Who said black people were stupid?
“Everyone” ignores it because they recognize a clear racist dog whistle when they hear it. Regardless, the article wasn’t about just that comment. Trump is clearly a racist bigot based on that an tons of other things he’s said and done.
Obviously people disagree. Rather than derail the thread, feel free to substitute the numerous public examples of someone acting suitable racist.
On what basis are you assuming Cousins or anyone else is looking for racism everywhere? Further, who said this is an example of racism? You do understand the difference between saying something is insensitive and saying it’s racist, right? Can you even point to more than one person saying it’s racist?
Jesus fucking Christ. White people are more upset about this than any black person is. And then, and this is what I really fucking love, they turn it onto us as if we’re the overly sensitive ones. The shirt was actually pretty cool, but the optics were dumb. That’s really all there is to it. But no. Gotta pull out that “well them blacks are the real racists!” For fuck’s sake.
That exceptions exist doesn’t mean that the rule isn’t true in most instances. No one I know has lodged any kind of racial insensitivity complaint against the Suns Gorilla. On the other hand, Demarcus Cousins, the King’s center and one of the best young players in the league, did take offense to this CNY promotion. You may believe we should treat all incidents the same, but we don’t and we shouldn’t.
There’s no contradiction at all but I could have worded that better. In this case, subjectivity refers to both the offense taken by the offendee, and the appropriateness of the offense. I was trying to say that when someone tries to defend themselves by saying “I don’t think its offensive, he shouldn’t be offended, he should lighten up”, that is not an appropriate response. However, management can and has the power to determine that something like a picture of your spouse is not offensive enough to warrant action despite the feelings of those who may be offended.
The issue comes down to how you defend yourself, its not ok to tell someone not to be offended, but it is ok to say an act has not been officially determined to be offensive.
Was it during Black History Month?
And you must know that its way different for someone to tell you to wear something, taking that choice away from you, than for you to wear it yourself as a statement. Same reason why I’m perfectly ok with black people using the N-word but nobody else being allowed to use it. If someone’s mad at that, I usually ask them “Why do you want to use that word so much?” More often than not, the anger is simply because of the childish desire to go against authority. I don’t find that to be very convincing at all, sometimes authority is good and there for a reason
Right before the Kings play the Suns, Cousins should totally complain about the mascot. Maybe he could get the Suns to forfeit purely out of shame! But only during February.
Peoples opinions aren’t binding. I’m of the opinion that people need to get over it. So we are at an impasse as neither opinion can be proven to be right. What will happen is that people will find offense at everything and in time the concept will be so ridiculous that there will be a backlash against it.
This is only a big deal because Demarcus Cousins–a hyper-entitled, whiny-ass, pissy-pants diva–decided to find racism where none existed.
The Kings know this shit is stupid. But what are they gonna do? NOT cater to the demands of the guy selling tickets?
Howard Cosell nearly lost his career to referring to a player as a “little monkey”. Scroll to “little monkey” comments. It’s way more sensitive than the post-racialists want it to be.