@Marco I would just wonder what isnât social or political? We are social creatures and to me it isnât bad to be constantly reminded that all we do is intertwined and the decisions we make donât just impact ourselves. There are those among us who can pretend like the decisions we make only impact us and that we arenât all connected but that doesnât make it true.
benshawks08
4625 posts
@Marco I realize you probably didnât mean it like that and of course you recognize they are human beings but I still think itâs dangerous when we dehumanize any group of people intentionally or unintentionally. Itâs why I really struggle with the âshut up and dribbleâ mentality.
@Marco The players are not a corporate product. They are human beings. Viewing humans as products is generally not a great way to look at the world and has had some pretty terrible consequences. They are the labor that makes the entertainment possible. As the primary faces and labor of the NFL I feel like they should have some freedom to do as they wish with the platform they have earned.
@nuleafjhawk Yeah! Who cares about the players actually playing the football!? Who cares what they think?! Who cares what matters to them?! Their job is to entertain me! And seeing them as humans with thoughts and feelings and opinions doesn't entertain me! I just want to see someone get smashed so hard his brain breaks!
Real talk, if you aren't entertained, don't watch. Pretty simple.
Kansas City fans now have âbooingâ trending on twitter for booing during a moment of silence for âunityâ. Guess it wasnât really the kneeling that had some folks upset.
@kjayhawks At names that donât appropriate disenfranchised people and their culture. Easy question. Thanks.
And why was his nickname âchiefâ? Police chiefs and fire chiefs and chief financial officers are not the same thing at this point.
@nwhawkfan exactly. Sorry, Washington was undeniably the worst, but after the Cleveland baseball team, chiefs and braves gotta be next. So much of âracial justiceâ focuses on Black and white but itâs a much broader spectrum.
@Marco Indoor Vs Outdoor. Close quarters vs distance available. Amount of time in direct contact with another person. These are things we have learned throughout this pandemic. These are the things that matter when it comes to transmission of the virus from person to person. Donât get me wrong. Iâm not going to Disney world anytime soon. Iâd rather not be in any place with thousands of people who I canât account for how seriously they are considering the safety of others.
@Marco What isnât open that you want to do? What does âfully reopenâ mean to you? I eat from all my favorite restaurants, I just do it to go. I see my friends, just outside and from 6feet away. Iâm not locked in my house in fear, but Iâm trying not to actively put other people at risk. I can watch golf and the NBA on my tv, but I wonât be joining the 25,000 people at the UT football game. Heck, I even go play golf once every couple of weeks.
@Marco So How many people do you have to know before you âbuyâ it? If itâs not real until it affects you thatâs a pretty self absorbed way to look at the world. 200,000 people. The equivalent of 9/11 every week. How many people did you know that died on 9/11? If itâs zero does that mean itâs not real? There are people who think that.
For reference I know 5 people who have died. Not that that matters.
@BShark This to me is exactly what Kendi is talking About when he says denial equals racism.
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This, unfortunately, is not unusual rhetoric from police officials in positions of power.
There are some that say the right things, Art Acevedo of Houston (formally austin) comes to mind but until those words are backed by substantial systemic change Iâm not even sure what good they do.
@jayhawkblue73 You brought up the stat... Just pointing out that the racial inequity is not in total numbers but in per capita/percentages, etc. I would agree the solution is not for cops to just start killing more white people to even it out.
@jayhawkblue73 Twice as many white men killed by police but how many more white men exist in the country? My brother is a cop too so I get where you are coming from emotionally. Cops have a hard job and a lot of the actual policy behind the defund the police movement is to make cops jobs easier by not forcing them to deal with every problem in our society.
@jayhawkblue73 How many police officers do get shot during routine traffic stops?
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No idea if this is true or not. If true, lol.
@approxinfinity I remember being scoffed at when I brought up problems in the Republican Party when they had that chair in Texas go off on some racist conspiracy theory. Some republicans disavowed such lunacy and I was accused of nut-picking. But here we are a few months later and Qanon supporters and conspiracy nut jobs just keep winning primaries. Many in places where they are likely to be elected. Itâs a problem that needs to be addressed.
@Texas-Hawk-10 Pretty sure @approxinfinity knows that and also pretty sure everyone knows what he means. One party impeached him, the other voted not to remove him from office. Things have gone swimmingly ever since. Every republican has enabled a president most of them donât trust, know is unfit, and who is a complete embarrassment because of judges and tax cuts for their rich donors.
Mitch McConnell is just as bad in my opinion minus the incompetence. He is unfortunately dangerously competent at getting his way.
The system is soooooo broken.
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So freaking scary.
Quite a headline from the daily tar heel
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@FarmerJayhawk said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
@DanR said in Differentiating fact from opinion on COVID-19:
I'm still amazed that people are trying to solve a million consequential problems rather than the one big problem. Basically, we all already frittered 5 months away, half-assed, for nothing and the problem is worse than when it started. Too eager to eat the turkey before it was completely cooked. Still--at any point, no matter how bad this is--we could suck it up, isolate for 6-8 weeks and this thing is mostly long gone. Will it happen? Nope. Nobody offers that as a solution.
And, we'll have this same discussion in January about re-opening schools.
Probably because thatâs my daily life. Solving issues as they come up. Iâm not the governor. I canât lock down the state. I also think another lockdown is impossible. The public health establishment already shot its wad when it said people couldnât go to church or anything else, but mass protests are a-okay. Politically itâs just not feasible.
It would be possible if the right people supported it. But they donât. The left has taken this more serious from the get go. If our âleaderâ were to use his influence over his âshoot someone in the street and theyâll still vote for meâ crowd we could knock this out like a lot of europe has done. All it takes is being truly pro life (The real kind not just anti-abortion), pro health and pro science. Thatâs it.
I still donât get the protest v church dichotomy. They just arenât the same thing.
@FarmerJayhawk I just know there was one year where we lost three kids in my school of 1600 and it was probably the most traumatic year of my life. Each one was so devastating and the next just compounded the loss. For reference, 1% Of my student population would be 16, .5% would be 8. So I will be watching those numbers carefully. A majority of our students are Latinx, the community who statistically taken the biggest hit both locally and nationally.
I think a big thing people havenât really been thinking about is how much kids have been protected up until this point by schools shutting down and being closed all summer. We have no idea what this is going to look like when it hits the school population for real.
Good news is death rate overall is going down As we learn more how to treat it and I think I saw fda approved new tests that should provide faster results but I canât remember where I saw that.
@FarmerJayhawk First rule Of a pandemic is if it feels like an overreaction you are probably doing it right.
@approxinfinity To me the real question is how long until people start talking about an acceptable death rate for schools.
@FarmerJayhawk The anxiety of going back to school and interacting with groups of people is very real. Glad my district is starting all online for the first 4 weeks and reevaluating from there. I was in a CPR training today and 3 people continually pulled down their masks to talk to each other. Why where the mask if youâre just going to take it down to spew your droplets all over the people you are excited to see?!!
@kjayhawks Iâve seen people waiting in line to eat at the Cheesecake Factory in the mall. Like, what are you even doing? They serve to go people! Iâm certainly not risking it for over priced, mediocre at best food.
@approxinfinity Oh yeah. Totally agree. Forgot about Bloomberg. Thank god it isnât him. Thatâs why I said âat this pointâ meaning the pick is made, the primaries are over, etc.
@approxinfinity And Iâm all for finding candidates I am truly excited about but feel like that has to happen on the local level. Just not a viable option at the National and often even state level at this point.
While Harris certainly has a problematic history as an AD and Biden supports some policies I donât necessarily agree with it sometime helps to remember the guy they are running against retweets stuff like this truly believing he was sent by god to defeat his enemies (the democrats): đŚ View Tweet?s=21
And
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Not a great look of unity is what you are after.
@kjayhawks said in The "crap on Biden" thread.:
So.... I did a little digging on Harris and itâs not good. Rather interesting to say the least. First off she isnât African American (which doesnât matter if she is, but a lot people think she is) her mom is from India and her dad is from Jamaica. She herself has been very outspoken about repatriations for African Americans due to slavery and that my friends is where the bombshell was found. Harrisâs great great great grandfather named Hamilton Brown was a white sugar farmer in Jamaica. He owned not one or two plantations but five and was said to own more than 200 slaves at his height of operations. Also he supposedly took land that was to be given to freed slaves. Most of her familyâs wealth leads to him. Coming from me of Irish and Scottish descendant who ancestors were more than likely slaves, knowing at least one side of my family wasnât in this country til the 1890s is flat out sickening. Gosh Iâd give my life if Americans could just think.
So what exactly is your point here and please clarify what is flat out sickening? The fact that generational wealth dating back to slavery is still alive and well? Gotta agree with you there. But then wouldnât the medicine for that sickening illness be reparations? Or is that the part that sickens you? Iâm confused. Also, does Wikipedia now count as digging? Did you see @Texas-Hawk-10 quote from Wikipedia on Harris? Clearly super reliable source. Why not just make up some story that she doesnât even qualify because maybe she wasnât born here like they did for the last black person on the ticket. Oh wait thatâs already happening....
@approxinfinity Never was I trying to say you are a shit and apologies if thatâs the impact my statements had on you. Also, your personal relations to the book are 100% valid. As @mayjay pointed out, the specific use of cartoons makes the story purposefully more relatable and broad. And I again want to reiterate that your interpretation is VALID and meaningful to you and thatâs great. But to state the book isnât about race and these âanti-racistsâ who try to make everything about race need to leave the book alone I think is limiting and frankly just not correct. I do feel like itâs everyoneâs responsibility to work to end racism and if we donât start having these conversations with kids when they are VERY young, it is a missed opportunity.
Itâs amazing that the book connects with you on such a personal level. Iâm so glad you shared. Now wouldnât it also to be great to see all the other perspectives that connected to that story. Like those that connected based on race, sexuality, gender identity, and on and on into perpetuity.
I recognize right now Iâm most focused on race because for me systemic racism is an existential threat for the people in my community. So yeah Iâm going to look for every opportunity to center the stories and perspectives of those who have been violently shoved to the margins for so long.
@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
@benshawks08 not being invited to a Frankfurter party is not the same thing as not being allowed to eat.
Perhaps my grammar was unclear. That with was working for all the List before it. Eat with, play sports with etc.
@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
@benshawks08 said in Juneteenth:
@approxinfinity And to me part of not being a shit is recognizing that systematically excluding a group from society on the basis of their appearance is racist and bad.
Are you suggesting that by not interpreting the book as being specifically antiracist, I am in fact a racist? That seems to jive with the "with us or against us" vibe around this whole discussion.
Anywhere where I called you a racist? Said it was one way OR another? My entire point has been yes AND. I continually point out that I prefer not to call any person A Racist and focus instead on using the term as an adjective as I feel itâs more productive that way. And even in this discussion have I labeled any of your actions as racist?
@approxinfinity Ah yes. All those times people werenât allowed to eat, visit beaches, play sports and generally associate with the rest of society because of their glasses
@approxinfinity And to me part of not being a shit is recognizing that systematically excluding a group from society on the basis of their appearance is racist and bad.
And while you can interpret texts however you want, âliteratureâ does not mean any interpretation is valid. To be clear Iâm not saying your interpretation is invalid, but rather incomplete.
@approxinfinity Where I'm coming from big picture is that the teaching of most history, art, etc. tends to take your approach of not making it about race even when as @mayjay pointed out, the author was actually trying to address it. I think it is irresponsible to read a fictional book about discrimination and not connect it to the very real discrimination that has been going on in our society. Just as I think it is irresponsible to teach the amazing accomplishments of the founding fathers, triumphs of american spirit, etc. without acknowledging and investigating the faults.
I think the preference for many people to talk about class while ignoring race is equally irresponsible.
I think it is easier for most people to assume things aren't about race, than to actually confront the racism baked into our lives.
To me that's where this whole Dr. Seuss extravaganza we just went on started and where I end up with it.
@mayjay said in Juneteenth:
Opinions are fun, but sometimes facts help. According to Wikipedia, Dr. Seuss expressly stated that The Sneetches had its origins in his opposition to anti-Semitism (quoted in fn 4). It was even distributed in Bosnia by NATO to try to encourage tolerance between Serbs and Croatians.
So...racism. At least for me and my current understanding, anti Semitism and racism go hand and hand as almost but not quite exactly the same thing. I may be wrong there as I haven't explicitly studied the connection between the two. But from what I've seen anti-Semitism is often under the larger umbrella of racism, similar to anti-Blackness.
@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
@mayjay good looking out.
Ok. A simpler time. Where all he had to fight was outright persecution and not systemic racism, economic disparity, and implicit bias, etc.
Just checking my snark meter here. You are not disputing that all of those things were still present in that simpler time, right?
@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
@benshawks08 said in Juneteenth:
@approxinfinity
https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/global-currents/profiting-from-the-skin-lightening-trade âLol, yes I know. I didn't think you'd go here. So that's what this book is about?
No it isn't. I'm just saying ignoring the racial undertones of the conflict of the story seems like purposefully pulling the wool over ones eyes.
@approxinfinity said in Juneteenth:
@benshawks08 said in Juneteenth:
@approxinfinity I'm focusing on the central conflict in the story because of its obvious connection to race and segregation. The McBean element is part of why the story is problematic. I'd liken that character to major corporations pitting the lower class folks against each other based on race to continue to line their own pockets while not honestly caring about any of them.
You said the magic words here. Pitting lower class folks against each other. This is a book about class, not race.
In the US how do you talk about one without the other?
And how are those classes being pitted? Appearance they were born with.
@Texas-Hawk-10 I would add the ease of spread of the virus by those who are either asymptomatic or not YET showing symptoms as part of the biggest issue. Everyone in my immediate sphere of influence who has had it has recovered or is recovering (though a few distant family friends have passed) but NONE of them have said it was a walk in the park. I keep hearing "sickest I've ever felt," and "just wouldn't go away."
@approxinfinity I'm focusing on the central conflict in the story because of its obvious connection to race and segregation. The McBean element is part of why the story is problematic. I'd liken that character to major corporations pitting the lower class folks against each other based on race to continue to line their own pockets while not honestly caring about any of them.
@approxinfinity I just feel like that interpretation is so narrowly YOUR interpretation. I would be interested to see how many people of color reading that story would see it as an allegory for racism vs. how many white people.
The distance between discrimination based on appearance and racism is in no way a giant leap.
And to be clear I'm not saying this book is a good tool to teach kids about race, in fact the opposite, but it does baffle me how a person can read that story and not think about Black people being denied the right to eat certain places, play baseball with white players, and participate in society as a whole.
@approxinfinity I'm saying I grew up in a, to use your word, whitewashed world and Seuss was a part of that. I never had to think about race as a child because I was in an almost entirely white environment similar to that of the world created by Seuss.
@approxinfinity Or the adding of the star is that all are now equal (at a cost) and so those who were on top now have to change the rules to maintain their power.
Just because you don't see the discrimination based on appearance doesn't mean it isn't there.
@approxinfinity And to answer your question, yes, I have had to unlearn a lot of biases I have for all sorts of things and continue to learn and unlearn every day. I grew up in west Wichita and had very few people of color in my classes or as teachers k-12. I grew up hearing about "the bad part of town" and "the wrong side of the tracks" and "those bus kids." We had one black guy in our church and he was the janitor. I remember one prominent adult in school that was black and she was the security guard all us white kids called "busta" because her last name was Rhymes. I had one Asian friend through middle and high school and one Jewish friend named J.D. whom we affectionately (probably not to him) called Jew Dog. Do you honestly believe you hold no unconscious bias?
From the sneeches âwhen the star belly children went out to play ball, Could a plain belly get in the game? No, not at allâ
Later,
âThey kept them away, never let them come near and thatâs how they treated them year after yearâ
I know I am of the opinion we should talk more about race not less, but please explain to me how this is not a direct reference to segregation. Itâs literally baseball and lunch counters.
Oops. Left out the quote about the plain belly sneeches not being allowed to eat with the star belly ones. But itâs there.
@approxinfinity Yeah but the thing is kids are finding racial messaging in books and everything in their world whether explicitly intended or implicitly. This is where implicit bias starts and the research is showing it starts as young as age 3. So if we arenât going to explicitly talk to our kids about race they will form their own opinions mostly based on their parents implicit biases. Then the much more difficult work of unlearning has to happen.
Also, I saw no âwith us or against usâ message anywhere in the articles I shared. Maybe if you saw that you could point it out to me?