We had a rather lengthy discussion about racism in a recent post and when I came across this story, I found myself wondering if this was, in fact, racist.
Teammates would hold hands before their games, say a prayer together, then yell "One, two, three [N-word]!" before running out onto the court, according to offended students.
So, is this racist? I just want to be sure because I've been told that my barometer on this is way off. I guess I'm wondering where exactly the line in the sand has been drawn.
15 comments:
I can't imagine why a bunch of white high-school girls would develop this "tradition" except out of racism. Even if the girls currently on the team truly aren't racist, it would seem they would want to change it to something more meaningful to themselves. It's not like Little Black Sambo was the team mascot. Since their team mascot is the bulldog, why not "One, two, three, BULLDOGS!" or "One, two, three, BITCHES!" which would obviously be more apropos.
The school's only been around since 1959, and though I can't find out how long the girls' basketball program has been around, it probably was added after Title IX in 1972, so any claim that the "tradition" dates back to a time when such language was considered inoffensive is bogus.
What's most telling about this is not the overt or casual racism of it, but that "tradition" is used to justify it. These kids aren't alone in this; recently a student at a black college bad was killed in a "traditional" hazing incident. Frats, bands and sports teams have been hazing their members since forever, and there's no sign that this "tradition" will die out soon.
This knee-jerk reaction by so many people in society to get down on bended knee to any hallowed "tradition" no matter how outdated, wasteful, irrelevant, stupid, offensive, environmentally destructive or downright dangerous will be the downfall of the human race. Perhaps even worse than worship of traditions is our quickness to anger when someone else fails to respect them." If we as a people placed less emphasis on "tradition" there would have been a whole lot fewer pillaging crusaders, jihadi terrorists and pointless wars in our long and bloody history.
Perhaps you should give them some leeway, after all their brains aren't fully developed yet.
I think they are of the Mik'iel Jordan generation, and it is republicans and corporations to blame.
Here's a question for you: Do you think Bill Maher claiming Obama isn't "a real black President" because he doesn't have a gun in his pants racist?
Why or why not?
Hey Mark,
The new styling for the site looks cool and all, but you are violating any number of accessibility best practices with the coloring scheme. Most usability experts agree that readability of dark-on-light is preferred to light-on-dark. There are even indications that light-on-dark is a hindrance to people with dyslexia, although that's not definitive.
A portion of your text (links, etc.) is styled a shade of gray, and gray-on-black can be very difficult for people with color blindness to read.
You also are making use of an inline stylesheet vs. an externally referenced stylesheet, and an inline stylesheet can be difficult for readers with particular style preferences/needs to override with their own preferences.
Just some observations. Do with them what you will.
Thanks for the notes, PL. I'll talk to Nikto about the shades of grey issue. I'm not familiar with inline stylesheet issues so you might have to help me out on that one.
MFFB, first, I'd have to see the quote or the video clip. Second, if true, what was the context? Was he making fun of people who think that stereotype is true?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/05/29/maher_obama_not_acting_like_a_real_black_president.html
Yeah, it was as I suspected. He's playing off of the stereotype in a way that's not demeaning and actually pokes fun at the image. Sarah Silverman does this all the time (the "I hate Chinks, I love Chinks bit") It's all about context and when the right says it, for the most part, the context is a dog whistle for bigots. With Bill, it's not.
The other element here is the projection/flipping thing again. Rather than focus on dealing with the issue presented, you attack an anti-right pundit. Classic.
And I think it's time for a review of this.
http://markadelphia.blogspot.com/2010/12/move-along-nothing-to-see-here.html
M - inline styles and embedded stylesheets are defined within page elements in the body or STYLE tags in the head of a page (respectively). The order of preference given to styles (i.e. the 'C', or Cascading, in CSS) honored by a standards-compliant browser indicates that, among two styles that otherwise carry the same weight, inline or embedded styles are defined last and therefore take precedence. That makes it more difficult for users who need/want to override a stylesheet to do so.
If you look at the source for your main page you will find about 750 lines of content in the STYLE tag in the head of the page. That's an embedded stylesheet that is going to "win out" over any stylesheet I attempt to utilize unless I define my stylesheet in a very specific manner. If I am that adamant about overriding stylesheets then I probably have defined my personal stylesheet the proper way anyway, but you never know.
If you reference your stylesheet from an external source using a LINK tag then not only does it make it more user-friendly from the perspective I mention above, it also is more readily reused on other pages in your site. (For example, the one stylesheet could be used to style your home page and your comments popup page.)
Believe it or not, some people do surf the web overriding stylesheets of as many sites as they can. After all, there's a reason why every successful website is styled in a similar fashion. Ebay, Amazon, Facebook, Google,....It's also an argument for why you should never, ever attempt to convey meaning on your website via a stylesheet.
Thanks for the info, PL. I'll keep it in mind as I move forward with the site. I'm not much of a source code guy so some of this stuff is over my head but Nikto knows so I can direct this to him. What do you think of the newest layout? I think it speaks to some of your concerns.
If PL is concerned, we should all be concerned.
Your most recent changes definitely resolve some of the issues. Nice work.
For the record, I'm also somewhat concerned that Juris is taking credit for my Yippy Dog® moniker for the substance-lacking contributors on this blog, but I'm willing to let that slide due to my lack of continued participation.
The other element here is the projection/flipping thing again. Rather than focus on dealing with the issue presented, you attack an anti-right pundit. Classic.
Is that what I'm doing? Take a look at this quote from the body of the post:
I just want to be sure because I've been told that my barometer on this is way off.
I thought this was an indicator that you were trying to think critically and "check the calibration" so to speak on what you consider racism.
But given this post and the new one today, I suppose that's not the case. You're just picking the most egregious cases of racism you can find so you can say "See! My instincts about what is racist are right!" In other words, I guess it's just about winning, rather than learning anything useful.
Suddenly you treating me providing other examples makes sense.
The only other possibility I can spot is that you are trying to "check the calibration", but that would require you to be so dense as to think you can get a valid check from a single data point.
I'm trying to focus on the story that I brought up...not go out and find a liberal pundit, point and say, "See? You guys do it too!!!"
I've been told that I (and many liberals) play the race card too much. For example, when someone sends me a link with the following line in it,
I know that Obummer is taking yet another multi-million dollar vacation with First Wookie to Hawaii on the tax-payer tab.
I think that referring to the First Lady (who is black) as a giant gorilla type creature is racist. Likely, you do not. Hence the reason why I have to put up these extreme stories to see how far is too far.
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