Race and the Red Sox

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Just a note on the vitriolic reaction. The defensiveness that Boston area residents sometimes feel when these incidents come to light is not always the fault of the residents.

I recall being a fan of the Celtics in the 1980's. Because the Celtics had a couple of white stars in Bird and McHale, several of the mediots of the day were all too willing to lump the Celtics with the Red Sox and the rest of the city as being one of the most racist organizations. Even Spike Lee jumped on that bandwagon for a while. Anyone spending more than 5 minutes researching the actual history of the Celtics would realize that the accusation was absolutely rubbish. But that didn't stop the popular narrative from growing legs for a while.
No. I totally get that. I mean it seems that the Boston sport scene's racial reputation is tied only to the Red Sox, which is a bit unfair. The Boston Braves integrated back in 1950 when they had '50 ROY Sam Jethroe. The Bruins were the first hockey organization that had a black player in Willie O'Ree. The Celtics had the first all African-American starting five, first black head coach and a ton of black players when the league frowned on that. But I guess that this is the double-edged sword of the Red Sox being your city's primary sports franchise is that whatever biases the Red Sox had, to some that means all had it.

And I'm only speaking of the professional sports franchises. I know that Boston has had a lot of racial improprieties and strife for a long, long time. That's not what I'm talking about. The Bird/McHale thing was complete bullshit because they were two of the Top 10 players in the league for a majority of the 1980s. I think that if you use that against the Boston Celtics, then you just don't know hoops at all. What I think that people had a problem with was that the bench was mostly stuffed with these white stiff: Marc Acres, Scott Wedman, Greg Kite, Jerry Schiesting (I butchered that spelling), Brad Lohaus, all of these guys who couldn't play or at least play in the high-flying 80s style of the NBA. Combine that with the old fashinonedness of the Celtics in how their organization looked, especially in comparison to the Lakers, and it wasn't that drastic of a leap for some.
 

The Needler

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Coached by one of the few black head coaches in the league at the time.
Yes, and on the team of Russell. But even KC acknowledged the situation, and was asked about it by black people wherever he went. If you don't understand why black people would have thought of the NBA champs from Boston with 10 white guys on it as a symbol of white supremacy, then you're engaging in the defensiveness we've been talking about it.

Max had many of the same thins to say after he left, too, by the way.
 

Moviegoer

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I read an opinion last night that what really makes people think Boston is racist is not the incidents themselves, it's the way there is this loud clamor, similar to this thread, to scream about how not racist Boston is every time it's accused of being racist.

Why be defensive? Literally, what's the worst thing that's going to happen if "Boston" just says "shit, yes, we have some things to work on" and go work on them instead of "no no no just that guy, it's only that guy."
I think it's the feeling of being singled out, as if this problem is something specific or unique about metro Boston. It can feel like it implies other areas of the country are so far past it. Kinda like if your Mom yells at you for sneaking junk food before dinner, while your siblings look on from the other room munching on cookies.
 

The Needler

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The '86 Celtics won 67 games and the NBA championship. Were they being racist, or trying to win? Both? Is that even possible?
Yes, it's possible. Germany won the most medals at the 1936 Olympics. And with Godwin invoked, I'll step aside from this discussion.

But not before saying Tree Rollins had it coming.
 

cornwalls@6

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Good responses guys. I'm completely on board with lifetime banning and pulling of season tickets for this kind of crap, whenever possible. Also, per some of the earlier exchanges in this thread, the discussion about how to respond as a fan sitting within ear-shot of this garbage really doesn't, and shouldn't, include directly confronting the offending party. There's no need for that. Use the text number to alert security, or quietly get of your seat, find the nearest member of the security staff, point out the offender, and let them handle it from there. It strikes me that solving societal racism is way too big of job to even comprehend as a whole. But by making more places a truly zero-tolerance zone, maybe that tree starts getting chopped down more and more.
 

Otis Foster

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Looking up from under this pile of muck, I'm encouraged by the keen self-perception and the openness from the great majority of posters here. (The small minority who are into denial and canards like 'the race card' know who you are.) Race and bigotry are never easy to discuss, and it's a normal if regrettable human reaction to say 'it's not me'. Well, it is, including yours truly. Race is always there as a consideration in our dealings with others, and what is demanded of me (and you) is to try as best we can to get into the the person's skin, to understand and respect his dignity as a person. We'll make mistakes along the way, there will always be misunderstandings and sensitivities that we don't get quite right despite the effort, but it's as simple as that.
 

The Talented Allen Ripley

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Yes, it's possible. Germany won the most medals at the 1936 Olympics. And with Godwin invoked, I'll step aside from this discussion.

But not before saying Tree Rollins had it coming.
I submit the '50s Red Sox as evidence that most of the time racist roster construction doesn't work out. And sadly we've come full circle back to the Sox.

And Tree did indeed have it coming. Call me an arborist for saying so, but there it is.
 

Sportsbstn

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Good responses guys. I'm completely on board with lifetime banning and pulling of season tickets for this kind of crap, whenever possible. Also, per some of the earlier exchanges in this thread, the discussion about how to respond as a fan sitting within ear-shot of this garbage really doesn't, and shouldn't, include directly confronting the offending party. There's no need for that. Use the text number to alert security, or quietly get of your seat, find the nearest member of the security staff, point out the offender, and let them handle it from there. It strikes me that solving societal racism is way too big of job to even comprehend as a whole. But by making more places a truly zero-tolerance zone, maybe that tree starts getting chopped down more and more.
This is a good start. Zero tolerance and serious consequences. It's a horribly bad idea for people to start confronting others, just call security. The good news is that more people will now be aware of how to contact security and the numbers on the tickets.
 

jose melendez

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I liked that piece and thought it captured a lot. The issue is not that we have racism in Boston--though we do and have plenty of it--it's that we have racism in America. A lot of us live on Boston, and thus it is incumbent on us to fix where we live. Is it worse in Boston? Maybe, I don't know, Boston certainly has a very white vibe and a pretty nasty history on race, but is it worse than say Chicago which despite having a huge black population is perhaps the most segregated big city in the country?

I suspect a lot of the defensiveness from Bostonians is not from people who don't think there's no race problem in Boston, but from people who feel like Boston is held to a different standard. My take is--who cares? Maybe Boston is held to a different standard, but I don't care. I want by town to be as non-racist as possible, not just less racist than other towns.
 

Bergs

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Looking up from under this pile of muck, I'm encouraged by the keen self-perception and the openness from the great majority of posters here. (The small minority who are into denial and canards like 'the race card' know who you are.) .
No. No they don't. Denial's a bitch. How many people have you heard say something like "I'm not a racist, but...[insert blatantly racist comment here]"? Most people (even racists) know that "being a racist" is bad, but can't make the connection to their own thought/words/behavior.
 

lexrageorge

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Yes, and on the team of Russell. But even KC acknowledged the situation, and was asked about it by black people wherever he went. If you don't understand why black people would have thought of the NBA champs from Boston with 10 white guys on it as a symbol of white supremacy, then you're engaging in the defensiveness we've been talking about it.

Max had many of the same thins to say after he left, too, by the way.
To be fair, I do recall Robert Parish mentioning in an interview how he would sometimes attempt to count the number of black fans in the stands of the old Garden, and he would notice very few. I do believe there was a fair question how welcoming the Celtics games and the Garden atmosphere were to people of color at the time. That would have been a worthy discussion, which unfortunately did not happen (or, if it did, I missed it).

But questioning Red or the Celtics organization for having Bird, McHale and Walton on a team that won 67 games was pure idiocy, and was likely a big part of the reason the above dialog never occurred.
 

bankshot1

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I loved that team as much as the next guy, but let's not understate things. They didn't just have "a couple of white stars." The 1986 Celtics were over 70% white in a league that was probably 70% black.

http://nbahoopsonline.com/teams/BostonCeltics/History/Championship/1986.html
I lived in Carroll Gardens Brooklyn in the 80s. Back then it was still largely an Italian neighborhood. going through the initial phase of gentrification. In any case, a lot of the local kids (aged 16-20), who should have been Knicks fans, wore Celtics jackets, and were huge Celtic fans, for two reasons, they wanted to identify with a winner and the Cs were mostly white. Their racism was overt.
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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'Sup.

I disagree completely.

Acting as if it only happens in Boston let's 29 other cities and fans off the hook. This gives the mouth breathers in other cities an out to point and scoff at the mouth breathers in this city, when this is a time all fans have a chance to hold up a mirror.

This is a systematic issue everywhere. If twisting the story to focus on one city helped the cause, we should all be willing to bite the bullet. But it doesn't, so we shouldn't. This is giving people an out to say "team X fans are the worst!", when in reality we're all the fucking worst...
 

Tyrone Biggums

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This is a good start. Zero tolerance and serious consequences. It's a horribly bad idea for people to start confronting others, just call security. The good news is that more people will now be aware of how to contact security and the numbers on the tickets.
Well you have to show no tolerance to this crap. Looks like I missed a hell of a party over the past twelve hours or so. It's not a bad idea to confront people for racism. If you have to square up on them then that's just the way it goes. But the best way to deal with it is to do the right thing and contact security. I'm still surprised people are calling in today and still claiming that Jones is a liar or they need proof since they were at the game and heard nothing. People like this protecting the offending party makes me sick. Just rat on who it was already. If you can give a section and row and seat the Red Sox can track down who it was and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. People that use that word should be thrown in jail. So should people who voted for T***P but that's another story for another day.
 

Gubanich Plague

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Some thoughts from a long-term lurker. By way of background, my wife is of another race, our kids are mixed race, I lived for years in a country where I was a minority (white), and work and socialize with people of all races. In my opinion, we as a society concentrate too much on race, and not enough on treating people as individuals.

-Fans using the N word to insult Jones were absolutely wrong and should be banned. I agree that there is no reason for a white person to use the n word in any context.

-Throwing peanuts at Jones was wrong, because throwing anything at a ballplayer is wrong. We can tie ourselves up in knots trying to determine if peanuts themselves make a racist statement, but in the end this matters very little in comparison to the act of throwing something at someone. The fan was rightly ejected, and I hope banned.

-My first reaction was that Jones should have ignored the racist taunts; it's usually counter productive to give bigots that much power with their words, but the net effect of Jones's actions has been unusually productive. I'm glad the Red Sox, the mayor, the commissioner, and others stepped up and made strong statements. Getting visibly upset about racial taunts usually doesn't have a happy result; this has made me to rethink the issue.

-Zero tolerance policies usually lead to unintended, often perverse results. For example, my daughter's friend was suspended from high school for 10 days after he was hit from behind so hard that he lost consciousness. Since the school has zero tolerance for violence, anybody involved in an incident of violence is automatically suspended for 10 days. If he had seen it coming and retaliated, he would have still been suspended for 10 days, so how does the zero-tolerance policy give any incentive to not retaliate? It wouldn't surprise me if a zero-tolerance policy on racist language gets somebody banned for life for identifying Mookie Betts as "that black guy in the on-deck circle." Or reading the word "niggardly" aloud from a homework assignment (a word I no longer use, because of the potential misunderstanding). By calling a policy "zero tolerance" we encourage its overzealous application.

-There absolutely are cases of minorities using, and even making up, allegations of racism to get attention, make excuses, etc. You can call this "using the race card."

-There absolutely are cases of racism everywhere.

-Having observed the above 2 phenomena (or in many cases, only one of them), some people are spring-loaded to always attribute nearly everything to "playing the race card" or "racism." In most cases I don't think they're lying to us as much as they're lying to themselves; some people view everything through the filter of race, and race-related incidents have become a sort of Rorschach test. I always try to look at the facts and avoid jumping to conclusions. In this case, it's wrong to jump to the conclusion that Jones was making it up (indeed, we should absolutely take his accusations are face value until we have very strong evidence otherwise), and it's equally wrong to say that this incident proves that all of Boston is racist.

-I agree with the people who are saying that instead of getting defensive, we should acknowledge that racist incidents happen and express our determination to stamp them out as best we can.
 

NDame616

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(I edited out the hotlink. I do not want this site giving clicks to turtleboy. He's easy enough to look up if you're interested - smas)

Local blog, typically has pretty bad language, but they actually looked into the lone witness who's come forward about the incident with Jones and it appears he was lieing about everything

EDIT I wouldn't call their blog "NSFW" but.....the blog does have a bunch of swears in it. Just a heads up
 
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The Needler

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-Zero tolerance policies usually lead to unintended, often perverse results. For example, my daughter's friend was suspended from high school for 10 days after he was hit from behind so hard that he lost consciousness. Since the school has zero tolerance for violence, anybody involved in an incident of violence is automatically suspended for 10 days. If he had seen it coming and retaliated, he would have still been suspended for 10 days, so how does the zero-tolerance policy give any incentive to not retaliate?"
.
Sorry, but I'm almost certain you're not privy to the whole story about your daughter's friend. The facts as you told them would precipitate a sussessful lawsuit at a public school, and at minimum some really really bad PR at a private one.

It's more than possible to have a zero tolerance policy without punishing innocent victims.
 

Rusty13

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<edited>

Local blog, typically has pretty bad language, but they actually looked into the lone witness who's come forward about the incident with Jones and it appears he was lieing about everything

EDIT I wouldn't call their blog "NSFW" but.....the blog does have a bunch of swears in it. Just a heads up
The very first line of his blog (see below) makes me not want to even bother reading the rest. One of their main bloggers I believe is one of Callahan's buddies who calls into the show all the time. So right away you can see what leanings they are coming from.

The Fenway crowd proved that they are indeed the softest SJW crowd in sports yesterday as they mindlessly stood and cheered for Adam Jones, 24 hours after Jones made up a story about an imaginary racist who called him the n word.
 
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NDame616

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The very first line of his blog (see below) makes me not want to even bother reading the rest. One of their main bloggers I believe is one of Callahan's buddies who calls into the show all the time. So right away you can see what leanings they are coming from.
Well if you do read it, they point out the kid claimed he was 15 rows behind the peanut thrower, even though he was in the bleachers and the peanut thrower was on the 3B line, and part of his story talks about a conversation with a beer vendor, who was serving beer in the bleachers, which doesn't happen at Fenway
 

Gubanich Plague

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Sorry, but I'm almost certain you're not privy to the whole story about your daughter's friend. The facts as you told them would precipitate a sussessful lawsuit at a public school, and at minimum some really really bad PR at a private one.

It's more than possible to have a zero tolerance policy without punishing innocent victims.

#518The Needler, 23 minutes ago

Point taken, perhaps a poor example, but I won't get into the weeds on this one as I don't know all the facts and arguing "what-if" generally goes nowhere. I'll consider myself to have been needled :)


Nonetheless, I have seen the overzealous application of "zero tolerance" policies enough that I'm very wary of them. Much like what has happened with the issue of race in many cases, zero tolerance policies give some people tunnel vision, and they are spring-loaded to use their hammer on everything they can convince themselves looks like a nail. Sometimes it's better to take a smaller measure against a very minor or borderline offense, rather than escalate by bringing in the nukes at the first whiff of the thing we aren't tolerating.
 

Otis Foster

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Well if you do read it, they point out the kid claimed he was 15 rows behind the peanut thrower, even though he was in the bleachers and the peanut thrower was on the 3B line, and part of his story talks about a conversation with a beer vendor, who was serving beer in the bleachers, which doesn't happen at Fenway
I love it when someone with a strong predisposition (read: bias) to disbelieve what Jones has to say starts picking at collateral issues to undermine the main point: That Jones heard it and reported it, and had no reason to exaggerate or lie. Any weakness from a corroborating witness doesn't affect Jones' account in any way, because it doesn't go to his credibility. There are a few posters here who are treating this like the Watergate investigation, scurrying around in dark corners for anything that might support your conspiratorial theories. When the man reports it happened, there's no objective reason to disbelieve him, something the RS apparently concluded right out of the gate.
 

phenweigh

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For those interested in reading about the seemingly contradictory reputations about Boston and other northeast cites being both progressive and racist, I recommend All Eyes are Upon Us.

http://www.basicbooks.com/full-details?isbn=9780465022267

White fans from across Brooklyn—Irish, Jewish, and Italian—came out to support Jackie Robinson when he broke baseball's color barrier with the Dodgers in 1947, even as the city's blacks were shunted into segregated neighborhoods. The African-American politician Ed Brooke won a senate seat in Massachusetts in 1966, when the state was 97% white, yet his political career was undone by the resistance to busing in Boston. Across the Northeast over the last half-century, blacks have encountered housing and employment discrimination as well as racial violence. But the gap between the northern ideal and the region's segregated reality left small but meaningful room for racial progress. Forced to reckon with the disparity between their racial practices and their racial preaching, blacks and whites forged interracial coalitions and demanded that the region live up to its promise of equal opportunity.
 

smastroyin

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To be clear to everyone, I deleted the link because I think turtleboy is a clickbait artist striving to gain notoriety from both fans and adversaries and I don't want to support him with click throughs from here. If that's viewed as a step too far or not placing enough trust in you all to click once and come to your own conclusion, I apologize.

To the actual content, if it somehow makes you feel better about yourself to think that Adam Jones made up the whole story, I don't know what to tell you. Again, I'm not sure what the harm is of just accepting it on face value. There's nothing saying you can't still heckle Adam Jones and call him a front running loser like his manager.
 
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HriniakPosterChild

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2. The punishment should be permanent banning. Yeah, there would be cracks and so it won't be perfect. Still worth the effort.
- In the case of any hate speech being uttered, the offender is not only evicted from the park, but immediately given a lifetime ban from the stadium. No second chances whatsoever. Just like the EPL in England.
I'm completely on board with lifetime banning and pulling of season tickets for this kind of crap, whenever possible.
Zero tolerance and serious consequences
Folks seem to be willing to live with false negatives. What about false positives?

Are you going to use facial recognition software to identify offenders? If that software is perfect, it would be the first bug free software I've heard of (at least if you exclude one of my favorites, "Hello, world").

Are you going to fingerprint every attendee that the software flags? Seems like there are some civil liberties issues there.

Are you going to ban the ticket purchaser? It's been years since I've been to Fenway, but I've heard tell of a place called the "no scalp zone." How do you determine whether the offender paid cash for his ticket in the "no scalp zone."

Those are the first questions that come to mind. I'm sure there are more that haven't occurred to me yet.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Serious and separate question. How are perm bans enforced?
I believe that for EPL matches, as least, the stewards have a list of those banned from the park. They have facial recognition software, and in some cases the banees have to check in at the local police station on the day of the match to ensure they're not at the stadium. Obviously that wouldn't work for 81 home games, but there are approaches to this. Put the banned names on a "do not sell" list at the park. Check faces at the gates. Use FRS whenever possible. Try. Just fucking try.

The goal wouldn't be 100% certainty of the ban: that would be impossible to reinforce. The goal is to try like hell to enforce a ban.
 

The Needler

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Folks seem to be willing to live with false negatives. What about false positives?

Are you going to use facial recognition software to identify offenders? If that software is perfect, it would be the first bug free software I've heard of (at least if you exclude one of my favorites, "Hello, world").

Are you going to fingerprint every attendee that the software flags? Seems like there are some civil liberties issues there.

Are you going to ban the ticket purchaser? It's been years since I've been to Fenway, but I've heard tell of a place called the "no scalp zone." How do you determine whether the offender paid cash for his ticket in the "no scalp zone."

Those are the first questions that come to mind. I'm sure there are more that haven't occurred to me yet.
It's really not that big of a deal. Casinos, for example, do this. If there's a false positive, you can prove you're not the person they're looking for with ID, and be on your way.

And the deterrent is, if you manage to make your way in after being banned, and then get discovered, you're a criminal trespasser. Enjoy all that comes with it.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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How do they handle false positives?
Double-check everything. Check their ID if they get flagged; if it's not on the list of banned folks, send them on their way.

My point is: they can't just throw up their hands and say "It's too hard!" No. That's unacceptable. Put a system in place to ban these fucknuts from the park forever. If anything the very existence of such a system will cut down on the temptation of racist dickbags to open their mouths.
 

mauf

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The idea of a lifetime ban for offenders mostly makes us feel good, because it implicitly supposes that only a fraction of a percent of the population is capable of shouting racial slurs at a black man during a sporting event. By all means, ban someone for life if you catch him -- as SJH says, the deterrent effect is worth something. But if MLB wants to spend money to do something about racism, I'm sure there are 100 ways to get more bang for the buck than investing in facial recognition software.
 

Tyrone Biggums

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Double-check everything. Check their ID if they get flagged; if it's not on the list of banned folks, send them on their way.

My point is: they can't just throw up their hands and say "It's too hard!" No. That's unacceptable. Put a system in place to ban these fucknuts from the park forever. If anything the very existence of such a system will cut down on the temptation of racist dickbags to open their mouths.
Right. Agreed. But why are we even bringing up false positives. 99.9% of the people did it anyways. Plus even if it's wrong it's good to do this for awareness since T***P is in office and racism is emboldened since November.
 

Titans Bastard

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For those interested in reading about the seemingly contradictory reputations about Boston and other northeast cites being both progressive and racist, I recommend All Eyes are Upon Us.

http://www.basicbooks.com/full-details?isbn=9780465022267

White fans from across Brooklyn—Irish, Jewish, and Italian—came out to support Jackie Robinson when he broke baseball's color barrier with the Dodgers in 1947, even as the city's blacks were shunted into segregated neighborhoods. The African-American politician Ed Brooke won a senate seat in Massachusetts in 1966, when the state was 97% white, yet his political career was undone by the resistance to busing in Boston. Across the Northeast over the last half-century, blacks have encountered housing and employment discrimination as well as racial violence. But the gap between the northern ideal and the region's segregated reality left small but meaningful room for racial progress. Forced to reckon with the disparity between their racial practices and their racial preaching, blacks and whites forged interracial coalitions and demanded that the region live up to its promise of equal opportunity.
Interesting recommendation.

Anybody who wants to learn about the current state of racism in the liberal northeast should show up to their next local community meeting about an affordable housing development in their town/area, sit down, and just watch & listen.
 

reggiecleveland

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I lived in Carroll Gardens Brooklyn in the 80s. Back then it was still largely an Italian neighborhood. going through the initial phase of gentrification. In any case, a lot of the local kids (aged 16-20), who should have been Knicks fans, wore Celtics jackets, and were huge Celtic fans, for two reasons, they wanted to identify with a winner and the Cs were mostly white. Their racism was overt.
The fact the Celtics and the Lakers became vicarious avatars for race relations is undeniable, but I don't believe it was by design of either franchise. The subculture of black basketball fans, really hated Larry Bird and the Celtics, for racially motivated.reasons. That their are legitimate reasons for black animosity towards white people is the understatement of the millennium. It doesn't mean it is fair that the Celtic franchise should have been vilified, and it was by some, or the Pat Riley lead Kurt Rambis starting Lakers deserved to be considered civil rights crusaders either. Larry and Magic becoming friends, at least publicly has hidden if not healed, this ugly side of the rivalry.

Bird was hated by almost every black guy that didn't get to the league. Some of the garbage in the Port Cellar about how he would not survive in today's NBA echo those silly ideas. The idea Larry Bird and the Celtics greatness was somehow racist was the truck of Arsenio Hall, Rodman, and minds of that calibre. Spike Lee said Jordan cussed him out once for just hinting at Bird's rep being enhanced by being white. But Wally Szczerbiak being on the Olympic team tells me its not nothing.

One of Barkley's shticks at coaching clinic speeches is to say Bird and McHale were terrible athletes, didn't belong in the NBA, etc. He says I am gong to ask you if you agree, then stops and says, "What are the odds black guy that didn't get above Div3 holds up his hand? Get over it brothers those boys could play!" and does a predictable joke about how white people feel about Tiger Woods. It was a staple of 80s hack black comedians to say, "Come on man hoops is all we have!" cue the Eminem jokes in the 90s, and the Yao Ming jokes later.

Auerbach has said he hated scouting reports that mentioned physical attributes unattached to performance. He did not care if a guy could jump out of the gym, if he could drive to the hoop and despised big guys that didn't rebound. He noted Bird and McHale the white cornerstones to the so called crackerville attacks, were not pretty to watch and not leapers. I once heard Hubie Brown say a lot of bad draft picks were made based on how impressive a guy was doing an uncontested dunk, really a meaningless skill. Red has said he first became interested in McHale based on rebounding stats alone.There was a moneyball market inefficiency in oversized uberskilled, quick not fast white guys.

Red at the other end of history saw athletic black guys playing d and fastbreaking crushed teams insisting on playing 3 white guys at all times. In the 50s in the 60s the convnetal thinking was black guys won't play d, or at least won't be defensive speacialists. KC and Satch proved that lie. White guys can't be the focal point of your O was not true in the 80s either.
 
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Jinhocho

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Or read the book Common Ground. Things havent changed that much. Also, as that book makes clear, class along with race played an important role in busing, race, housing, and pretty much everything in MA.
 

reggiecleveland

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Or read the book Common Ground. Things havent changed that much. Also, as that book makes clear, class along with race played an important role in busing, race, housing, and pretty much everything in MA.
That is important everywhere. I teach ESL, the number of racially motivated incidents is inversely connected to the state of the economy.
 

mauf

Anderson Cooper × Mr. Rogers
Moderator
SoSH Member
Right. Agreed. But why are we even bringing up false positives. 99.9% of the people did it anyways. Plus even if it's wrong it's good to do this for awareness since T***P is in office and racism is emboldened since November.
Take the political bullshit to V&N.

And get better at it, too. You've shit on this thread enough.
 

Cesar Crespo

79
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2002
21,588
This could be split out because not really about Jones incident.

I agree with you and that's how I conduct myself. But the social norms I see in various places do not reflect what you are saying or what I do. People genuinely behave like nigga and nigger are not even related terms. I go to a gym that is quite diverse and the musical playlist is a total mind fuck for me and one other older white dude. We just look at each other like, wow. The music is selected by either a white Brazilian dude, a young white cop, or a young black journalist. They all know the songs and sing to each other as we are working out. I think one song was only N bombs (the gga version, so I guess ok?).

Oh yeah, sometimes we get Brazilian praise and worship songs thrown in. I just go with it.

I think it's a(n) (urban) youth thing because I see a lot of < 30 year old people throw the term around like dog, dude, bro. Niqqa is another popular one. People older than that don't really understand the impact Hip Hop has had on culture. Sometimes it's used as a term of endearment. If you've been listening to Snoop for 18 years since you were just 7 years old, I doubt you think much at all about singing along with the lyrics. It just becomes another word. It's part of their every day lexicon.

edit: Of course none of this is relevant to Adam Jones. Adam Jones was not this guy's bro or dude and it was done with ill intent.
 
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The Talented Allen Ripley

holden
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Oct 2, 2003
12,723
MetroWest, MA
Chara33 just called into EEI!
I heard that call during my drive home. Yikes.

It did get me to thinking the same people who think Jones is lying would have no trouble believing a story about a white player being accosted by black fans in Yankee Stadium, and that's all you need to know about this situation.
 

AlNipper49

Huge Member
Dope
SoSH Member
Apr 3, 2001
44,851
Mtigawi
Not that this will spur any good conversation but the first time I had to explain the N word to my son was when he heard it in a song, being clearly said over and over, at a sporting event.

http://mlbplatemusic.com/player/Adam-Jones

Looking at the choices of music I do find it a shame that Jones' walkup music is basically all one big N word.

If Fenway wants to do something else they could stop playing *any* music with bad language
 

moondog80

heart is two sizes two small
SoSH Member
Sep 20, 2005
8,093
I never pay attention to anybody's walkup song, but does MLB really not screen music for inappropriate lyrics?
 

Zereck

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 17, 2005
111
If Fenway wants to do something else they could stop playing *any* music with bad language
As far as I know they play censored versions of songs at stadiums. I can't recall hearing unedited version of songs at any sporting event