Definitely, shutting them up doesn’t solve anything. Letting them make a fool out of themselves and responding without violence or anger works best. I would choose not to give someone like that my business but i’m not going to actively ruin someone’s life. The piling on mob mentality is definitely scary and was what made 4chan/Anon a subject most people would avoid.
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I’m not sure I agree. I’ve been having a bunch of debates about this issue and BLM in general, and have been finding that when you counter the information they’ve been getting from their echo chamber sanely and directly, it actually is possible to change their minds. In this case of course simply explaining that the players aren’t protesting the flag itself is at least heavy food for thought. And with BLM in general, a reminder that it’s short for “black lives matter too” is usually enough to at least get people questioning what they’ve been told. But if you’re willing to just write people off for thinking a certain way, you’re going to write off a good chunk of the population, which is what got Trump elected.
Good point. It’s as if 4chan has become mainstream.
They’re just angry because they feel that it’s cultural appropriation.
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Now this I find glib.
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I disagree, it has to do with normalization. Go back 4 years and a lot of these thoughts would not have been voiced publicly. And now we’re seeing them more and more, racism and violence toward those opposing police violence, etc is more common as well. It is important that we are active in making sure these thoughts and opinions are challenged, but meeting it with more hate, threats and violence definitely does not help. Ignoring these opinions and voices, saying they don’t mean it… or they are only crazy outliers doesn’t help either.
By all means lets ignore the hate and say that the majority does not mean it.
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What’s “dangerously glib” is far too many people’s attitudes about the importance of the lives of Black folks and anyone who is of color.
What’s ‘dangerously glib’ is saying that it’s okay to kill other Americans for exercising their first amendment rights, and other people not thinking there’s anything wrong with that.
Spare me the diatribe of ‘rational, thinking’ people who are not so easily manipulated in a land where Donald freakin’ Trump was able to become the president, and every time a rich CEO gets busted breaking the law he gets a golden parachute instead of jail-time.
The normalization of fascism, and the idea that we should just accept fascist ideology as simply another inevitable part of life is detrimental to the existence of civilized society…
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I respectfully have to disagree with your disagreement. These sort of comments are exactly the sort of thing I’ve seen online for the past 18 years. Pointless, acerbic bullshit. It’s not new. It’s certainly not worth rousing a mob. The only thing that’s changed in 18 years is that 24-hour news channels and bloggers need something to bitch about to make rent.
We talk about these comments more, but the comments are as they ever were. The present reaction is akin to being shocked - shocked! - to find out your blue-collar grandfather was racist. He was always racist: you noticed it it recently. the change is in the observation, not the reality.
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Inconceivable!
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I suspect you’re missing the point. So you’re saying racism can’t be normalized because they were racists all along? That’s not how it works.
Perhaps you need a definition
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I invite him to explain his position to the players in person - in that same reasoned tone.
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I wonder if he thinks the NFL players who are not American citizens should be required to stand for a national anthem that isn’t even from their own country?
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THIS SO MUCH THIS!!!
I’d pay the OnDemand/Pay-per-View for that.
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I’m saying it’s not being normalized. For racists, it was always normal. For non-racists, it wasn’t. Not to put to fine a point on it, but the fact that you, personally, didn’t notice it didn’t really change the reality of the situation any.
If we went back, say, 50 years and compare with now, the substantive differences are: 1) there seem to be fewer true racists, 2) everyone is on twitter, including the racists, and 3) people actually treat remarks on twitter as being worthy of comment.
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I think there’s a not insignificant difference between this dude and “Joe on the street” in that he’s a business owner. Not that many people own businesses that serve the public, so in a sense he has a higher profile and a larger footprint on the commons than the average working person. You could legally “strip him of his livelihood” -meaning his bar- for other non-criminal violations, including health code violations, improper business filings, or, wouldn’t you know it, discrimination.
Whether it’s fruitful to debate this guy? dubious. There’s been every opportunity to understand what the NFL kneeling is about. BLM messages being directly injected into the NFL is about as much as we could hope for as a Public Service Campaign reaching those who need to hear the message the most. I’m pretty sure there are people out there who’ve made a joke similar to “Maybe my dad would finally pay attention to X if a football player explained it to them”
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I keep thinking this over and over again…
PROTEST LOUDLY :: “You cannot protest loudly!”
protest quietly :: “You cannot protest quietly!”
My question…so how exactly am I “allowed” to protest again?
One side of this argument says things like “Can we please stop police brutality and have a conversation about racial inequity in this nation?” and the other side responds with things like “execute them.”
Why is this even an argument at all?
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I understand it’s now “Judge Lynch’s” favorite drinking spot. Put a sturdy oak tree outside and it’d be perfect.
“They have no right to do this…” in this context is as scary a thing I’ve seen come out of the mouth of an adult in a long long time.
Both Franklin and Lincoln were right about where the greatest threat to the Republic would originate: From within, like this and in ten million other tiny, frightened minds who confuse conformity and a ritual with genuine patriotism and freedom.
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that’s freedom of speech and protected by the 1st Amendment…
except, no. no it actually isn’t.
There’s no exception for hate speech under the First Amendment’s protection for freedom of expression, unless the speech is direct, personal, and either truly threatening or violently provocative.
I am fairly certain that calling for someone’s execution falls into “violently provocative”
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Obligs:
The same reason as always:
To deflect and detract from the actual issue at hand; to marginalize it, to change the subject to something more “preferable.”
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Nice try with the mind reading, but i did notice it. Being a minority i am uniquely aware of racism. But lets take a step back here, as has already been pointed out. You and someone else asked: What’s the big deal about this guy and why is it newsworthy?
It may not be as newsworthy as say… Puerto Rico needing aid, or North Korea threatening war. Yeah i concur, but it’s not unimportant because racist statements, or violent statements against people who are making a peaceful protest normalizes said racism and violence. You might think normalization isn’t a thing because… the racists already exist? That doesn’t make any sense but ok. Sure. I still don’t get the crux of why you’re making such a show about this though, so we can agree to disagree and leave it at that.
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It seems like the buffoon who decided to stir this all up to a fever pitch last weekend, feels the US should be run as a business for his own personal gain as well. How do we boycott that one?
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