Covington Kids Exonerated from Wrong-doing

[_Lemmie]

Put another way, the comment reads to me as arguing, "If any of the kids present tomahawked chopped for any length of time, then we must assume they were motivated out of racial animus because of anecdotal evidence regarding something someone knows about what HS kids in a different part of the country are told." My response is, "Uh, shhhhuuuuurrrrrrreeee?????" I admit it is dismissive of Lemmie's point but I don't know what else to say to it. "If this unknown thing we choose to assume to be true IS true, then XYZ" exists in hypotheticals and assumptions. What should one do with that? Start working out probabilities and Bayes the bejeezus out of it?

Well, for starters you could use my actual words. You writing a nasty little screed on what you THINK I said, and then mocking the living crap out of your OWN moronic statement seems a little self-serving.

(I could also help you with some math terminology and usage--it would improve your insults tremendously. )

Bayesing the bejeezus out of something is a technical term, I'm pretty sure.

[_honorentheos]

It was almost certainly innocent in the sense that Honor thinks people are innocent of racist expression.

Wow. Just wow, EAllusion.

Alternatively, you aren't being coherent? You have repeatedly defended a definition of racism that just doesn't include most forms of racist expression, including donning blackface.

What I've argued is that the response to someone who donned blackface shouldn't be, "Wore blackface, therefore public execution." You yourself upthread engaged with Jersey Girl in an example where you nuanced how one ought to interpret how that one individual did so. That's essentially my point. Engage the incident involved for what it was, respond proportionately to that incident. If you overstep and evidence shows this, walk it back.

[_EAllusion]

What I've argued is that the response to someone who donned blackface shouldn't be, "Wore blackface, therefore public execution."

You're relying pretty heavily on that strawman.

[Guest]

What I've argued is that the response to someone who donned blackface shouldn't be, "Wore blackface, therefore public execution."

You're relying pretty heavily on that strawman.

What strawman? You just accused me of essentially arguing blackface isn't racist because I'm arguing for taking evidence into account as to what a proportionate response ought to be, and then this? Again, the wow level is off the charts with you in this thread, EA.

[_subgenius]

You need to get your money back from Prager U.


https://www.vox.com/world/2017/10/2/163 ... rism-islam

Dude, your rebuttal for right leaning sources is left leaning sources?
you're due a refund also.

[_honorentheos]

To clarify, do you still stand behind this post, EA?
viewtopic.php?p=1166329#p1166329

But if context is key, we should draw the lens back even further than the events of this past weekend. There’s a reason these boys, their taunts and their MAGA hats, triggered a mass cultural gag reflex. Whether you think liberals botched the Sandmann controversy or not, the widespread revulsion didn’t stem from a misapprehension of anything.

To the contrary, both strong and mild critiques of the Covington Catholic schoolboys place them comfortably within ugly trends that have thrived in certain communities since before Donald Trump won the 2016 election.

Trump supporters, young and old alike, recognized a long time ago that simply chanting “Trump!” at immigrants and minorities is an effective way of letting them know they are not welcome. “Build the wall!” chants serve a similar purpose, as do MAGA hats, which are perhaps less implicitly violent than past symbols of intolerance, but still serve as menacing reminders to everyone not in the MAGA tribe of where they stand in the national pecking order.

Nicholas Sandmann shouldn’t have to bear the weight of this phenomenon alone. He is but one of thousands of kids and adults who have taken part in these rituals, and he may yet mature into someone who feels embarrassed by his youthful antics. The purpose of broadening the discussion is to assess the damage Trump is inflicting on an entire generation, and on all of society, not on the Covington boys per se. He is making more and more Nicholas Sandmanns, fewer and fewer of whom will ever mature into tolerant individuals. Sandmann may outgrow Trumpism, but the harm of Trumpism is that more kids like Sandmann will grow up to be adults like Trump.

If so, it sure looks like you favor public executions in response to anything that feeds into the so-called national historical context. Giving lip service to wishing the kid doesn't have his life destroyed is lip stick on a pig of an opinion after that.

[_EAllusion]

What strawman? You just accused me of essentially arguing blackface isn't racist because I'm arguing for taking evidence into account as to what a proportionate response ought to be, and then this? Again, the wow level is off the charts with you in this thread, EAllusion.

I accused you of implying wearing blackface isn't racist because you defined racism in terms that doesn't apply to the usual case of wearing blackface. If you have a problem with this, I suggest reexamining your ideas about what racism is.

Since no one in this thread, including the people's views you are directly criticizing, has advocated for anything resembling a "public execution" this is a strawman. I think I'm the main person you are criticizing and I opened my comments specifically hoping that the Covington teens wouldn't face disproportionate social media justice.

(Instead, they got treated as celebrity-victim heroes for being jerks, so my worry was at first dead-on, then very, very wrong.)

[Guest]

What strawman? You just accused me of essentially arguing blackface isn't racist because I'm arguing for taking evidence into account as to what a proportionate response ought to be, and then this? Again, the wow level is off the charts with you in this thread, EAllusion.

I accused you of implying wearing blackface isn't racist because you defined racism in terms that doesn't apply to the usual case of wearing blackface. If you have a problem with this, I suggest reexamining your ideas about what racism is.

Except this isn't what I've said at any point. Quite the opposite. You seem to take issue with my arguing that how it is exhibited deserves being taking into account when responding and are arguing "either something is racist or it isn't, so honorentheos must not believe an offensive act is racist since he doesn't agree with my view of what is an appropriate response". And then you wonder why I argue you are therefore arguing if something is racist, it deserves a double-barrel response. You claim that isn't what you are saying. Yet, here we are with you arguing I'm missing something critical by arguing a nuanced response to a behavior is what is up for discussion. If your complaint of me is true, it's validating that you are arguing for the elephant gun approach. If you are misrepresenting me, intentional or not, then it opens up the possibility you might see a variety of responses to behaviors that arise out of racist causes. It's a weird dance you want to dance here, EA, but you're calling the tune.

Since no one in this thread, including the people's views you are directly criticizing, has advocated for anything resembling a "public execution" this is a strawman. I think I'm the main person you are criticizing and I opened my comments specifically hoping that the Covington teens wouldn't face disproportionate social media justice.

only to backpedal when the evidence turned out to largely absolve them of what they were being blamed for. See your post above taken from the other thread. You're doing a bit of the ol' "stop hitting yourself, I don't want you to get hurt" big brother routine when you say that.

[_Lemmie]

Lemmie,

My read of EAllusion, and apparently others such as Lemmie, is they take issue with my leaving open the possibility it could come from ignorance rather than racist intent.

Then apparently you should pay better attention.

Probably true, and certainly when I post late at night. So, what did I miss exactly because it seemed to me like you were arguing that the kids who did a tomahawk chop - the select few who did, for a brief interval as far as the video shows - couldn't be doing so out of ignorance, so you were "tak(ing) issue with my leaving open the possibility it could come from ignorance rather than racist intent." I'm at a loss how else I should interpret that.

Seriously, clarify this for me. I'm at a complete loss where you think I misrepresented what you were saying.

Same for the rest of that post above.

I made a couple of very specific comments about a very specific part of the question, noting several times the very specific limits of my comments, and I didn't appreciate my comments being swept in to the hyperbole and mis-interpretation in which both you and EA seem to be engaging lately. Seriously, you guys could take your act on Broadway. Well, maybe Off-off-Broadway. Maybe that alley in China Town we learned about the other day, where all the movies are filmed.... But what do I know, I'm just a tri-stater inexperienced in life.

[Guest]

Take from it what you will, the idea that he was confronting Philips r exhibiting dick-like behavior is not supported by the full scope of evidence. I'm a dick and know it. That kid did not behave like one.

I don’t believe that pulling a dick move is absolutely synonymous with being a dick in general, or even being intentionally confrontational in that particular situation. Sometimes people just do stupid things with no underlying agenda. He could just be that socially unaware as to have stepped into this not realizing how his action might be interpreted by anyone else observing, and in fairness, very few people waste that much time self-assessing their every move. But it can be a dick move regardless, and social interaction requires folks to consider that conclusion and impact.

I’d assume that some folks understandably take a next step and interpret what happened here as ‘dick in training’. Seems that enough people perceived dickish behavior enough to let that set off the alarm bells on social behavior (which is why it was easily exploited through Twitter and whatnot - “perception is reality”, as some folks here would say, which can explain how it caught so much traction and riled up so many.

Hey canpakes,

What if the intial viral video misrepresented the situation so badly that one can only see the kid as exhibiting dick-like behavior? But if one hadn't watched the viral video and instead saw that moment in a broader context and didn't see that moment as indicative of what was going on, then what?

You're in a field with which I'm familiar, or so I recall, and deal with visuals in a way that understands how to use a cool color in the foreground with warm colors in the background to illicit certain perceptions of a space that can be flipped by reversing that design decision while the space itself doesn't change. Things like that. So what do you make of the media becoming the message in this case if not that how we encountered the incident and one's views of Trump may be what largely determines if the kid behaved like a dick or not? And what bearing does this have on the kid's actual character as a person? I mean, we're arguing about the character of a minor who, no matter ones perspective, seems to have made a decision in regards to his choice of souvenir hat that largely influences whether or not a person sees him as a deeply flawed person who should feel deep shame for his behavior or something quite the opposite. That's a bit bananas and yet absolutely not when one understands how signals influence perception that becomes one's interpretation of reality.