Thanks, X.

I enjoyed the conversation. Some of those things I wrote were in direct response to things you said, but not all of it. I was addressing the “nationwide” conversation there, too, and I saw the exchange as a conversation, not a debate.

And I’m glad you appreciated the poor-on-poor crime perspective. If there is one thing I wish would get discussed in all of this, it is that aspect of it. Because I think that as long as our country looks at these problems through the lens of Race, it’s going to ask the wrong questions, and get the wrong answers. And I truly believe that the vast majority of Americans deplore what is happening in impoverished urban settings, and wish it would get better. White people don’t WANT blacks to live like that. But they fail to understand what is happening. I think it is something like 86% of white people in this country live in communities where blacks are less than 1% of the population. So what do they know about the black experience?

P.S. FWIW, I winced at Kaepernick’s socks myself because I saw it as an insulting, tactical mistake. I read somewhere that he says he has three relatives who are police officers, and he honors all the good officers etc. etc., but he should have known most people wouldn’t get passed the photo of his socks. Anyway. Whatever.

— X — wrote:

Good to see you, Zooey.

Now. I’m not trying to invalidate their complaint though. When I point out the things I did, I’m only making the very legitimate comparison to what real oppression looks like. And it’s happening tonight. Not 200 years ago….

GO RAMS and stuff.

The biggest problem with this nationwide discussion is that it has taken so many tangents that I’m not sure we are getting anywhere.

Here are some of the things that we are talking about that really have nothing to do with the issue Kaepernick (and Black Lives Matter) raised:

Whether a multi-millionaire celebrity has any right to say anything about oppression when he lives on Easy Street.

The appropriateness of the form of protest.

Disrespect for the sacrifice of military people.

Black-on-black crime

The predominance of “good” policeman versus “bad apples.”

How blacks are better off now than they used to be.

The first thing I want to say is that I appreciate what Kaepernick is doing. I don’t think that protesting injustice requires any kind of credential beyond a conscience. If we go around making up criteria for who has a right to speak out, and who doesn’t, well…pretty much everybody just has to shut up, right? The issue he is protesting is real, and to attack Kaepernick because he’s rich, or disrespects the military, or ignores progress, or ignores good cops, or anything else…is just a way of trying to change the subject. I have challenged several people who object to his form of protest to offer an alternative, and nobody has ever done so. The fact that the conversation is still going on more than 3 weeks after his original protest proves to me that he chose an effective method of starting a national conversation. Unfortunately, as I said, I think the conversation has gone in all kinds of directions, but nobody can control a discussion like this. It goes where it goes. I will add that Kaepernick, and the other players who have joined him, do so at personal and financial risk.

The second thing I want to say is that I don’t think anybody is telling you to feel guilty about slavery, or about anything. BLM isn’t about slavery. I don’t even know how that came into the conversation. It will come up once in a while, just as the holocaust will get mentioned whenever anti-semitic issues are discussed, but slavery is not what blacks are complaining about generally speaking. I don’t think anything you said is prejudiced, and I don’t think you have to feel like anybody expects an apology from you. I was surprised to even see you take a bit of a defensive posture in your post, because what you said sounds reasonable on all levels.

Here is what I think you are missing, maybe: blacks have a legitimate complaint about systemic racism. This is going to take me a while, but the first thing I want to draw attention to is your comment that there is significant black-on-black crime, and that blacks ought to own up to that, and protest that. Well, they do. It doesn’t make the news, and nobody talks about it, but there are neighborhood forces working on that. (It’s like the complaint that Muslims ought to come out and speak out against terrorism. Well, they do. Do people not remember the enormous vigil in Tehran after the 9/11 attacks? TEHRAN!). But here is the thing: I don’t think it is accurate to even call it black-on-black crime. That is part of the problem in this country, imo. It has nothing to do with “black.” It has everything to do with poverty. It is Poor-on-Poor crime. That’s what it is. You don’t find middle class blacks shooting each other. Meanwhile, you WILL find poor white people shooting each other, but we don’t call it white-on-white crime. We call it crime. But the perception created by our language is that blacks have a crime problem. They don’t, though. Poor people have a crime problem. And the way we talk about this affects the way people think about this which, in turn, affects what we DO about it. But it isn’t a “black” problem. Because, across the board, when blacks are compared to whites with the same net worth, the outcomes are the same. The same divorce rates, the same crime rates, the same graduation rates, the same drop out rates…the same outcomes. Blacks with high net worth have the same outcomes as whites with high net worth. Blacks with middle net worth have the same outcomes as whites of middle net worth. Poor blacks have the same outcomes and poor whites. Net worth is what determines these outcomes, and that shouldn’t surprise anybody.

But this country throughout its history, long after abolition, continues to talk about and perceive blacks differently than whites. And that makes RACE the issue, rather than class. (Which has the effect, btw, of dividing the lower class and keeping it from uniting against policies that screw them over, and that’s pretty convenient for the ruling class, but that’s another digression from the point). There are historical reasons why this is so (and the video Eternal Ram posted here explains why), but basically we are the first society that justified slavery on the basis of race. Earlier examples of slavery justified it on a power basis: “We conquered you, and now you are slaves.” And when that power ended, slavery ended, and the people assimilated into society. It was that way in the early settlement of the US, too. It wasn’t until the declaration of independence said, “All men are created equal” that a different rationale for slavery had to be considered. So in the US, the position was taken that blacks aren’t “quite” men. They aren’t entitled to these protections because they are innately inferior. Then when slavery was abolished…the rationale stayed behind. Generations of poor whites didn’t stop thinking that they were better than poor blacks just because slavery went away. That mindset is still pervasive in this country. And it manifests along a spectrum. At one end, we have a few lunatics in white sheets, and at the other, people who “get it.” Along that spectrum are a wide variety of misgivings, and suspicions, and wariness.

So here is how that manifests. Blacks are more likely to be asked for ID when writing a check. They are watched with more suspicion when they enter a store. They get pulled over by police more often, searched more often, arrested more often, and prosecuted more often. And their sentences are harsher than what whites receive for comparable crimes. Black people are STILL – today! – 60% more likely to be turned down for a home loan than white people with the same income. A few Affirmative Action laws have not changed the black experience much. Black people live in this reality every day.

Whites, meanwhile, look at a few examples of blacks hitting the big time, or whites being oppressed (or discriminated against), and conclude that blacks are whining. But, you know, Obama being president proves nothing. One black president in our history? (Besides which…why is he “black?” His mother was white, and his father and mother split and divorced before Barack was cognizant, and he met his father only once. – His father was a graduate student at Harvard, btw. He was brought up in a white family, attended catholic schools and prep schools by academics who lived with privileges. Why is 50% black considered Black? And what in his personal history has any connection to poor black people in this country who are apparently supposed to be able to make it because HE did?).

I dunno. We could go back and forth with the statistics you say show contradictory things, but the bottom line is that blacks PERCEIVE social injustice. They see unarmed black people killed, and no cop ever gets punished. That’s what they see and experience.

One last thing. We could do a better job training cops. I saw a comparison somewhere between the US training and Norway’s training of cops, and Norway’s training was much longer, and had better outcomes.

If there is ONE thing I would like to see come out of this, it would be a conversation about how to improve police training. Surely we can use virtual reality or something to teach cops to look for “tells” in behavior instead of appearance. Surely we can do a better job policing our cities and neighborhoods, and a better job with equitable sentencing.

I just have no idea. At all. No hunch of any kind.

I don’t recall ever being completely baffled like this before. I feel like I just came out of a coma after 15 years, and I’m being told the Rams are playing, and I don’t know a single player.

But as inexplicable as that first game was, I do know that the Rams aren’t that bad. They just aren’t. So I guess if by “rebound,” we mean “play better,” yes, I expect we will see more of a fight. Whether or not that “fight” lasts four quarters, I have no guess.

Hey, X, I love reading your posts. I wish you were here more often.

That was a great post, and I want to respond to it, but I have to wait until tomorrow cuz it’s time to go to bed.

I don’t know about the location of this discussion. I will leave that to the mods. I have always wanted a single board, but I am a minority view on that, and I get why people believe separate boards are healthier for the community. But wherever this goes, I will follow. Tomorrow.

zn wrote:

InvaderRam wrote:

well keenum did not look good yesterday. i think a starting caliber qb does not look that bad against that defense. but maybe you’re right and the niners end up having a good defense capable of completely shutting down an nfl offense.

I think both things are right. He’s not starting caliber, though they can do better than that with him.

And it is possible that the 9ers defense is just much better than many assumed.

But I don’t know precisely what went wrong yesterday. I would have to watch it again.

Yeah, I want to hear from the tape analysis guys, and watch a couple more games. Live…it looked like Keenum was doing a Nick Foles impression, checking down pretty much immediately to somebody in the flat. I don’t understand why we are throwing 15 yards horizontally and 3 yards vertically when it takes the same amount of time to throw 15 yards vertically and 3 yards horizontally. Or whatever. But this has been the Rams for several years now, and it is tiresome. If it worked, I wouldn’t care. But it works like 10% of the time.

They didn’t run Austin, did they? Either from the backfield or an end around.

Well, I will wait for the tale of the tape.

“Yeah, it’s definitely embarrassing,” said Keenum. “I’m a winner. I know Todd is a winner. Everyone in that locker room is winners.”

I think, technically, one needs to win in order for this statement to be true.

zn wrote:

Yes things have to be interpreted. For example you have already done that. You have interpreted the record as being a direct result of Fisher’s coaching. I don’t.

I interpret the 1st 2 years as a result of rebuilding plus losing a starting qb.

I interpret the next 2 years as being an example of what happens when a team does not have a starting qb AND has issues with the OL.

Given how I see that, 7-9 in 2015 was actually quite an achievement. That is, it doesn’t matter who the coach is if all you have for 2 years is BOTH no qb (only #2 types plus a starter who fell apart and melted down) AND big issues with the OL (injuries, and then inexperience PLUS injuries). I cannot think of any team that won under those dual conditions.

So numbers are not real…they are always the products of interpretation.

YOu look at the numbers and say see, bad coach.

I look at the numbers and say see, what do you expect when they have that kind of double problem.

You think (it seems) it’s natural and inevitable that the coach is the final cause and source of blame for that.

I think it;s natural and inevitable that any coach would have problems if they faced that kind of double problem for 2 years running.

.

What I get from that is that one cannot conclude that the first four years were the result of bad coaching because no coach could have won under those circumstances. So the coaching gets a pass. But it doesn’t mean the coaching was GOOD during those four years, only that one cannot prove that it was bad. So the question remains open.

Then – this year – none of the aforementioned excuses apply.

The team has talent.

The team is healthy.

They haven’t changed systems this year, so there is consistency.

And, under those conditions, they rolled out a big bag of suckiness.

One game doesn’t prove anything. But with everything else lined up to go right, they went wrong in dramatic fashion. Could have just been the horoscopes for the day, or something. But coaching is one of the possible explanations.

15 games to go.

— X — wrote:

Sometimes I think these guys don’t even know what they’re protesting. Just kinda going with whatever someone else is doing because it will elevate them to the class of rebel. I don’t know how much of this discussion is tolerated here, so I’ll just say that these numbnuts have no idea what oppression is. Women who get stoned to death for dating someone they think is cute? That’s oppression. Women prohibited from showing their faces? That’s oppression. Children brainwashed into martyring themselves? That’s oppression. African Americans led by an African American President? That’s not oppression. The Media tricking these guys into believing that there’s oppression? That’s the real crime.

You can’t judge their motives.

And wv is right, imo, that just because something else is worse, that doesn’t invalidate one’s complaint.

The basic complaint is that there is not justice and equality for all in this country. Statistically, blacks get rougher treatment than other groups (especially whites) in all facets of life, but particularly in the criminal justice system where we continue to see examples of non-threatening black men being killed by excessive police force with no admission that this is a problem. But it goes beyond that into more shakedowns, arrests, harsher sentencing, and all the rest of it. While we say “Never Forget” what we suffered on 9/11, we are always telling black people to “get over it” when it comes to nearly four hundred years of injustice.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/rams-set-football-back-100-years-49ers-pitch-28-0-shutout-6-things-to-know/

Will Brinson ✔ @WillBrinson
Final updated Rams drive chart. This is not a joke nor a drill:

PUNT
PUNT
PUNT
INT
PUNT
PUNT
PUNT
PUNT
PUNT
PUNT
INT
PUNT
TURNOVER ON DOWNS
10:19 PM – 12 Sep 2016

I think it’s worth noting that the Los Angeles Rams have not lost a game since 1994, and haven’t lost at home in the coliseum since 1979. You would think that fact would get a little more media attention, but obviously the liberal media doesn’t want people to know the truth.

bnw wrote:

Ostriching?

Is Trump a hypocrite?

Yes or no.

Everyone can change their mind. What matters are ones subsequent actions.

So, no, Trump’s hypocrisy doesn’t bother you. You just spin it differently. Because he hasn’t “changed his mind.” He is playing both sides of those issues.

bnw wrote:

Straw man my gluteus maximus. It is pure hypocrisy that should be exposed.

Clearly hypocrisy is very important to you.

Except when it involves Trump’s use of undocumented immigrants.

Or his denial of climate change while simultaneously trying to prepare for it at his golf course.

Or his attack on political contributions (except the ones he receives).

It doesn’t matter, Billy.

It isn’t a principled argument. As always, it’s an argument of convenience. It’s the same thing the right said about Al Gore. “Oh, global warming, huh? Then why do you have such a big utility bill for your house?”

It’s a straw man.

It’s a classic “change the subject” argument.

Instead of arguing about the issue – the environmental danger and cultural disregard of the pipeline (arguments the right will lose) – they change the subject to different ground where they feel they have the upper hand – in this case, the “purity” of the people making the argument.

This is standard arguing practice of the right, and it won’t make any difference how many times you point it out, and at what length. They change the subject as routinely as you change your socks.

They can’t say what they really think which is “Hey, this is how society makes progress, and I don’t get my drinking water from there, and I have no ancestors buried there, so it’s not my problem. Your loss is an acceptable price for me to pay. Fuck you.” That won’t go over well, so as usual, they just wrap the whole issue in a bunch of bullshit until most people are so confused, they change the channel to something easier to understand, like “The Apprentice.”

zn wrote:

The Rams chose to select Jared Goff over Carson Wentz with the top pick in the draft.

Wentz will start for the Eagles, while Goff will be inactive for the opener.

Not sure anyone would have predicted that scenario on draft day.

The Eagles brought in Chase Daniel as a high-priced backup for Sam Bradford. But when Bradford was traded to the Minnesota Vikings, Wentz was tabbed as the starter, despite playing in only one exhibition.

Development is part of the equation, but management execs think they can win with Wentz.

I am surprised that everybody just seems to assume (and Klein doesn’t assume this, btw, but I’m jumping off this response) that Goff being inactive and Wentz starting is evidence that the Rams made a bad decision of some kind.

Why isn’t anyone arguing that the Rams are the wise ones, and the Eagles are looking bad here? I mean…Wentz played part of ONE preseason game, and he’s the starter? I think an argument can be made the Rams are the team who is doing it right, and the Eagles are screwing it up.

It would be unfortunate if Gurley had a sophomore slump like Dickerson’s.