mrhockey89 wrote:doper, I completely disagree with you on the "expectation has to be different" for ANY reason. If people are being honest about equal treatment, then they have to be willing to leave out the asterisks It sounds like what you're suggesting is a form of conditional treatment based on race, which I do have a problem with, and is the reason that Harrell had to apologize in the first place. Jay Williams had no problem calling out the hypocrisy. Like I said, I don't have a problem with it and think many things are being overblown right now, but you can't create an unequal expectation of virtue based on race then brand it "equality". That's literally is the opposite of the meaning of the word.
I agree with you on your 2nd point. But I'll go further in that I don't think sports venues are the place for athletes to get their personal views (on non-sports matters) across. They have a big enough platform on their own (media interview during off-days, twitter, etc) where they can voice their opinions and use that as a platform if they wish. Just as I can't go into my workplace and use that for my personal agenda/platform, there's no reason a professional athlete should be treated any differently at the workplace when it comes to professionalism. My dad was president of a company that had probably 50-80 employees, and he used to always say that he would be less likely to hire someone with a controversial appearance choice (example: pink hair), not because he cared one way or another, but that some of their customers may care. While the NFL/NBA/NHL/MLB may not care what is being done/said, if it alienates any part of their fan base it's lost revenue. Right now they're concerned about hard-lining because of internal backlash, but I can promise you the league would rather not be the centerpiece of these discussions.
To answer your white-boy question. Here's Urban Dictionary's take on your question:
"Derogotory term used by blacks to refer to caucasian peoples.If you call a black person "black boy", they say its racist but they refer to caucasian males as "white boy". So yes, it's meant to be demeaning. You're marginalizing it because you don't take offense to it, but it's clearly intended to be demeaning. So I go back to my original point in that you're inherently being descriminatory against whites when you say it's not okay for a white person to call a black person a racially slanted name, but it is okay for a black person to call a white person a racially slanted name.
I agree with you, non-story, but a lot of the non-stories have been stories lately, and that's the ONLY reason this is worthy of discussion, in my opinion.
A racially slanted name doesnt have a context of slavery and segregation attached to it when directed at whites. It may be derogatory but it is not even in the same ballpark of offence which is why it is not as big of a deal and why no white with a set of stones should actually be offended by it. Context effects language. Like I said before the situation couldn't be equally reversed, it is impossible because blacks never enslaved and segregated whites and therefore any insult they dish out to whites ( white boy, no rythym, bad dancing, bad at basketball) will never be as bad as saying black boy.
I am discriminating, I am saying there isnt an appropriate equivalent of white boy that could be applied by whites to blacks. White boy is derogatory but it is the same as a child saying dummy. For a white adult to take any more offence than that upon hearing this racially slanted insult is childish and shows a complete lack of understanding to context and tact. Good thing Luka understood that.
On the second point, If we agree that the media and the league did the right thing in this case its worthy of discussion because mistakes have been in the past? Your disappointed, or upset that in this case the media expressed appropriate lack outrage?
