Supplemental: How black actors, and all Democrats, may end up losing votes!

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2016

Surprising notes on Jackie Robinson's self-emasculation:
Kevin Blackistone is smart, decent, well-informed, funny, decent and smart.

How do we know that Blackistone's smart? We watch him several days a week on our TV machine.

Who is Kevin Blackistone? He's a sports columnist for the Washington Post and a visiting professor at the University of Maryland. He appears several times per week on an ESPN discussion show, Around Cape Horn.

Blackistone is smart, well-informed and decent. That makes him a great example of an important fact--we the liberals can overstate in striking ways, much as The Others can.

In the process, we may end up harming ourselves at the polls. Or so we'll suggest today.

Where has Blackistone gone wrong, oh so wrong? In this morning's Washington Post, he offers a lengthy column in which he says Cam Newton's blackness is "a factor in negative perceptions about him."

Presumably, that's true, of course. Somewhere, people are thinking or saying negative things about Newton in a way that is tied to race.

On the other hand, Blackistone writes 1148 words on this theme while citing exactly one specific example of this alleged negative treatment. If you blink, you'll miss it:
BLACKISTONE (2/6/16): [W]hen Newton announced late this season that he and his longtime girlfriend were having their first child, the Charlotte Observer in the town he now calls home printed a letter to the editor that took Newton to task for having a child out of wedlock. When it was announced that New England Patriots superstar quarterback Tom Brady fathered a child with his ex-girlfriend Bridget Moynahan after moving on to Gisele Bundchen, sportswriter-turned-academic Ronald Bishop at Drexel found that much of the media explained the event as ". . . metrosexual trappings that come with [Brady's] global celebrity."
One newspaper published one letter! In a piece which runs almost 1200 words, that's the only specific example of the negative treatment Blackistone is writing about.

Has Newton received other negative treatment? We will assume that he has. But we the liberals can be very silly concerning topics we care about, in the same way Those People can. If you doubt that, consider this passage from today's column, which was written by a person who's smart, well-informed:
BLACKISTONE: I interrupt this essay out of obligation to so many of Newton's detractors to acknowledge that, yes, he was arrested while at the University of Florida on felony charges for stealing a fellow student's laptop. The state reduced the charges and deferred prosecution because the victim declined to join the prosecution. Newton was required to attend counseling, write an apology letter and do community service. He eventually transferred to a junior college to reboot his college career, which culminated at Auburn with a national championship and Heisman trophy.

Those of us in the media don't, however, feel so compelled to highlight the legal troubles of white athletes, like, for example, another former star Southeastern Conference quarterback now in the NFL, Zach Mettenberger. He was dismissed from Georgia after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of sexual battery, grabbing the breasts and touching the buttocks of a woman at a bar. Mettenberger was sentenced to two concurrent 12-month periods of probation, ordered to pay $2,000 in fines and perform community service. Like Newton, he transferred to restart his career, and wound up at LSU, where he starred before being drafted by the Tennessee Titans, for whom he now plays.
Like almost everyone else on earth, Newton did something dumb when he was 19. (To this day, we're still amazed by three or four things we did at roughly that age.)

That said, are there actually people "in the media" (aside from Blackistone himself) who "feel compelled to highlight" this ancient legal problem? If so, Blackistone doesn't name any such people, or show us what they've said. Instead, he offers a silly comparison to Zach Mettenberger, who apparently did some highly inappropriate things early in his college years.

Without offering any examples, Blackistone says that his colleagues in the press feel "compelled to highlight" Newton's past problem while failing to mention Mettenberger's. To the extent that this may be true, there would be an obvious surface explanation:

No one's ever heard of Mettenberger. Newton's a giant star.

Leaving aside Blackistone's lack of examples, the comparison in that passage is just utterly silly. This thought will occur to many sports fans who read his column.

It will also occur to many sports fans that Johnny Manziel's legal problems are currently being discussed all over the country. So were the legal problems of Ben Roethlisberger just a few years ago. Each of those fellows is widely believed to be white.

Is Cam Newton being badly treated on a racial basis? Presumably yes, to some extent—but how widespread is this problem? Blackistone, who's very smart, writes a lengthy column which isn't.

His most outlandish remark concerns Jackie Robinson. Before that, though, he also offers this:
BLACKISTONE: In the hundred years or so between [boxer Jack] Johnson and Newton, there have been other black athletes similarly criticized, like the star NFL halfback Joe Lillard. Lillard was a standout in the league in the early 1930s and just as cantankerous as many white players then, but was castigated for being so...

There was Silvio Garci­a, an Afro-Cuban whom Branch Rickey originally tapped in 1945 as his guinea pig to trot out onto Major League Baseball's all-white diamonds. But Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, rejected Garci­a because he saw Garcia's tenacity, admired in others, as a detriment. So the story goes, Rickey met with Garcia in Havana and asked him, "What would you do if a white American slapped your face?" Garcia responded: "I kill him."

And then there is Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, even Barry Bonds, et al.
As described, the "rejection" of Garcia's "tenacity" (seventy years ago) makes fairly obvious sense.

Meanwhile, Ali became one of the most beloved sports figures in American history. If he and the widely-admired Abdul-Jabbar are the best examples of mistreatment we can cite from the past hundred years, then we're reading a column which doesn't exactly make fabulous sense—and quite a few readers will think this.

That said, we the liberals are capable of making little sense, much like Those People, The Others. In the following passage, we'd have to say that Blackistone moves beyond the realm of flawed argument into the realm of complete absurdity bordering on ugliness:
BLACKISTONE: Newton is, as he declared, a black quarterback who unsettles some onlookers. He doesn't cloak himself in the self-emasculation of black athletes so celebrated in this country from the first half of the last century, like Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson or Olympic star Jesse Owens, who is further immortalized this month in the new movie "Race."
Jackie Robinson is widely regarded as an American secular saint. But when we liberals get a snootful, it turns out he actually "cloaked himself in self-emasculation." So did Jesse Owens!

Many people who read that passage will regard it as ugly, absurd, offensive. It would be hard to argue that those people were wrong.

We the liberals love to criticize the craziness of the "low-information voters" who we enjoy otherizing. Without any doubt, conservatives say the darnedest things—but so do we the liberals.

Do we harm ourselves this way? Consider something Cara Buckley wrote in Thursday's New York Times. As you do, try to picture it through the eyes of those who are being rebuked.

Buckley was writing about the Oscars, his current beat at the Times. More specifically, she was predicting this year's Oscar winners.

Along the way, she made a now-standard reference to a fine British actor. In fairness, she didn't say "snubbed:"
BUCKLEY (2/4/16): Last but not least, for supporting actor, it's looking very, very good for Sylvester Stallone, the ''Creed'' co-star. Idris Elba, whose Oscar shutout helped ignite this year's #OscarsSoWhite outcry, nabbed the Screen Actors Guild Award ahead of Mr. Stallone's Oscar competition. (Mr. Stallone was not nominated for an SAG.) Mr. Stallone, meanwhile, is being buoyed by a ton of sentimental good will, to wit the standing ovation that followed for his Golden Globe win.
Everything Buckley says there is accurate. But again, she pokes at the Academy for failing to nominate Elba, while failing to note that none of her own newspaper's three film critics included him on their own nomination ballots.

Let's say that again. The New York Times has three film critics. With regard to Elba's performance, they engineered a unanimous "Oscar shutout" too!

Just a guess! There are people in Hollywood who notice this sort of thing and think it's fake and dishonest. Here's another guess:

Next year, some black actors and actresses will lose some nomination votes because of this sort of thing. Another guess: some black actors and actresses lost nomination votes this year because of the way this theme played out after last year's nominations.

Are actors and actresses losing votes in this manner? If so, that's unfortunate and unjust. That said, we'll guess that it's actually happening. And in truth, many people have been overstating, faking and posing in their criticisms of the Academy with regard to this pleasurable theme.

In the real world, overstating actually can create resentment and backlash. Actors may be losing nomination votes as a result of overstatement, faking and posing concerning the Oscars and race.

Could Democrats lose votes the same way? We liberals have accomplished this outcome in the past through our various overstatements. Trust us:

We the liberals are entirely capable of making this happen again!

Blackistone's column is poorly reasoned today. We're going to guess that it struck many sports fans, citizens and voters in a negative way.

We're going to take one final guess. When we the liberals play it this way, progressive interests can be harmed.

Dear lord, those columns can feel so good! Is the tribal pleasure we feel worth the price we may pay?

66 comments:

  1. Conservatives couldn't fathom the possibility there would be blowback in response to their war making efforts to remake the Middle East by force.

    Liberals can't understand that playing the race card for all it's worth every time they sense an opportunity, no matter how unsound or suspect, creates backlash. It feels good but is it worth it?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Blackistone wants the reader to believe that that Cam Newton was treated worse than Tom Brady, for the same sin of fathering a child out of wedlock. Yet, the facts as Blackistone present them lead to the opposite conclusion. Blackistone says Brady was defended by "much of the media". That seems to imply that some others in the media did criticize Brady. OTOH Blackistone identifies no media person at all who criticized Newton.

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  3. I think the word self emascilation is going a bit far but Robinson was chosen to be first largely because of his personality which was way less aggressive than many others.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No major league baseball team wants a player who kills, or threatens to kill, a member of the audience, no matter what the race of the audience member or the player. Threatening to kill someone is assault and is a crime.

      Aggression isn't valued in baseball the way it is in football or hockey. I feel some resentment that Rickey is being tarred as a racist because he wanted his attempt to desegregate baseball to succeed instead of fail when a aggressive player fights back and is thrown out of baseball (some people were no doubt waiting for any excuse to get rid of the first black player). How does that make him racist or Robinson "self-emasculating"? Is fighting the only way to be masculine?

      Delete
    2. Blackistone wrote: "...There was Silvio Garci­a, an Afro-Cuban whom Branch Rickey originally tapped in 1945 as his guinea pig..."

      This is an exaggeration, to make the Rickey look worse. "Tap" means: "To select or designate." But, Garcia wasn't selected. He was merely considered

      Delete
  4. He isn't saying shut up. He is telling people to write smarter stuff, columns that won't alienate people and make liberals appear foolish.

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  5. And in the meantime, as we discuss the intricacies of whether Cam Newton is facing racism in the media and Mr. Maddow might be framing Rick Snyder for a crime he did not commit, President Rubio is being coronated!

    To the barricades, liberals!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ms. Maddow or Dr. Maddow but not Mr. Maddow.

      Delete
  6. Here in the real world, we all applaud Rickey's successful integration of baseball. Among other things, it led to Robinson's uniform number being retired for all teams. But, some modern liberals want more. Acts are no good if they have the least tinge of impurity -- impurity judged by the standards of today. An amazing instance of this principle was that the University of Oregon recently considered taking a famous Martin Luther King quote because it wasn't inclusive enough!

    Student leaders at the University of Oregon debated removing a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. from its student center, arguing that the quote was not inclusive enough for modern understandings of diversity.

    Oregon’s Erb Memorial Union, which is currently under renovation, had the following famous King quote on the wall: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream…”

    But as renovation continues, the Oregon Student Union seriously considered replacing that quote....

    The problem wasn’t so much the message, but the fact that it only focused on racial diversity instead of gender identity.

    “Diversity is so much more than race,” said one sophomore architecture major. “Obviously race still plays a big role. But there are people who identify differently in gender and all sorts of things like that.”


    http://www.mediaite.com/online/u-of-oregon-debates-removing-mlk-quote-for-not-being-inclusive-enough/

    ReplyDelete
  7. Jesus. I'm a Texan who became acquainted with the Blackistone byline when he ws with the Dallas Morning News. I never viewed Kevin Blackistone in terms of political ideology in my life. I am glad Bob Somerby has annointed him a liberal.

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  8. Blood-shirt-waving day for the baldspot with a keyboard.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Then clearly it is one of those special days of the week. I think there are seven of them.

      Delete
  9. Speaking of blacks, black actors, sports and films, Bob Somerby's whining about liberals (and blacks) is beginning to remind me of Sgt. Waters in "A Soldier's Story."

    ReplyDelete
  10. Bob, exploring his inner rectum and reporting he finds light!

    "Next year, some black actors and actresses will lose some nomination votes because of this sort of thing. Another guess: some black actors and actresses lost nomination votes this year because of the way this theme played out after last year's nominations."

    Bob, in preceding post, stating fact, not guess!

    ""Some" is not a number!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. None is a number. Are you suggesting that no black actors and actresses will be harmed by a backlash against protests?

      "Some" is called a logical quantifier. It is used in reasoning, not counting. Take a course on logic and you will encounter it.

      How is your inner rectum these days? Do you also have an outer rectum. Is that what you are putting on display here?

      Delete
    2. I could have guessed "some" commenter would defend Bob's use of "some" in this post while denying his emphatic statement about "some" in the last one. Some Howler readers have their head as far up their ass as Somerby does. Which is why neither they nor Bob notice their self contradiction.

      Delete
    3. Anon 10:40 AM -- Were you criticizing Bob for presenting a guess as a fact? But, he said it was a guess. A more complete quote from Bob:

      Here's another guess:
      Next year, some black actors and actresses will lose some nomination votes because of this sort of thing. Another guess: some black actors and actresses lost nomination votes this year because of the way this theme played out after last year's nominations.


      Delete
    4. I was not criticizing Bob for presenting a guess as a fact. The only thing he presented as fact is that "some" is not a number. Which the Nitpicker in Chief did, and frequently does, when he criticizes someone else's work but which he conveniently overlooks when presenting ideas of his own.

      Our guess? His most devoted fan still resents this piece of Bob "guesswork."

      "Our guess? Such cluelessness from Clinton supporters may represent her “biggest problem.” " BS 4/25/15

      Delete
    5. You really don't understand context do you?

      Delete
    6. We do understand some context. Most we guess.

      Delete
  11. Blackistone anointed himself a liberal in columns he has written that bring politics into sports reporting. I agree with Blackistone that there need not be a division between politics and sports -- that sports has political implications.

    You might see, for example:

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/nov/13/harper-what-happens-when-politics-infects-the-spor/?page=all

    This predates Somerby.

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  12. How many of you media drunk suckers are going to further suffocate your souls by watching the most satanic spectacle ever, the Super Bowl, tonight? You don't have to! Turn off all the TV
    and screens and listen to the wind, discuss the dreams you've been having. Sit in the presence of others even silently and for once avoid the pain that modern media inflicts. Go for it!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Push yourself away from your computer screen before it is to late and you get lost in cyberspace.

      Delete
  13. Good to see Somerby following in the journalistic footsteps a Professor writing for the conservative Wshington Times.

    ReplyDelete
  14. "Who is Kevin Blackistone? He's a sports columnist for the Washington Post and a visiting professor at the University of Maryland. He appears several times per week on an ESPN discussion show, Around Cape Horn."

    Who is Bob Somerby? Someone who does not know Cape Horn is in South America, not Bristol Conn.

    Cape Horn, named after the city of Hoorn in the Netherlands, is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Cape Horn marks the northern boundary of the Drake Passage and marks where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans collide. For decades it was a major milestone on the clipper route, by which sailing ships carried trade around the world.

    The need for ships to round Cape Horn was greatly reduced by the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914. Sailing around the Horn is widely regarded as one of the major challenges in yachting.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Blackistone is on a sports show called Around the Horn. The name most likely reflects the play in baseball where the ball is thrown from first to second to third base. It loosely means that all points of view get expressed as the verbal ball is tossed from one to another to yet another panelist. It has very little to do with geography.

      So what if Somerby got the name a little wrong? Did anyone really not get what show was being talked about? Or are you showing off that you can use Google like any cretin?

      Delete
    2. See your head is still as deep as Bob's sigmoid colon.

      Delete
    3. He didn't get the name wrong. He is mocking the show, which like most ESPN fare, is dumb.

      Delete
    4. So grateful that Bob has widened his scope for "mainstream media" musings and mockings beyond NYT, MSNBC and the Washington Post to now include ESPN.

      Democracy is all the safer for it.

      Delete
    5. Bob has not widened his scope for media. His fans are squeezing farther and farther up his lower GI tract in their efforts to defend him.

      Delete
  15. How black candidates, and all Republicans, may end up losing votes! [LINK]

    ReplyDelete
  16. "Consider something Cara Buckley wrote in Thursday's New York Times. As you do, try to picture it through the eyes of those who are being rebuked.

    Buckley was writing about the Oscars, his current beat at the Times. More specifically, she was predicting this year's Oscar winners."

    "Idris Elba, whose Oscar shutout helped ignite this year's #OscarsSoWhite outcry, nabbed the Screen Actors Guild Award ahead of Mr. Stallone's Oscar competition."

    Cara Buckley's one sentnece highlighted by Bob Somerby

    "Everything Buckley says there is accurate. But again, she pokes at the Academy for failing to nominate Elba, while failing to note that none of her own newspaper's three film critics included him on their own nomination ballots.

    Let's say that again. The New York Times has three film critics. With regard to Elba's performance, they engineered a unanimous "Oscar shutout" too!

    Just a guess! There are people in Hollywood who notice this sort of thing and think it's fake and dishonest. Here's another guess:

    Next year, some black actors and actresses will lose some nomination votes because of this sort of thing."

    Bob Somerby, making predictions about current and future actions of people so stupid they, like he asserts here, think that anything in Buckley's single accurate descriptive sentence was "poking" or a "rebuke" of anyone.



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What was it Bob said?

      "One newspaper published one letter! In a piece which runs almost 1200 words, that's the only specific example of the negative treatment Blackistone is writing about."

      In a piece that runs over 1000 words, Bob finds one sentence near the end which he can claim may result in a backlash by "rebuked"
      Academy members?

      Delete
    2. @1:47 tries to pretend that #OscarsSoWhite is not a rebuke of white Hollywood. You have ignore everything in the media to make that claim. Of course the sentence is a rebuke -- taken in the context of the article and everything else surrounding the issue of Elba's nomination. Only by taking one sentence and ignoring that context can this person make his/her specious criticism of Somerby's point.

      People in Hollywood will get tired of these endless complaints about how many and which black actors are nominated each year. The actors and actresses who do the nominating will remember their own struggles to find good roles and earn nominations and they will feel little sympathy for black actors and actresses who think they deserve success for their equally competent but not outstanding performances. They will not want to reward the crybaby histrionics of those who don't understand that it is hard for everyone to get an Oscar and that many deserving people are overlooked every year, white or black or any race or ethnicity. They don't think black actors and actresses should get special treatment because they complain loudly. It feels like coercion.

      How do I know actors and actresses may feel this way? A few have spoken out -- and been punished for it in the media.

      Somerby did not invent the idea of a backlash. And it exists in other spheres of life, not just Hollywood, among people who have themselves struggled to find success. It has motivated the backlash against Affirmative Action in education, for example, which many people feel unfairly penalizes hardworking white students who meet admission requirements but are denied a space in favor of someone who does not.

      Some liberals seem oblivious to this public reaction. Somerby argues that it would be smart to recognize it and temper statements instead of exacerbating the problem with stupid, trivial examples that are not clearly discrimination of any kind.

      But you know this. Your reason for being here is only to attack Somerby and you have no real interest in any issue discussed here.

      Delete
    3. @ 3:23

      "Of course the sentence is a rebuke"

      Bob said so!

      Delete
    4. Thus ignoring every sentence in the above comment.

      Delete
  17. What is idiotic is not just using a Washington
    Times op-ed opinion piece to dfend Mr. Howler, but the example used from Blackistone, which had little to due with politics, but rather was an observation about history.

    ReplyDelete
  18. You know, I also remember King being warned not to take things too far, lest there would be a backlash.

    How courageous of Bob to tell black actors and actresses to be afraid, very afraid, so sit down and shut up.

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    Replies
    1. He's not saying don't press legitimate claims. He's saying don't be silly about it. King and other civil rights leaders won because they had a moral claim on the conscience. It's hard to argue that these trivial complaints today rise to that level. The backlash isn't against pressing for justice. It is about bullying people with threats of racial complaint over trivialities. If there had never been an Oscar awarded to a black actor, that would rise to King's level of action. Which film or actor should be nominated in which year is not the kind of moral issue.

      Do you ever post on any topic here except how awful Somerby is?

      Delete
    2. Isn't that the 3000 word Gorilla Dust in every post?

      Delete
    3. "He's not saying don't press legitimate claims. He's saying don't be silly about it."

      And who gets to say which claims are "legitmate" and which are "silly"?

      Why Bob himself!

      By the way, has Bob ever found any allegation of racism to be "legitimate" or even the least bit credible?

      Delete
    4. Bob has pointed out that everyone with a brain between their ears will be evaluating which claims are legitimate and which are silly. He urges those advancing claims to consider before putting forth the sillier ones because it will undermine their cause.

      Somerby only mentions the silly here. Why would there be any need to discuss the legitimate claims in a column devoted to howlers? They wouldn't be howlers.

      Why is this so hard for you to understand? I would call your responses here motivated stupidity.

      Delete
  19. King dealt with fair housing, voting rights, and the rights of workers to obtain a basic degree of dignity.

    This current controversy deals with whether or not "Straight Outta Compton" should get an Oscar nomination for best movie of the year.

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    Replies
    1. We must admit it was nowhere near as good as "Rocky". Or "Blue Crush." And none of the "Rocky" films even mentioned the lead poisoning of Philadelphia kids, which, in our view is much higher than that found in Flint, which Rachel Maddow has made a crisis.

      That said, all that fame and money never spoiled Stallone.

      Delete
    2. Let's see. A commenter should not have mentioned King because he dealt with more weighty topics than the Oscars. But it is OK for Bob to take a sportswriters rant about a quarterback and a single line describing who won a film award and extrapolate that into all Democrats losing votes.

      Delete
    3. And here you omit the context of the ongoing articles Somerby has written day in and day out giving numerous examples of how liberals are being stupid about such issues and losing votes. This "single line" you are worried about is only one in a long series of posts, focusing on many different examples, on the same theme.

      Delete
    4. @3:27 is so Bob like.

      "You omit the context of the ongoing articles..." @ 3:27

      Yes, just like Buckley was criticized for not citing the work of three other Times writers when she was merely describing who Idris Elba was.

      Because, you know, Buckley should have known Bob was writing this long series about the Times Oscar hypocrisy.

      So Bob like indeed.

      Delete
    5. She was criticized for hopping on the outrage train without thinking about whether Elba deserved to have been nominated, besides being black. One way of assessing that is to look at mentions of Oscar contenders by critics, starting with those at her own paper (who presumably would be most accessible to her). Previously, he reviewed lists of best actors more broadly, with similar results.

      This is hypocrisy. If Buckley is going to argue that Elba was overlooked because of his race, she needs some evidence that it was not due to his acting.

      Delete
    6. Buckley made no argument. Bob did. And you did. Actually he/you made an allegation.

      Buckley made a description.

      Delete
    7. Buckley said:

      "Idris Elba, whose Oscar shutout helped ignite this year's #OscarsSoWhite outcry, nabbed the Screen Actors Guild Award ahead of Mr. Stallone's Oscar competition."

      Referring to the protest and pointing out that he was "shut out" is more than a description. There is no need to mention Elba at all, since there were many male actors not nominated in the category with Stallone. That she does mention him raises the racial issue. So, yes, Buckley is making an argument with that sentence. If she had left out the shut out comment and the Oscars so white tag, she would have been making a simple description about how Stallone lost the SAG award. She is implying that Stallone may win the Oscar largely because of Hollywood's racism in omitting SAG winner Elba.

      Delete
    8. You are an absolute idiot. "There is no need to discuss Elba at all."

      Buckley's article was prdiciting the Oscars based on SAG and other awards. So the discussion of Elba was about him winning SAG for Best Supporting Actor, which was the last one she discussed. She discussed every SAG winner.

      "Last but not least, for supporting actor, it’s looking very, very good for Sylvester Stallone, the “Creed” co-star. Idris Elba, whose Oscar shutout helped ignite this year’s #OscarsSoWhite outcry, nabbed the Screen Actors Guild Award ahead of Mr. Stallone’s Oscar competition. (Mr. Stallone was not nominated for an SAG.) Mr. Stallone, meanwhile, is being buoyed by a ton of sentimental good will, to wit the standing ovation that followed for his Golden Globe win."

      Your problem, Head-Up-Bob's Bottom (Your native Blogosphere Nickname), is that you think what Bob reprints from the work he attacks is sufficient to judge that work.

      Delete
  20. Never did I think Bob Somerby could pen a blog post which so clearly demonstrated his absolute total lack of participation in real politics. But here you have it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "musings on the mainstream "press corps" and the american discourse"

      Do you see the word politics anywhere in that sentence?

      Delete
    2. Yeah. Let's pretend that this blog has never had anything to do with politics. Why, Bob wouldn't touch politics with the proverbial pole!

      Not even when he headlines his latest "off the top of his bald head" screed: "Supplemental: How black actors, and all Democrats, may end up losing votes!"

      No politics there!

      Delete
    3. @ 3:29

      "Do you see the word politics anywhere in that sentence?"

      @ 3:29

      We must rebuke anyone who looks beyond Bob's mission sentence for the content of a post.

      @ 3:23/@3:29 is such a perfect example of the Bob practice of criticizing something while doing it himself, and seems to be following critics around like a constant defender of Bob's work. Almost as if he/she were always here. Almost as if he/she were
      the author her/him........ nah! Bob doesn;t read his comments. One of his commenters always tells us that.

      Delete
  21. It was an example of Blackistone venturing away from sports and into other issues, which others have labeled political, espousing views that are clearly liberal.

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  22. In the movie The Commitments, the would-be musicians call poor Dubliners the "blacks of Europe" and decide to sing soul music (R & B). Today that would be called cultural appropriation and would be considered racist -- both the film and the actions of the characters. Thereby, the development of whole genres of music, including rock and roll and jazz, would be prohibited as racist. In a larger sense, people would be denied the opportunity to learn from and take inspiration from each other. It is very hard to see that as a good thing.

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    Replies
    1. By your sledge-hammer definition, the New York Philharmonic is guilty of cultural appropriation every time it plays Beethoven.

      You obviously have no idea what cultural appropriation really means. But go ahead and pretend that you do.

      Delete
    2. Have you even seen the movie?

      Delete
  23. Here is an example of the kind of nonsense people on the left are circulating. This is what Somerby is talking about.

    https://www.facebook.com/TheOther98/photos/a.115969958413991.17486.114517875225866/1239642562713386/?type=3

    ReplyDelete
  24. @ 9:47
    @ 9:48
    @ 9:51
    @ 9:54
    @ 9:55

    What a friend we have in Somerby.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't stay up all night posting on the internet, so the garbage accumulates.

      Delete
  25. It has been two weeks. Let's hope the hammering, banging and pounding pay off and we get a better class of liberal...one that deserves the new Howler we have all been promised.

    ReplyDelete
  26. What a wonderful spell caster that has brought back happiness to my life, I got married to Jefferson and we loved and cherish ourselves so much, he needs a divorce This is the most wonderful thing i have ever experience!!!! i have never see a great man like Dr happy,indeed he is a powerful man, just last year July i saw some testimony comment on a site people testifying on how they got back their ex with the help of Dr happy,i was amaze to see a great man like this in the world, i was having similar problem with my partner, so we had a little misunderstand that lid to our breakup them so because of that i was very sad and i was thinking of what to do to get him back in my life, a great ideal came into my mind, so i contacted the great Dr and i told him everything that happen he just laugh and said to me that i should not worry that everything will be okay, i believed him because of what on the internet, so today am here testifying of the great happiness he just grant in my life i now have him back forever, thank you very much sir, i really appreciate,your work you have the best spell caster i have ever see on the internet that can really bring loss relationship so my friends out there if you have any problem contact Dr happy for help, he is able to help you in any situation, here is the email happylovespell2@gmail.com

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