MANIFESTATIONS: Who was being disparaged that day?

FRIDAY, JULY 9, 2021

Has integration failed?: At the start, it should be said that Paul Butler—he of Georgetown University Law School, MSNBC and the Washington Post, with his undergraduate degree from Yale and his law degree from Harvard Law School, not to mention a stint at Williams & Connolly—is in fact a good, decent person.

(In Chicago, he prepped at St. Ignatius College Preparatory School.)

Butler's reactions, views and feelings are the reactions, views and feelings of a good, decent person.  That said, there's also this:

Because his reactions and views and feelings are the reactions and views of a person, his reactions and views may not be infallible. And not only that!

According to credentialed experts we aren't at liberty to name, there's no ultimate way to assess the extent to which Butler's reactions and views with respect to any given matter are, in fact, correct.

Beyond that, no one's reactions, views and feelings can be assumed to be perfectly correct! Or at least, so these highly qualified experts have constantly claimed, during our lengthy consultations over the past several years.

We offer this as background to Butler's column in this morning's Washington Post. In that column, Butler gives voice to what may seem like surprising feelings about his work at Georgetown Law:

BUTLER (7/9/21): [F]or now, I am okay with working at a university that in its early years was financed by the sale of enslaved people. I love my students and respect my colleagues, and have been part of the community’s efforts, still incomplete, to make reparations for that travesty. Sometimes, helping majority-White spaces be less racist and more inclusive feels transformative. Other times, it feels like an intellectual version of my great-grandfather’s job; he cleaned outhouses—i.e., shoveling White people’s excrement.

We can't tell you how much Butler gets paid by Georgetown or at his other posts. "For now," though, he's okay with working at Georgetown, as he has been for many years, possibly without ever having said a whole lot about the enslaved people he mentions today.

We can't tell you how much he gets paid—by Georgetown Law, by MSNBC, or even by the Washington Post. Sometimes, though, it feels to Butler that he holds an upgraded version of the job held by one of his great-grandfathers.

He sometimes feels that he's cleaning outhouses! He feels that he's shoveling the excrement of people who, in the current construction, don't look like him.

Let's review:

Butler went to St. Ignatius Prep, then to Yale and Harvard Law. After that, he went to Williams and Connolly, "where he specialized in white collar [and, we'll guess, in white defendant] criminal defense." 

Then he went to Georgetown Law and the Washington Post, and even to MSNBC.

Does it make sense to feel the way he says he sometimes does about his work at Georgetown Law? Let's return to our basic postulates, which we'll affirm once again:

Paul Butler is a good, decent person. His feelings are the feelings of a good, decent person. In no way can it be assumed that his feelings are somehow "wrong." It's also true that his feelings may not necessarily make perfect ultimate sense. 

No one's feelings make ultimate perfect sense, credentialed top experts all say.

Butler's column today concerns Nikole Hannah-Jones. It's obvious, right from the jump, that Butler is inclined to accept the judgments of the credentialed upper-end experts who have given him his various positions, honors, holdings and jobs.

He believes in the judgments of the Pulitzer committee. He believes in the judgments of the people who award  those Rockefeller "genius" grants. (For now, it's still OK to accept grants which are tied to the name "Rockefeller.") 

Hannah-Jones believes in the judgments of these high-end entities too. (Check the self-approving statements Butler quotes.) 

In short, this new generation has bought in almost completely, in a way their great-grandparents may not have been able to do. But in the year since the late George Floyd was killed in the street, many feelings are being expressed—feelings which may have been withheld from view in years past. 

These feelings aren't necessarily wrong, but they aren't necessarily right. This brings us to the worldwide dispute now known as Disparagementgate.

That worldwide dispute is being frisked today in the Washington Post. As we type, that frisking is listed as the most-read article at the Post. Butler's column is listed at #2.

For the record, Disparagementgate involves questions of which of two overpaid, pampered TV stars—one of whom is seeking a new contract of $5 million per year, perhaps more—would be assigned to host the pregame TV shows for a nigh-profile basketball event.

For the record, there's nothing "wrong" with being paid millions of dollars per year to do something of no social value. As we first noted two decades ago, people will do and say a lot of things to acquire and retain such jobs.

Perhaps surprisingly, it's possible for people to be paid millions of dollars for doing basically nothing of value and yet still feel a bit like Butler does about the stable-swabbing job he's currently forced to do.

We thought of the 1945 film, Mildred Pierce, when we read Butler's column. We thought of the 1937 film, Stella Dallas. 

We thought of President Obama's remarks about the Joshua generation—remarks we didn't go back and review. 

We thought about Mrs. Parks, risking her life for zero dollars, traveling through the Deep South of her day. We thought of Dr. King, who could have chosen the easier life up north, going back to the Deep South of his day and before long surrendering his.

Even as we thought of these people, we understood that Butler's feelings about his job can't be dismissed as "wrong." We'd also offer this:

The feelings being expressed by Butler and others are part of "the world the slaveholders made." You can't establish a world in the way the slaveholders did without sending cascades of such feelings and interpretations down through the annals of time. 

It can't, and it won't, be done.

That said, people who broadcast on ESPN are doing nothing of any great value. Sometimes they get paid as much as $5 million per year for being willing to offer this basically useless service.

They may still think they're being picked on, even at $5 million per year; those feelings aren't necessarily wrong. But this morning, in the Washington Post, Jemele Hill—a good, decent person and a former ESPN employee—opines on the lessons of  Disparagementgate in this possibly cockeyed manner

STRAUSS (7/9/21): “I think it’s an unfortunate part of the business when you do have people of color, there’s a lot of industry jealousy they face,” Jemele Hill, a former ESPN commentator, said in an interview. “Some of it is being in a high-intensity field. But there’s an undercurrent of race. Black people get scrutinized in ways our White counterparts do not.” 

Hill is a former ESPN employee. Even as one of her "white" former colleagues is being raked over the coals for comments made in a pirated phone call, she says that black people in the socially useless cable sports business "get scrutinized in ways our White counterparts do not!"

(Yes, you're allowed to chuckle. The headline on the Post report says this: "Rachel Nichols is back on the air, but the fallout at ESPN is just beginning.")

Experts say we can almost start to regard that comment by Hill as perhaps mistaken. Our reply to them would be this:

We could do it, but it would be wrong! Hill's comment is slightly strange in the immediate context. In other contexts, it may be thoroughly accurate.

Yesterday, we offered the background to Disparagementgate. That background went something like this:

In July 2020, Rachel Nichols  was engaged in a phone call she believed to be private. Speaking to a friend and associate, she said her contract at ESPN guaranteed her a certain high-profile assignment, but ESPN was trying to give that assignment to her colleague, Maria Taylor.

She said she was trying to retain the assignment. At that point, the disparaging comments began!

You can read back through Monday's report in the New York Times  for the gist of what was said. We would offer this summary:

The white-boy bosses at ESPN were in fact roundly disparaged. We can't necessarily say that anyone else was disparaged at all.

Rightly or wrongly, Nichols said that ESPN had a "crappy longtime record on diversity." Here's the exact thing she said:

NICHOLS: I have declined [the proposed change in assignment]. I don’t know what their next move is, but they are feeling pressure because of all of that, and I’m trying to figure out, like how to just—

You know, my thing is, I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world—she covers football, she covers basketball. If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity—which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it—like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away.

Rightly or wrongly, Nichols said that ESPN had a crappy longtime record on diversity. Rightly or wrongly, she said that she had personally experienced that crappy behavior over the years with respect to gender diversity.

She speculated that the proposed move was based on a racial diversity issue. People who aren't completely out of their minds will know that this was of course a possibility. (There also seems to be no way to know if that speculation was accurate.)

Nichols went on to say that the assignment at issue was guaranteed in her contract. No one has established whether that statement was accurate. Given the way this "scandal" is being played, this claim has largely been disappeared as the week has moved along.

That said, Nichols went on to discuss the way the bosses function at ESPN. Here's another set of disparaging comments:

NICHOLS: Those same people—who are, like, generally white conservative male Trump voters—is part of the reason I’ve had a hard time at ESPN. I basically finally just outworked everyone for so long that they had to recognize it. I don’t want to then be a victim of them trying to play catch-up for the same damage that affected me in the first place, you know what I mean. So I’m trying to just be nice.

Nichols has known rivers too! Rightly or wrongly, she said she had to outwork everyone for years, due to ESPN's crappy record on gender diversity.

Remember, these disparaging comments were made in what was believed to be a private phone call. At some point, one or more ESPN employees got hold of a videotape of the call and spread the tape all around.

In that passage, rightly or wrongly, Nichols had furthered her disparaging comments—her disparaging comments about the conservative, white-boy Trump voters who make the decisions at ESPN. These were highly disparaging comments, but they were aimed at ESPN's Trump-voting, white-boy men.

Nichols' overpaid work at ESPN serves no public purpose. That said, she's being attacked for her disparaging comments—for allegedly making disparaging comments about Maria Taylor. 

Her disparaging comments about the ESPN's crappy record on diversity have gone undiscussed. So have her disparaging comment about the crappy Trump-voter white men.

That said, did Nichols also disparage Taylor? Did she disparage Taylor at all? We'd be inclined to say that she didn't, but as Disparagementgate has unfolded, a different view has prevailed.

Nichols did offer a certain speculation about why her contract was (allegedly) being broken. She speculated that ESPN was doing that because they were "feeling pressure about [their] crappy longtime record on diversity."

Staring the obvious, it's entirely possible that that was true. Many big orgs were suddenly finding religion about such matters and concerns in the wake of George Floyd's death. 

Who knows? Nichols may have had background knowledge in support of that surmise. But, of course, her speculation also may have been false. 

Assuming ESPN was going so far as to break a contract in giving the assignment to Taylor, they may have been doing so for other reasons—for reasons such as these:

1) They may have felt that Taylor was just a better performer than Nichols.

2) They may have thought that Taylor was younger and "hotter."

It's obvious that such considerations are part of the way these corporate cable orgs roll. That said, speaking in a private phone call, Nichols seemed to assume that her bosses were reacting to issues of racial diversity, and it may well be that they were!

At any rate, Nichols is being scalded for assuming that the alleged switch in assignment was based on a desire to address issues of (racial) diversity. 

It's obvious that her speculation could have been true. But she's being scalded for advancing such a forbidden thought, even in a private phone call which was spread all over the world by the various good, decent people who work at ESPN. 

Butler addresses related issues in his new column today. We thought today of Mildred Pierce. We thought of Stella Dallas.

We also thought of Rosa Parks—of people who have actually served.

We also thought of the pampered darlings who do nothing of value for $5 million per year, yet may still feel that they're just shoveling sh*t and being badly mistreated. Our societal discussions tend to focus on those people, not on the homeless of Chattooga County, not on the food deserts of Chicago, not on children being shot in the streets (unless they're shot by police officers.)

According to anthropologists, these are among the ways we humans are inclined to feel, react and believe. That said, the feelings being expressed by Butler—the feelings being expressed by Taylor—comes to us live and direct from "the world the slaveholders made."

Those reactions and feelings aren't wrong. It's also possible that they aren't entirely helpful in the super-long run, though there's no way to know that for sure.

Butler sys it's OK "for now" that he has to work at a place like Georgetown Law. As with Hannah-Jones, it sounds like he may be on his way to an historically black destination. Or not!

Most significantly, Butler suggests, in today's column, that integration may have failed. Given his lofty pedigree and his mountains of social respect, we think his remarks are perhaps slightly odd. 

But Butler is a good decent person, and no one except the rare person like Mrs. Parks has ever done anything like enough. A lot of shapeshifters have never done a single thing, except perhaps feather their nests!

In closing, at whom were the disparaging comments aimed in the affair now known as Disparagementgate? 

Late in the maddening conversation to which we linked you yesterday, two of three former ESPN employees marvel at the way Nichols' extensive comments about the network's Trump-voting white-boy bosses have been disappeared, or perhaps just ignored.

Nichols completely disparaged the Trump-voting bosses. We'd have to say it isn't clear that she disparaged Taylor at all—in this private phone call which was pirated at ESPN, then shipped all around.

Do the Post and the Times simply love a good "catfight?" (Not necessarily, no.)  Is that what we're secretly all really like here in the streets of Our (floundering) Town, in which the social ideal of integration is increasingly judged to be failing?

If integration fails, can the culture survive? That strikes us as a very good question. We can't say the answer is clear. 

The Washington Post plays it safe: The children at our big news orgs will always play it safe. 

Comically, here's one passage from the Washington Post's assessment of Disparagementgate:

STRAUSS: As for Taylor, several industry insiders predicted this week that she would leave ESPN. NBC was named as one possible landing spot. But some believed there remains the possibility that ESPN and parent company Disney come back to the negotiating table, wary of the headlines that would follow losing Taylor.

 Nichols, meanwhile, faces a murkier future. She has a contract that runs through 2023. But after dismissive comments about diversity, can she cover a league, at ESPN or anywhere else, that is predominantly Black? Or can she credibly interview or cover James again after seeking advice from one of his advisers?

Nichols made "dismissive comments about diversity!" There's only one word for that:

Sad. 

There's nothing our news orgs won't say and do. We humans tend to be wired that way, anthropologists have all widely said. 


56 comments:

  1. "[F]or now, I am okay with working at a university that in its early years was financed by the sale of enslaved people."

    Yes, it is funny dear Bob.

    He's also okay with being a bot for the slaveowners' party. Nothing personal, we're sure, strictly business.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Excellent point about the slaveholders' party. There too, he's never left the plantation.

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  2. "At the start, it should be said that Paul Butler—he of Georgetown University Law School...is in fact a good, decent person."

    This is how Somerby warns you that he is about to slime someone.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "According to credentialed experts we aren't at liberty to name, there's no ultimate way to assess the extent to which Butler's reactions and views with respect to any given matter are, in fact, correct."

    This is total nonsense. Of course there are ways of determining the likelihood that a statement is true or not.

    Somerby's demand for absolute certainty is what permits him to question everything, even the most basic and obviously true facts, such as that 1+1=2, which he has mocked Russell for proving mathematically. So Somerby is conveniently inconsistent in his demand for absolute truth, and he is willing to mock someone who attempts to provide that proof, even though he is the one who will not believe anything without it.

    This is a political game that Somerby is playing using philosophical sophistry and references to imaginary experts who supposedly support his corrupt statements undermining the concept that anyone can have expertise in anything.

    What is gained by calling Butler fallible? Somerby gets to set aside anything Butler says that Somerby dislikes. This is an intellectually bankrupt, bad faith way to discuss any topic. But Somerby's purpose here isn't to discuss anything. It is to influence weak minds (cue Cecelia, Leroy, those who confuse this BS with reasoning).

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    1. Let me help you out then, Anonymouse 12:33pm, I’m utterly sincere in saying this is one of his best blogs.

      The subject, the controversy, is the same old tired dumb stuff that is now endless in our society. However, Somerby’s ability to so lucidly, eloquently disassemble and exam it down to the floor boards is just a thing of beauty.

      Always humane, but never less than exacting.

      We’re all so lucky to have found this man.

      Delete
    2. Some people say the Republican Party might not be anything but racists.
      Bob knows that hasn't been confirmed at all.

      Delete
    3. However, you’re enlightened enough to know that about white first graders.

      Delete
    4. Those elitist First Graders point and laugh at the stupidity of Republicans. You'd think they'd have more empathy for the ignorant.

      Delete
    5. I had you pegged as having the mental capacity of a 1st grader, but not as actually being one.

      Explains a lot.

      Delete
    6. This comment @7:05 makes no sense at all.

      Delete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. ‘Does it make sense to feel the way he [Butler] says he sometimes does about his work at Georgetown Law?’

    Unless Butler is lying, or mentally ill like Trump, this is the way he feels.

    His feelings are his, and not Bob Somerby’s. They may not make sense to Bob Somerby, but Paul Butler isn’t Bob Somerby. The way Bob Somerby feels about something may not make sense to Butler. Perhaps if Bob Somerby were Paul Butler, he would feel the same way as Butler.

    Somerby is very intent on trying to ‘understand’ The Others. On the other hand, he dismisses the feelings of people like Butler.

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    1. Yes, mh, “to each his own” from someone who several times daily chides a blogger for his feelings.,

      Delete
    2. This comment @6:42 makes no sense at all.

      Delete
  6. ""For now," though, he's okay with working at Georgetown, as he has been for many years, possibly without ever having said a whole lot about the enslaved people he mentions today."

    Somerby has no idea what or how much Butler has done to combat racism at Georgetown (while presumably ALSO doing the job he was hired to do there). Somerby's suggestion that Butler doesn't actually care about racism is gratuitously derogatory.

    It is OK for Somerby to claim that Butler's feelings about his own work may not be completely accurate, and OK for Somerby to claim that Butler has "possibly" not done anything that mentions past slavery, while there, but NOT OK when others make statements that may possibly not be completely accurate in Somerby's opinion.

    One standard for Somerby when he defames others. A different standard for everyone else, even when they are speaking about their own feelings, or their own areas of training and expertise, their own experiences.

    These sorts of outrageous attacks are the reason why Somerby is most likely not a good decent person, no matter how many imaginary experts he recruits to speak on his behalf. He is a major asshole.

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    1. Somerby is a Trumptard who claims to be a liberal. by definition, he is not a good, decent person, but a malevolent liar whose sole virtue is that his Trumptardism is obvious to everyone other than trolls.

      Delete
  7. "where he specialized in white collar [and, we'll guess, in white defendant] criminal defense."

    Here is what Butler has had to shovel. Somerby can only assume that Butler's defendants in white collar crime cases were white because of the racism that prevents black people from occupying the kinds of positions that lend themselves to white collar crime. If that isn't shoveling white excrement, I don't know what is!

    Somerby here acknowledges the existence of the kind of institutional racism that people such as Butler are decrying. And yet Somerby resists the message that racism exists and that change is needed when Butler and others call for it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "We thought about Mrs. Parks, risking her life for zero dollars, traveling through the Deep South of her day."

    Somerby should perhaps have gone back and reviewed what Mrs. Parks (presumably Rosa Parks) did. I don't believe she was "risking her life" even with the activism she engaged in and supported her whole adult life.

    Somerby demeans such admirable people when he exaggerates their circumstances. It is perhaps another way of demonstrating that a person's statements may not be completely accurate -- his own statements in this case. What Parks did was admirable enough without throwing in gratuitous mortal danger.

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    1. Is your hatred of Somerby worth your posting that a black woman in the South in the 1950’s wasn’t in danger of violence and even death by ignoring segregation laws?

      Are they paying you enough to write tripe like this on a blog while in 2021 media liberals inform us that every black person in America risks violent death every time they get behind a steering wheel?

      Delete
    2. There were a few women who were lynched in the Jim Crow south. One was accused of murder. Another tried to interfere in the lynching of her husband. None were lynched for using the wrong seat on a bus.

      Black women have been shot by police in the course of traffic stops or arrests arising from them.

      It is easy enough to address these issues using facts. Try using Google or a similar search engine. Then you can contribute more than just sarcasm.

      Delete
    3. Corby, here we go yet again. Anonymices can argue that Butler, as all black men in 2021, must stand up against perceptions that are the results of our racial topography.

      However, It took me five seconds to understand why black women as victims in that era wouldn’t be much studied and five more seconds to Google it.

      https://www.qualitativecriminology.com/pub/v8i1p5/release/1

      Delete
    4. In the years during which the most lynchings took place, there were 4000+ lynchings of black men and 200 of black women. When women were lynched, it was mostly for very serious reasons, not for protesting on a bus.

      If you are agreeing with me, be big about it and say so.

      Delete
    5. That’s what’s known in an article that speaks on how such things were not clearly recorded.

      You might as well argue that since women are far less likely to be the victims of violent crime than are men, that dire threats, in more private and clandestine circumstances are not the way punishment is and was generally meted out to inconvenient women, then and now.

      Delete
    6. Now you are not making sense again. How is it that I could find lynching statistics but you could not? Maybe this is why you are a Republican. You don't know how to find actual facts so you believe whatever the right tells you -- perhaps because it fits your preconceptions or aligns with your biases.

      Delete
    7. Anonymouse 8:49 pm, its not a “Republican thing” to understand that Rosa Parks took her life in her own hands by standing up as she did in that era of the South. That is obvious to anyone who isn’t trying to contest a blogger for the sake of daily contesting him..

      Parks and her family received death threats. Women were shown who was boss in those days by threats and violent means that didn’t involve a noose and a gang (as though that was the only way or even the chief way that uppity blacks were permanently dispensed with).

      They, or a family member, disappeared.

      You can bet the crime stats for black women victims today are lower than for black and white males.

      Even so, you wouldn’t discount the risk of women paying with their lives over a stand against injustice now, but you’ll flatly do that with a black woman in the segregation era in the South.

      Delete
    8. Maybe there should be a statue to Rosa Parks to replace the one of Robert E. Lee taken down in Charlottesville.

      When it suits Somerby to laud Rosa Parks (in overblown language) you leap to Somerby's defense. You wouldn't be writing anything good about Parks, who is part of the subject matter of CRT in schools, if I hadn't criticized Somerby's exaggeration.

      I contest Somerby because he is a fucking liar. You have no more concern for black civil rights than he does. And your only purpose here is to "contest" the criticisms of Somerby and try to portray him as an actual blogger instead of the Trumptard propagandist he has become. No one is fooled by you, Cecelia.

      Delete
    9. Consider taking a break from this blog. It’s not good for you.

      Delete
  9. When Somerby repeatedly says that what Nichols and Taylor do at ESPN has no social value, is he referring to the jobs of those two women specifically or is he saying that sports has no social value? Somerby himself cares enough about baseball to occasionally write about it. Perhaps it is only the women's work that he considers valueless? I suspect it is because he himself doesn't listen to what women say and considers them a waste of screen time, a nuisance before the game starts. Not everyone feels that way, but we all know that Somerby has particular problems with women that might lead him to overestimate the unimportance of women in sports.

    Somerby has been overdue for some misogyny lately. Here is a massive dose to make up for past neglect. The nerve of Taylor and Nichols -- trying to have a career in sports broadcasting!

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    1. No, he’s dating that Nichols, Taylor, and Butler make tons of money.

      They aren’t curing cancer, or protesting restrictions on women in Iran, or publishing what goes on in the Intelligence community.

      They earn a grand living just rhetorically shoveling shit.

      God bless America.

      Delete
    2. "Paul Butler is the Albert Brick Professor in Law at Georgetown University Law Center and a legal analyst on MSNBC."

      That means he is making a professor's salary, not millions of dollars as a cable news host or ESPN sportscaster. He is teaching classes, which means he is preparing students to become lawyers and judges. That is more than "rhetorically shoveling shit" as you put it.

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    3. I said they made “tons of money” which is relative of course to what people consider to be “tons of money”, and relative too as a comparison to the wealth Butler has amassed next to that of invaluable ESPN talent.

      Butler defended people accused of white collar crimes. There’s big money to be made there, but the bottom line is that there’s noteworthy irony in Butler comparing his lot of shoveling out the intellectual white guy shit at Georgetown University, to his great-grandfather shoveling the outhouses of white folks.

      We’ve come quite a ways. God bless America.

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    4. Butler was that statement. Respected people of all races can do that over something or another.

      As compelling as such an appeal to authority is… you won’t see me linking Thomas Sowell or Shelby Steele and suggesting that you treat their thinking with kid gloves.

      Delete
  10. Should past conduct matter? Is there something wrong with a black person associating herself with an institution that once was involved with slavery? Here's my POV

    The Holocaust was a lot more recent than slavery*. Should Jews refuse to buy German products? Should we refuse to work for German companies? I don't think so. The past is over. Today's Germans didn't murder any Jews. Today's whites ande Asians didn't keep any slaves and today's blacks never werwe slaves.

    *Actually slavery still exists in several countries. I wish people who are oh so concerned about the issue would tackle it where is still persists.

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    1. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/04/08/2206861/0/en/New-Report-on-Human-Trafficking-Statistics-and-Laws-By-State.html

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    2. Without telling them, I always charge blacks less than whites in my business. I guess one could say it's a tiny form of reparations.

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    3. "Jews in West Los Angeles DID refuse to buy German made cars, for example."

      Some Jews also shoot children for sport, as Chris Hedges reports in Gaza Diary. Should, in your dembot opinion, the ethnic group whose children get killed in droves respond in kind?

      Delete
    4. Yes, dear. If you want the exact quote, here it is:

      I have seen children shot in El Salvador, Algeria, Guatemala, Sarajevo, but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.

      Delete
    5. Is there any proof of that, Mao, or are we supposed to assume it’s true because someone reported it?

      Delete
    6. But of course it's true, why wouldn't it be. Chris Hedges reported it, not 'someone'.

      Delete
  11. "But, of course, her [Nichols] speculation also may have been false. "

    It not only could have been false, it could be racist. Somerby doesn't admit that possibility because what Nichols said about Taylor didn't seem racist to him. But, the assumption that black people get ahead through preferential treatment IS racist. It implies that black people are so inferior that they can only succeed via diversity or affirmative action intervention.

    Nichols is correct that men think similar things about women, with the addition that women who get ahead must have slept with someone to do so. Nichols cannot really complain about being mistreated because of her gender while making the same disparaging assumptions that she is complaining that people make about her.

    Nichols shows some attitude problems that would make her difficult to work with. I think it is highly likely that those are the source of her failure to have her contract renewed, not her work ethic. And you don't unload your grievances on the telephone while in the middle of a volatile situation involving your contract renewal.

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    1. It’s certainly nice to now know that corporate honchos and other business people never make the decision to hire and to use talented minority members chiefly for motives having to do with cultural pressure.

      Wonderful to know that such a consideration is out of bounds now and insulting on its face.

      I’m glad we have that all cleared up.

      We’ve come quite a ways. God bless America.

      Delete
    2. The whining over recent boycotts shows that urban voters hold the real economic and consumer power, and the GOP knows it.

      Delete
    3. Of course the GOP knows it.

      Delete
    4. Cecelia,
      Those black votes aren't going to suppress themselves.

      Delete
  12. "Do the Post and the Times simply love a good "catfight?" (Not necessarily, no.)"

    And here Somerby's misogyny leaks out again.

    When two women have a dispute, calling it a "catfight" not only trivializes their issues but it portrays women as inherently antagonistic and emphasizes the sexual aspect of their dispute (cat fights are events at strip clubs in which women mud wrestle or pull hair with each other for the enjoyment of a male audience).

    Here, Somerby asks a question that has a negative answer in order to use that cat fight imagery. Because that's the kind of guy he is. Whatever Nichols has against Taylor, it must be trivial because two women are involved. Only conflicts between men are serious and matter to anyone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello? That's his whole point. NYT pitted them against each other when that was never the case. The point is "The Times" and other media avoided Nichol's core point in favor of false, misogynistic tropes. Your ignorance and illiteracy seems to know no bounds.

      Delete
    2. 1. That isn't Somerby's point when he uses the term "catfight" to refer to the dispute between Nichols and Taylor.
      2. The NYT didn't cause Nichols to call Taylor a diversity hire, which IS a slur, contrary to Somerby's opinion.
      3. Nichols cannot blame the atmosphere at ESPN for her attack on her female rival there. That was all her doing.

      Delete
    3. What specifically was the attack to which you are referring?

      Delete
    4. Nichols called herself a diversity hire. She said that ESPN hired her out of societal pressure over their crappy history of hiring mostly men and that she still had to work ten times harder than the men to advance in her job.

      She then suggested that the same scenario is likely the case for Taylor, and that ESPN is treating both of them as pawns so as to appear woke and diverse during a time when this is of heightened attention.

      It’s rather ridiculous that in the midst of demanding that people be actively engaged in anti-racism in all matters (especially in hiring practices) and to be racially aware rather than color-blind, that we then must pretend that businesses are not specifically busting their butts in order to highlight talented people OF COLOR. Diversity hires.

      What happened between Nichols and Taylor is the logical result of this type of philosophy.

      Delete
  13. Here's all Bob is sayin'

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N11tcnPBwf4

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Didn't open it, but I assume it's a link to "The Right-wing Grievance of the Day" website.

      Delete
    2. Noam Chomsky is such a Trumptard.

      Delete
  14. Thank you for posting such a great information ……. Ross Return Policy

    ReplyDelete
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    LOTTO, lottery,jackpot.
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