NBA games postponed today p14 Players decide to resume Playoffs

[musiqsoulchild]

Doug, let's take a step back together.

Define the problem for me...the way you see it. Where does it begin. And what is the end goal.

I believe the problem is economic and political power imbalance among specific minorities (with African Americans and HIspanics being the two biggest groups) and that the end goal is to gain economic and political power parity with other races.

I believe when those groups have proper political and economic power that many of these other problems would get dramatically better and fixing the economic situation is the fastest way to actually achieve results towards most of these other issues which I don't believe to be root causes.

And cops are not equivalent to a racial stereotype. The issue with Cops is that they abuse power and cut corners and take short cuts.

No, cops are not a racial stereotype, but making the statements of the form as "All cops are..." is grouping an extremely diverse group of people in a way together in a way that is unfair to probably 95%+ of them.

How many times have you seen a cop who puts on a siren just to get ahead in traffic?

How many times have I seen a <insert member of a group> do <insert bad thing here>?

Just formatting a statement this way shows your willingness to take an individual and define them by membership of a group that you believe (without real evidence) to have negative traits. That is the basis of racism, sexism, homophobia, or any other form of discrimination that exists.

How can you agree with the Chris Rock sentiment and still not see the problem of Cops abusing power Vs. stereotyping of races.

Those 2 are not equivalent at all.

Cops abuse power because they have power. Enough do it that its systemic.

Systemic problems are like bacterial growth. You only need a significant minority first. Say 10 to 15 percent. Not a majority...but significant enough that without an antibiotic the entire system will seize up.

That's how systemic issues in policing are.

[DASMACKDOWN]

Will be interesting to see how the NBA manages this overall now.

I have no idea but I just cant see it holding up if Lebron and Kawhi actually leave. That's the two most popular teams in the Bubble. If it did, the rest will probably drop out as well.

[musiqsoulchild]

I'll extremely grudgingly give you my wild, completely irrelevant guesses as a gesture of good will in this discussion:

By my definition of racism, idk, maybe somewhere between 20-60% of cops are racist in this nation. Probably a slightly higher % than the general population. This is so silly and embarrassing it hurts.

The "black experience of racism" doesn't exist. Because blacks are individuals. For many it's horrific, they've been killed due to it! For some it's trivial. To quote by memory the great John McWhorter (an extremely thoughtful Columbia U professor, public intellectual and writer for the Atlantic and democrat FWIW), "I never had to worry about the cops growing up (in Philadelphia)", and " racism to me feels like sometimes stepping into some gum on the sidewalk". Or the esteemed Glenn Loury, who grew up here in Chicago, who says it's absolutely ridiculous for elitest NYT writers to act as if they have any reason to feel unsafe because of editorial choices at the paper.

It's preposterous to try to assign a metric to a psychological experience, or the over or underestimation, of a group of tens of millions of people due to a trivial physical trait they share in common, even though we all know that tons of them, probably most, have experienced some real forms of racism, and many severe racism. Because not only are their external experiences different, their internal processing mechanisms are as well. Yet we have people like you or Lebron James or Joe Biden trying to act like black is sufficient to understand an individual's experience.

Regarding our other exchange, here are ny questions again. They are not rhetorical:

so police officers should just not believe imminent death threats by people that they have absolutely every reason to believe are willing to back it up?
(You had said death threats should not faze well trained cops)

What if he was threatening to kill his own children? Should they have just kept firing tasers and kept trying to wrestle him then? Should school shooters just be "assessed" and detained?

(If you don't think they are plausible notions, you either are ignorant of mental health and personal crisis or you don't know the reality of Jacob Blake as a 29 year old father of 6 wanted for felony domestic violence and sexual abuse who has multiple child support cases and who was, while already evading arrest for his felony warrants, trying to take the car from a woman who called the police on him. People in that situation can do or say anything. It's tragic. I understand because I spent nearly 10 years working in a level 1 trauma center and in criminal defense.

This is what I think happened.

I think the cops had in the back of their mind that they didnt want to be on national TV when they stopped Blake.

That caused indecision.

Which caused them to be on national TV anyway.
I am saying THAT is incompetence.

And I am saying that because Wisconsin is a battleground state and massively important for Trump he immediately sent in the National Guard..even though the Governor opposed it.

And several police forces from around Wisconsin showed up.

Protesters threw Molotov cocktails. And were damaging several businesses.

An over eager kid got caught up in the mass hysteria and shot and killed someone.

Protesters followed him and have chase. He fell down and shot again. Twice.

Police didnt even touch him.

Meanwhile Kyle has crossed state boundaries with a weapon. And killed a person and shot 2 others.

Gross policing failure. Overall.

Umm, yeah, may have been a big policing failure. In that other case that you're bringing up that I've been clear I don't know about and am not really interested in being distracted by while I'm trying to focus on Jacob Blake.

Several people are talking about protesters here. That's become the issue.

And the selective treatment of a white person there paints a stark contrast in the 2 days after Blake's shooting.

As a lawyer, you want do compartmentalize. That's not how civvies think. Nor should they.

Infact, prior protests are the reason why INDECISIVENESS might have existed when the cops stopped Blake.

There is not a cop in the country right now who isnt worried about being the trigger that makes the country burn.

[Jcool0]

Read on Twitter

[DASMACKDOWN]

Read on Twitter

Dang its about to get ugly.

[musiqsoulchild]

I see that as no different than having to go into work to pick cotton a few days after several fellow people were killed by whippings and hangings.

If that's too real for you, well that was happening less than 80 years ago.

Cant people really just feel pain and just switch off?

Dont pay them salaries. Let them deal with their sorrow first.

[Shill]

Fecesofdeath I get what you are saying but like I’ve said I’ve seen cops pin down subjects without killing them. You don’t have to put a knee on a person one into pin them down. I’ve seen plenty of situations where cops had guys pinned on the ground and guys could not get up but could still breathe. It all goes back to training and the heart. Some cops don’t have the heart to do the job and are scared. Believe me I worked with some cops that i dont know how in the world why and how they became cops. They just aren’t cut out for the job.

No one is disputing that there are terrible cops out there.

You said earlier that people get caught up in statistics, but stats matter.

There are a million police interactions across the county. There are bound to be some bad interactions that get used to build narratives that are wildly out of step with the numbers.

I haven’t heard many reforms that would fix the problem of policing.

Demonizing the police while cutting funding and ridiculing anyone who joins the force isn’t going to attract more talent to the profession.

I’d like to see drug legalization, which would instantly cut down a significant portion of police interactions.

Non-violent drug offenders rotting in prison should come home.

Resources could then be diverted to better training, prevention, violent crimes, etc...

My problem is the narrative that it’s “open season” on black people and therefore society must be uprooted.

But here’s where the problem comes in. In the inner city it’s been open season on blacks for along time. And there are reason for it. One is because of the lack of consequences there are for police brutality. That’s why you see slot of the black players feel so strongly about it because if you grew up in poor neighborhoods or have family or friends that live in those neighborhoods they know that police can literally get away with murder. A lot of times in black communities the police might rough up a black kid and nonthing is done because that family don’t have the power, money or recourses to fight back and get help from lawyers or so forth. Believe it or not a lot of people who live in inner city communities are afraid as hell of the police. Because for the longest time they could beat you up if they wanted, they could pepper spray you if they wanted and you could not do a damn thing about it. Cameras has actually been crooked cops worst nightmare. I get the sence that majority of this board is from different countries or never had to work or live in the inner city, so it would be hard for people to understand. But just know life is different for people in certain neighborhoods in regards to the police. People think that the videos that they see of the police beating up or shooting a minority only happens once in a while. It’s a daily thing in some communities.

This is an oversimplification.

The police aren’t the biggest threat in these communities, which is why you can go into community meetings and see people begging for more police.

A recent Gallup poll showed that 81% of black people want the same level of policing or more.

Again, that doesn’t excuse bad cops, but anecdotes are being used to create grand narratives.

As for cameras, I like more transparency and accountability, which is why it’s a head-scratcher that the ACLU is trying to get rid of bodycams.

And as I mentioned before, the reforms being bandied about don’t really address anything you talked about.

[Portiseyes]

I can’t say if I’m more frustrated by this post or your multi-page takeover of the Killian Hayes thread. Let me be blunt, and I can comprehend the english language so I’m not asking you to explain your post further thanks, there are NO “really severe problems” with the statement that enough is enough. What I’m observing by pro-boycott posters on this thread is really generous amounts of reasonable discourse, as per usual, given the circumstances where feelings are bound to run high. While this forum is generally the most respectful and thoughtful I know of on a range of basketball and non-basketball issues, I read a lot of the same nit-picking tropes we know so well. This isn’t politics, it’s a broad movement and it’s happening now... and it intersects basketball whether some like it or not. The particulars of the Blake shooting are not cut and dry at all, but sometimes history doesn’t have the luxury of waiting for the people on the right side of it to be ‘reasonable’ at every turn or be responsible for bad actors or specific actors making specific statements, or to unfold in the ideal way. But in any case You’re not the victim here Doug, and I don’t care how super duper liberal you are.

Just to be clear, I don't think I am the victim, and don't want anyone else to think I am a victim. Fair enough to say the problems I point out aren't relevant or important enough in this moment to point out in this moment in time.

Also agree with much of what you are saying, I also don't like a lot of the nitpicking at time and missing the forest for the trees.

On the boycott, I'm not upset the players boycotted. I'll still watch basketball whenever it is back. I completely understand why they did it.

I get it. One of the reasons I don’t post much is because I tend to treat writing as a contact sport. I like to think of myself as an ally, but I’ve personally seen cancel culture rear its ugly head on a couple of occasions lately, shutting down good faith discourse. It’s a complicated issue, and though entwined in the present day I personally believe it’s most useful, or productive, to address it separately from the blm movement when possible. And I guess I just haven’t seen that much of it on this board... as in the hard core shutting down of someone’s voice.

[Shill]

I see that as no different than having to go into work to pick cotton a few days after several fellow people were killed by whippings and hangings.

If that's too real for you, well that was happening less than 80 years ago.

What an absurd thing to say.

My grandparents grew up in the Jim Crow south, as did my mother.

To compare that to multimillionaire athletes is just too much.

[ozbull]

People in a position of strength, delivering a product that is very much in-demand, withholding their labour to shine an ongoing light at the reform needed within the nation's system of policing.

Power to them all. Full respect.

Maybe when this becomes a problem for billionaires and disrupts a line of profits for those unaffected by the ongoing and unending police brutality, things may change.

[MrSparkle]

I'm just gonna put my 2c. Glad I didn't grow up in the country my folks came from. Immigrants from poorer countries understand this. I'm 1st gen.:

Don't mix the idea of protest too much with the fantasy that comic books and movies deliver. Prolonged, intense chaos and economic disruption, you prolong it, eventually the scale tips and everyone loses besides the rich guys. Those 300 NBA players are fine walking away from the game. The message they send, if it's a statement, that's powerful. If it's understood as "quit what you're doing and protest" - which it literally defaults to for the average 15-30yo young person... Then you are getting into a message that may promote generational catastrophe. These guys with the hundreds of millions of dollars can retire fine without playing another game. But for the rest of people... It doesn't take 2 years to recover. You're talking about probably making the rest of your life harder, and your kids.'

If you think the US economy is invincible, think again. It's getting closer and closer to the brink. I'm liberal. But the conservative voice that says you can't continue in a state of economy stagnation and one multi-billion dollar step back after another - there's truth in it. Dollars seem to grow on computer algorithms these days, but everything has a finite breakpoint, even a computer.

I'm with Shaq and Charles on this. Protest today. Proud to support. But you must ask "what's next." IMO "cancel the season" is not a rational course of action. That's not b-ball fan in me but it's the rationalist. It has been 3 months since George Floyd, and we still do not have ONE concise political message or course of action. I am seeing black friends and colleagues on Facebook with QAnon conspiracies and pro-Trump crap. To not be able to unite them on this front, it is a gigantic problem. We Literally have the most racially insensitive administration since perhaps before the Civlil Rights act was passed, and I have COUNTLESS black FB friends somehow posting things that support it.

I'm just speaking for the average confused fool out there - you need to make sense of this message. Anger is justified. Anger and confusion are NOT courses of action. Voting and uniting ARE a course of action. It's pretty disorienting hearing that it's not.

Yes, racism is real and major. It is systemic. But don't resort to the tactic that less prosperous, more suppressed world countries need to resort to- with violent protests. You look throughout the course of history - Arab Springs, Venezuela. PROLONGED major protests and chaotic revolutions, they are followed by years if not decades of political and economic suppression. No one wins but the country where it's NOT happening.

And I don't think this is like the Civil Rights era protests, because:

(A) There was no pandemic.
(B) The rest of the IMF economy was very stable compared to today.
(C) The president wasn't a dangerous and irrational sociopath.
(D) MLK made it VERY CLEAR what his goals were. End segregation. He won a Nobel peace prize. Made one of the greatest if not the greatest documented speech of all-time, Period.

If the NBAP has a course of action that sets a clear plan to address police brutality by taking the season(s) off, then I'm all ears and supportive, but my fear is that it is too esoteric a concept (unlike segregation) to tackle with a loose, unorganized movement spear-headed by angry (and rightfully so) protestors.

If they have a piece of legislation to propose that essentially standardizes a form of police training, then that is interesting, but you must understand that every state and every city is a completely different police department. If you want to entirely de-fund the police, de-weaponize the police, while a large chunk of the population holds onto its long-rifle 2nd amendment, then I'm just gonna say that is NOT going to work. This country has an entanglement of problems kind of created by the "my freedoms" Americans with no concept of legal borders for what makes safe sense. It's at the point of paradox.

Like... Police needs reform. But what about the economic reform of the black community? Is the proposed solution to basically create corporate chaos? To tie it back to the beginning- I'm asking , what are our short-term goals? Cause I can say, short of replacing or defunding police, CPD for example has taken major changes in the last 2 years. Still ways to go, but they do also deal with a lot of unstable individuals and crime. Like, you can't go in with an acoustic guitar and incense and resolve a domestic violence case with armed individuals.

Or is the long-term goal to create so much instability to create a self-reflection? I genuinely have not seen 1 answer to this question yet. But I don't know - maybe for small-town America, towns like Kenosha getting flipped upside down , it maybe has an effect. I've long thought that 99% of America is basically sleeping through all of society's problems.

Just thinking out loud here.

[musiqsoulchild]

I see that as no different than having to go into work to pick cotton a few days after several fellow people were killed by whippings and hangings.

If that's too real for you, well that was happening less than 80 years ago.

What an absurd thing to say.

My grandparents grew up in the Jim Crow south, as did my mother.

To compare that to multimillionaire athletes is just too much.

Everything is relative.

And still it's the same.

There is such a thing as pain. Ask Jews on why they still feel pain. Because it exists.

It doesn't go away because of success. And anytime some new incident happens that brings back that same pain..the reaction is the same.

I completely understand how Doc and LeBron feel. Doc is from Chicago. He's seen it. As has LeBron.

[Axolotl]

Wow.

Kudos to the Bucks. There may be others deserving as well. but as the situation seems to be unraveling in real time, so we'll see.

This may be one of those times when there's distinctly a "before" and "after". I have a feeling this is now beyond reacting to excessive police violence, and becoming a shift in the whole code that has dictated that pro athletes are not to have public opinions on matters outside their field of work.

Maybe in the future there will not be such abominations as football world championships being played in Qatar, or hockey WC in Belarus.

All humans are equal, and should be treated equally. Statistics clearly show that the latter part is not the case in real life, not in the US nor pretty much anywhere else in the world.

It is especially damaging if the gross inequality due to ethnicity is blatantly obvious in the workings of the organizations that the state has given the right to use violence. The state is the people, and if the state's tools for violence treat people differently based on the color of their skin, the state is racist.

[Shill]

Or is the long-term goal to create so much instability to create a self-reflection? I genuinely have not seen 1 answer to this question yet.

This is complicated because there are people with different ambitions.

For example, one of the speakers during a DNC caucus said the goal was to dismantle capitalism.

While that may be the goal of some dedicated radicals, I don't think that's what the NBA players who are boycotting want.

[Shill]

All humans are equal, and should be treated equally.

This is the '60s-era liberal perspective, but it's become antiquated.

The new left perspective is based on equity.

[musiqsoulchild]

Or is the long-term goal to create so much instability to create a self-reflection? I genuinely have not seen 1 answer to this question yet.

This is complicated because there are people with different ambitions.

For example, one of the speakers during a DNC caucus said the goal was to dismantle capitalism.

While that may be the goal of some dedicated radicals, I don't think that's what the NBA players who are boycotting want.

Dont focus on that one speaker in the Deomcratic caucus.

You dont see me wasting my time talking about Hillary Clinton eating babies do you?

As responsible people, you have to make your argument reasonably.

Do you truly believe that 1 person represents what is going to happen under Democratic Rule?

With full control of the Senate, Congress and the Judiciary...Obama was a complete Centrist.

That's what's gonna happen with Biden. You're going to get Centrism to the core.

[Shill]

Dont focus on that one speaker in the Deomcratic caucus.

You dont see me wasting my time talking about Hillary Clinton eating babies do you?

As responsible people, you have to make your argument reasonably.

Do you truly believe that 1 person represents what is going to happen under Democratic Rule?

With full control of the Senate, Congress and the Judiciary...Obama was a complete Centrist.

That's what's gonna happen with Biden. You're going to get Centrism to the core.

I'm not focusing on one person.

He asked what the goal was, and I said different people had different ambitions, which is undeniably true.

[FecesOfDeath]

Want to change the inner city crime culture? Below are a few suggestions.

Remove single-status welfare. Give those single moms incentive to find a husband and/or get a job instead of staying single and unemployed in order to keep getting those welfare checks.

Change the purpose of Planned Parenthood from coercing potential parents into abortions to assisting in actual parenting.

Incentivize businesses to establish themselves in these areas and create jobs for these residents while keeping out the gentrifiers. (These are the opportunity zones promoted by the President, Dr. Carson, and Senator Tim Scott.)

Promote school choice that allows those living in these areas to obtain a higher-quality education and forces the teachers unions of public schools to direct their funds to actually improve their facilities instead of giving their leaders raises.

Promote and raise up talented hip-hop/black music artists that espouse messages of positivity and/or spirituality, all the time.

Host periodic community events that involve local LEOs, such as sports leagues, picnics, and charity drives. Promote a positive relationship between the community and the LEOs that builds up familiarity instead of divisiveness.

Remove financial incentives for privately-owned prisons that inflate their numbers with non-violent offenders and fund campaigns for the prosecutors who helped put those offenders in there (e.g. Kamala Harris in California).

I know there are a lot of NBA players who care about these communities and really do help (whether very publicly for their PR or so privately that we may never hear about it). May they continue to use their platform to change the minds and culture of the local residents of these communities that they wish to serve.

Sports are supposed to be a great unifier for local fans of diverse backgrounds who come together for a couple of hours at a time to cheer for the same goal. I'm afraid these "woke" acts of kneeling, protesting, boycotting, et. al, will do little but divide those very same fans who are now looking at each others' differences with disdain instead of positive dismissiveness.

[Red8911]

Why would they boycott?

Why would anyone agree with this?? Not playing games is going to solve what exactly? Nothing because it’s pointless. There is no reason to boycott, the NBA has gone too far.

I wont be too hard but..

Have you not noticed what is going on in America?
Have you not seen that huge BLACK LIVES MATTER on the NBA court?
Have you not looked on the back of their jerseys and noticed that it has a social injustice message?

Most people actually saw this coming today.

Remember there are players sitting out right now because they thought the Bubble would take away from their message. The league was doing their best to make sure the players can express themselves while also playing basketball.

But now another incident has happened.

What else did you think would happen in that scenario? You are missing the point of its not going to change things overnight or even prevent that next incident. Its about the players having control and making a stand and attention to this. People have had enough.

Sorry but this still doesn’t make any sense. So in order to support BLM they must take off and not play games ? For how long a day? a week ?then it’s fine to play again???Can’t they play and support the movement or “make a stand” at the same time? All this is doing is hurting themselves and the league, no one else.

As you said the court, the jerseys, and the interviews all show and talk about BLM since they restarted. They’ve all been doing their part and the NBA has been fully supportive. Isn’t all that already enough support and attention? There’s no point to this boycott and you know it but won’t admit it.

[League Circles]

"The players want to see something consequential from the league's owners in reaction to the ongoing social just movement. "

" Rich men, do something! Do something! "

Might as well demand they stop all murder in the US while they're at it.