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» Hatrack River Forum » Active Forums » Books, Films, Food and Culture » Fred Phelps is dead. (Page 5)

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Author Topic: Fred Phelps is dead.
Destineer
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You guys don't think that Sterling's actions express a much more prejudiced attitude toward black people than Eich's actions express toward gay people? "I don't want your marriages to be endorsed by the state" seems a lot less thoroughly bigoted to me than "I don't want you associating with me or my girlfriend."
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MattP
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It's not the degree of antipathy that hits a nerve for me. There are a lot of racists out there, but most of them are just quietly thinking their racist thoughts and voting their one racist vote. Eich actually made an effort to amplify his opinion into political action beyond his own personal beliefs and individual action at the ballot box.
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Samprimary
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Both Sterling and Eich were objectionably working against marginalized groups so I'm fairly content with both outcomes. Especially because the PROCESS behind the outcomes was as varied as the degree in what expressed bigotry was in both Sterling and Eich.

To explain:

The revealed nature of Sterling is much more profoundly odious than any dirt we have on Eich. I do think there's a reasonable way for Eich, the lesser-odious, to have made a different outcome for himself that Sterling didn't have on account of his greater-odiousness: Eich could have renounced his support of anti-gay laws and claimed very completely that he no longer supports 'defense of marriage' acts. He had the opportunity to do this; his responses to the controversy were carefully and deliberately written, and in no way did he forsake the bigotry suggested by his monetary and political support of bigotry. He just reiterated that there is a policy that he would follow involving anti-bigotry at his company, so we would know where his bigotries were not being expressed.

Whereas with Sterling, there's no choice in the matter to be had. His remarks are so odious that they have finally become so much of a financial liability to the league (15 sponsors or more dropped out, I believe, on the day they were revealed) as to require his removal. His potential to influence that with a change of heart is too minimal.

Eich chose to stand his ground and hold on to his views, then personally elected to step down to avoid what his time in the leadership post would necessarily become. Sterling will be unceremoniously stripped and banned and probably go back to doing whatever other bigoted things he does with his money.

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Samprimary
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In either situation it is the market working in the way that people apparently want markets to work, ... except when it cuts too close to identifying them as the new thought-pariahs. Funny, that. Maybe it's better just not to be a bigot.
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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by MattP:
quote:
The commissioner of the organization acted in a timely and appropriate manner yes?
Given that he was known to be racist prior to this, you don't think the difference in publicity was the deciding factor here? To my eye the league was responding to public outrage, the loss of sponsors, etc. and not to his specific behavior.
Exactly. The real controversies involving Sterling were ones that the commission was more than willing to turn a blind eye to; it's not out of concern for people of color that sterling's getting ousted now, it's out of concern to the revenue flow. Sterling was a racist before and a racist now, all that changed was that he became too much of a liability to other rich people's pocketbooks. And that, of course, is when you have the course change.

So the world turns.

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kmbboots
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quote:
Originally posted by Destineer:
You guys don't think that Sterling's actions express a much more prejudiced attitude toward black people than Eich's actions express toward gay people? "I don't want your marriages to be endorsed by the state" seems a lot less thoroughly bigoted to me than "I don't want you associating with me or my girlfriend."

Not really. One is more personal and one has a veneer of civility but Eich's actions were more harmful.
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TomDavidson
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Hm. I disagree. Eich's "actions" consisted of a political donation to a dumb cause that'll get itself reversed in a few years. Sterling actually refused to rent or employ people, doing direct harm.
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kmbboots
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Ah. I was just talking about the tape. I didn't know about the rest. You are right, those are harmful as well. But refraining from using ugly words doesn't make Eich's actions less bigoted - even if they will ultimately be unsuccessful.
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MattP
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The whole mess right now is based on the tape. I don't think the other stuff is a recent revelation so it had already been absorbed in the calculus of whether public outrage should be generated.
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scifibum
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I wonder how long we'll feel the aftershocks of this sudden collective realization that the people who profit from the entertainment industry aren't always nice.

Just kidding.

I think Sterling is a jerk, and the more I hear about him the more I want him to end his life penniless and alone, but...that doesn't really matter.

Eich seemed like a relatively good guy to me (but as a person with a lot of LDS connections I'm predisposed to allow that being against SSM doesn't make someone a bad person). I think he was on the wrong side of the SSM debate, but so was most of the country a few years ago. I think it's forgivable.

I think the fact that I somewhat disapprove of what happened to Eich and don't really feel any sympathy at all for Sterling is down to my overall impression of their character.

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Destineer
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quote:
Originally posted by Samprimary:
In either situation it is the market working in the way that people apparently want markets to work, ... except when it cuts too close to identifying them as the new thought-pariahs. Funny, that. Maybe it's better just not to be a bigot.

I certainly don't want markets to work that way, at least not in "pure politics" cases like Eich's.
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Dan_Frank
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I totally want markets to work that way, even though I think that the reaction to Eich was basically just unreasonable censorship on the part of Mozilla employees.

It seems like Sam's comment makes the classic mistake of presupposing that because one likes freedom, one therefore has to like every decision free people make. Or supposing that because one thinks people made a terrible decision, one therefore must think that those people should not be free to make such a decision.

What happened to Eich was stupid. And it should be allowed to happen.

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BlackBlade
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quote:
What happened to Eich was stupid. And it should be allowed to happen.
That's kind of how I come at it.
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BlackBlade
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quote:
Given that he was known to be racist prior to this, you don't think the difference in publicity was the deciding factor here?
It may very well have been. Even likely.

quote:
To my eye the league was responding to public outrage, the loss of sponsors, etc. and not to his specific behavior.
Oh, I don't know about that. Maybe Commissioner Silver (who has been at the job 3 months now) felt he couldn't do anything as his predecessor hadn't done anything to sanction Sterling after decades of being commissioner. Now that Sterling had humiliated the NBA, he could.

But that's pure speculation.

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BlackBlade
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Now I've got this weird conspiracy theory that Silver paid Sterling's girlfriend to draw out the racist remarks on tape so he could be rid of him, and sell the franchise to new management...
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Samprimary
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quote:
Originally posted by Dan_Frank:

It seems like Sam's comment makes the classic mistake of presupposing that because one likes freedom, one therefore has to like every decision free people make.

No. It is cutting at the hypocrisies that most people who champion such freedoms expose.
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BlackBlade
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Head of the LA NAACP resigns.

This doesn't make any sense to me. From what I could tell they were giving Sterling awards for, among other things, sponsoring programs that for allowed minority children to come to Clippers games. Obviously that's good for business, I don't think Sterling was being purely altruistic (then again I don't know what the man thinks) but now Jenkins has to resign for what? Failing to do better due diligence on an award recipient?

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Samprimary
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That bears further observation. Obviously they could be in hot water for letting Sterling have an award in spite of his evident record of racist slumlording (which really undercuts the NAACP's ideals — it's basically saying you can pay off your misdeeds with what's supposed to be the preeminent organization for the advancement of the black community)

Or it could be a series of this and similar oversights culminating in a loss of faith.

Or it's just the NAACP being the NAACP.

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