Riley Cooper Must Go
I wish I could write more on the subject, but for now I will simply say that the Philadelphia Eagles absolutely should cut Riley Cooper after his violent and racist diatribe. If what his teammates suggest in this article is at all true, he must go.
The one comment I will offer: While I thought Cooper gave an honest, heartfelt apology in which he accepted full responsibility for his actions, I do not believe for a second that that was his one and only utterance of such hateful language. No matter how drunk or angry I get, I don’t spew French curse words. You know why? Because they are not part of my vocabulary. This word was and is in his vocabulary. Otherwise, it would not have so easily slipped from his tongue.
Sacre bleu!
Same conclusion about Paula Deen and her “one slip”, of course.Report
A violent threat from a football player….that is a feature not a bug.
Somewhat snarky: a racist eptithet from a guy from philly..yeah so whats new?
Okay, he just works in philly. Fired, no i don’t see that. People make mistakes. Let him keep playing and see where it goes in the locker room. If his teammates can accept him then its okay. If they can’t, then trade him down the road after he has had a chance to be a better person. You would think a guy that works in pro frickin football might have a better way of dealing with black people. He has met a few in his time.Report
It already appears to be dividing the locker room. If that lasts even a few days, it is an issue for the team. This isn’t just about PR. It is about fielding a competitive football and right now it appears that he makes the Eagles a worse football team. I realize that is an odd calculus and there are other reasons to pursue his ouster and reasons to keep him, but him standing alone on the sidelines between plays because no one wants anything to do with him hardly seems like a good thing for the team.
I don’t think he should be banned (though I do think the NFL/Eagles dropped the ball without suspending him… Goodel… ugh…), but I don’t think the Eagles should hold onto him. Release him and let someone else bring him in if they think they can successfully integrate him.Report
Its mostly training camp drama so far. To many teams have held onto worse dbags for doing worse things. Although lots of teams seem to be doing better in the last couple of years about dropping maroons who drive drunk or get arrested for DV. Give him a few weeks and see where it goes. I don’t doubt that they’ll ditch him if he stays a pariah in the clubhouse.Report
Right or wrong, most players welcomed back their teammates, law abiding or not. So it’s not that this is the most grievous sin ever committed by an NFLer, but that it seems to be uniquely dividing the locker room.
In the time that I’ve rooted for them, the Eagles have largely avoided most of the bad eggs, either by design or by chance (probably a combo of both). Yes, they brought in Vick, but after he served his time, with clear expectations for his off-field behavior, and as a rehabilitation/reclamation project. It seems to have worked. Owens was probably the baddest egg they brought in otherwise, and his drama was never of the legal variety. And they ultimately got rid of him when he divided the locker room.
I don’t know how much of that credit goes to Reid, who time-management skills aside, did a lot of things really well. It is ironic that it was his home/personal life that got away from him while steering an otherwise pretty steady ship.
Kelly is already raising eyebrows given the way he left Oregon. He had a chance to make a strong statement about what sort of environment he was going to create and appears to have whiffed. If Goodel is accurate in reporting that the NFL couldn’t pursue punishment, he should have been on the horn with Eagles brass letting them know the minimum of what they should have done.
This does not bode well.Report
OHHH you’re an iggles fan…….well that explains a lot ( insert smiley face here)Report
Sorry but firing this guy for saying what he did seems quite silly. The Eagles employed M. Vick so why not this guy?Report
There’s something sickening about giving Riley Cooper the boot for something this inconsequential. The guy said something stupid — and for this, the Eagles organisation has to consign him to outer darkness? I’ve seen some Pee Cee bullshit in my day, but this situation is completely out of hand.Report
It’s nothing to do with PC. He is causing discord at the office. A real problem.Report
It is PC when people post blogs saying he must go before any talk of discord in the office comes out. And a little over dramatic weren’t you with the violent diatribe part? Did you watch the video? I’m thinking your definition of violent and mine are two different things.
I have tried writing on this post a couple of times, but I keep deleting it. I don’t think there is a real discussion to be had anymore about race in America, at least not here on the League. It is sure to end with you are white, what do you know. Sad, really.Report
Did you read the link? Because the link describes him standing alone on the sidelines, because no one wants to go near him. Players questioning whether they can trust him. Friendships ended.
It was absolutely violent. He said he wanted to “fight every nigger.” Because he was reprimanded by a single black security guard. That’s violent. It is a threat of violence targeting a racial group.
You can bemoan that you are of a minority opinion or might not be seen as a foremost expert because you have not historically been the victim of racism. Excuse me if I shed no tears.
Right now, it appears Cooper’s teammates want nothing to do with him. It appears his presence makes the team worse. That’s not fireable?Report
And please stop whining about PC.Report
Did I read the link, Yep I did. The story came out on Wed. The link you posted came out on Thursday. They asked how do you feel. Well I’m not happy about this and it makes me hesitant to talk to him, he’s never seemed racist before. I will have to give him some time and see how it goes.
Kazzy are you an only child? I’m curious, people say things that hurt people all the time. It usually takes more than one day to say, Yep I forgive them. And No, I won’t cut out the PC crap, I call it as I see it.
Are you saying whining because I am a woman?Report
And no I don’t think you said whining because I am a woman, but I hope you see how ridiculous this is.Report
Not an only child; third of four. But thanks for assuming. I recognize people get offended. No one bas a right to avoid offense. But no one has a right to play for the Eagles. Offend the wrong person and you lose your job.
What does PC even mean? As I said, this isn’t about offense in the abstract. The team, as currently constructed, is made worse by his presence.Report
Did you even read your own link, Kazzy? The guy said something stupid, something I never allowed my own kids to say, something I wouldn’t say myself. But firing the guy for something he didn’t say to anyone on the team? He was fined. He’s been sent to sensitivity training. His teammates and the Eagles organisation are annoyed with the bad PR.
Not good enough for you, though, Kazzy. We gotta thump our fists against our open palms and demand the Eagles fire this guy. Is there any sense of proportion in such a fate?
It is Pee Cee. It’s a complete overreaction.Report
Friendship’s ended? I guess the imagery for you is more important than the actual words of the players. Friendships must have not been very real in the first place if they ended over something that he said to someone other than themselves.
PC …. hmm let me put it into football terms. Being PC is like being a bandwagoner. Vikings doing good this year, yep I am a Vikings fan. Eagles doing piss poor. Nope, never liked them anyways.
PC is jumping on the offended bandwagon just for the fact of being on the bandwagon with all the other people we want to a) either be like or b) we want to like us.
Being PC is when it is cool to use a word or espouse an idea, but when it is no longer cool we profess to never having done so. Or even better yet, we ignore the fact that we used to do the same and become even more vehement in our disregard for those who still do what we used to. We is used in the societal context here.Report
Politically correct, by my lights, is what I’ve always said about the difference between morality and ethics. Morality is what I won’t do. Ethics is you telling me something’s wrong.
“Politically correct” is a euphemism for self-righteous Liberal overreaction to every slight and insult against what we perceive to be bad behaviour in others. So we Liberals, and I speak as a Liberal here, are sooo enlightened, we don’t call people niggers and we’ve fought race discrimination where others haven’t. This does not give us the right to behave like dicks when others fail to live up to our standards.
An old friend of mine, guy named Larry Wall, says two things. The first goes like this, I’m quoting from memory: When you see someone failing, view it as an opportunity to teach and not to criticise. The second goes like this: there’s nothing worth being a snot over. It’s the most irritating thing about us Liberals, that we’re so ready to go after the sins of others when we have the drop on them, when we’ve got them dead to rights, rather than view it as a teachable moment, when we can hope for better things from those who have failed.
I’m not defending Riley Cooper. I’m aghast at the overreaction. Treating dandruff by decapitation is what this looks like to me.Report
JM,
Point out to me, then, how I’m being PC, by your definition.
BP,
Who determines if it an overreaction? You? Or the people targeted by his violent, racist outburst?
That’s the problem: cries of PC are usually based on a non-offended person’s non-offense. Privilege coming through!Report
Newsflash, Blaise: you’re not black. There is nothing black about you. You don’t get to decide what is or is not offensive to black people, what is or is not an appropriate reaction to someone threatening to “fight all niggers”. My reaction is based not on my own offense but that of his black teammates, black opponents, and other black people. You know… The niggers he wanted to fight. Spare me your self-indulgent sanctimony.Report
Shrug. Sanctimony here, sanctimony there. Sanctimony when I point out this is curing dandruff by decapitation. Entirely justified outrage when it’s you demanding Riley Cooper Must Go.
Newsflash: you aren’t part of the Eagles organisation.Report
I think you missed the word “here” in you diatribe Kazzy. You know, as in here at the concert.Report
If we had an OT sanctimony meter, Kazzy would not be the commenter in this conversation with the highest all time score. Or monthly score. Or last 48 hours score.Report
Proverbs 26:17.Report
Matthew 7:5Report
Planks, eyes. Opinions, assholes. Go lie down, Chris. You aren’t up to this.Report
Blaise, I’m gonna get serious with you for a moment. Being honest, I don’t read what you write 90% of the time, for a variety of reasons. The unfortunate effect of my avoiding what you write has been that, when we have engaged, we’ve done so because I’ve reached a level of heat that causes me to jump in impulsively, overriding whatever filters and censors I might have in place where you are concerned. So it’s my fault that so many of our exchanges have been less than friendly. I apologize for that. I’ll try, in the future, to either not engage you at all, or to only engage you when things are perfectly cool.Report
And I’ll get serious with you for a moment. I say the over-reaction to Riley Cooper is PC bullshit. That’s my opinion. The general opinion of pretty much everyone who’s seen fit to comment on this post might not go that far, but nobody else around here agrees with the conclusion that Riley Cooper Must Go.
What’s your opinion on the Riley Cooper incident? Not your opinion of me, but the Riley Cooper incident? You don’t seem to have one. You have an opinion of me, though.
Riley Cooper said some stupid, hateful things. He’s facing the opprobrium of his peers and the Eagles fans are disgusted with him. It’s not the end of the world, though. It would be better by far if Riley Cooper learned a lesson from this incident, learned to master his temper and not call black people niggers. That’s what I want from this incident. I’ve known racists who evolved out of their racism, men thrown into Army units with black troops, where unit cohesion and peer pressure forced it out of them. I’ve also seen racism squeezed out of black troops who’d never been forced to depend on white men as equals, men who had feared and hated white men — many of those black men had excellent reasons for their racism. The Army doesn’t have any patience for that sort of bullshit and neither do I. Racism can be unlearned. I refuse to believe otherwise because I’ve seen racists change.
And that’s what I want for Riley Cooper. Firing him will not solve what’s wrong with that man. He needs to see the disgust from his team mates and his management. He’s brought shame on them, unwanted national attention. If we’re to make any Genuinely Politically Correct conclusion about this incident, I would recommend exactly what the Eagles did: give Riley Cooper a block of instruction and make him re-earn the respect of his team mates. He’s had his face rubbed in this. Let him up. If the punishment is to fit the crime, his lack of respect for black people has translated into a lack of respect for him.
And while we’re on the topic of respect, I’ve never once felt you respected me. I really don’t know how to react to your apology, if apology it is. You don’t have to respect me. Your opinion doesn’t matter to me. Leave me alone, respond civilly to me, say what you like. It’s all the same to me. Know this, though, I’m meaner than you and I stopped caring about what people think of me a very long time ago. Know this, too, you remind me of myself, many years ago, back when I did give a shit. This may be part of the reason you hate me. Nothing is less-wanted than unwanted advice but I’ll give you some anyway. Quit caring about what people on the Internet think about you. They aren’t worth the trouble.Report
I have an opinion about everything. For me, they are not like assholes, they are like neurons: for every one I have, I have an opinion, or fifty.
I think Cooper should be handled by the Eagles in a way that is best for the team.
Having watched the video, I’m conflicted on what it means about Cooper. On the one hand, I think Kazzy’s right, that word was a little bit too available for him in that context. IT definitely suggests it’s a word he uses in similar contexts, and that’s disturbing. On the other hand, I’ve heard that word uttered enough that I think I have a fairly good idea of when it’s being uttered in a spirit of true hate and sense of inherent superiority, and I’m not really getting that from the video.
But, I’m white. That word and the people who utter it don’t affect me the same way they affect black people, and it definitely doesn’t affect me the way it affects the black people who have to work with him and count on him regularly, as many of his teammates do. They’re better able to gauge what it means, coming from him, because it does affect them, and unlike me, they know this guy and have spent time with him. If they decide they can’t work with him, the Eagles should let him go. If they decide they can, and it’s not going to be a distraction throughout the season, or even in the heat of a single moment, then maybe he should stay.
This is not an issue of political correctness. It’s a workplace issue, and the people who should be deciding Cooper’s fate as a member of the Eagles, as an employee of the Eagles organization, are the people who work for the Eagles: the other players, the coaches, the management.
Granted, his status as a player in the NFL, and therefore someone visible, someone kids look up to, alters the equation a bit. And again, being white, I feel like my ability to gauge the impact of his actions is extremely limited, but my own sense of it is that by apologizing and making it clear that what he did was unacceptable, is enough to mitigate the damage he might have done outside of the workplace.Report
“Know this, though, I’m meaner than you and I stopped caring about what people think of me a very long time ago.”
Knock the big bad wolf shit off. I’m sick and tired of it and I’m sure I’m not the only one. If your goal is to scare people, intimidate them, not only does it not work, but it exposes you for the petty bully you are hiding behind a wall of verbosity.
We talk alot about civility here and everytime you go off the hinges with the machismo, who-dare-step-to-the-impervious-Blase bullshit lies, it makes me really start to wonder about the integrity of this place.Report
I will not. I am not particularly big but I am bad and really do not care. You’ve put up a most unfortunate post on the subject of Riley Cooper and I am not alone in thinking you’re overreacting. The vote’s pretty much unanimous on that subject. Man up and explain why you think he has to go instead of playing little games about how I’m sanctimonious and not-black. You aren’t black either, if memory serves. I take a dim view of cheap shots, Kazzy.Report
I’ve laid out my argument. People are free to accept or reject it. I have no issue with that.
But I have an issue with you waxing on about what is and is not an appropriate reaction. It is part of the same bullshit you always peddle: you know all and everyone else is just a peon. Another newsflash: I don’t buy your bullshit. I don’t believe half your stories. So whenever you start to talk from “experience”, I roll my eyes and think, “There he goes again.”
You are the one telling people how mean you are, how much meaner you are than they. That is a threat. How else can it be read? What are you going to do, go off on Chris because he had the temerity to challenge you? Because he wasn’t swayed by your incessant appeals-to-authority-via-quote?
You’re a bully. I have no patience for bullies. That you are tolerated here is a stain on the community.Report
@blaisep 12:11p
I’m meaner than you and I stopped caring about what people think of me a very long time ago
Those are two things to be ashamed of, not to brag about.
They are also symptoms of being a sociopath and antisocial.
For someone who doesn’t care what people think, you sure are spending a lot of effort defending yourself.
Methinks thou doth protest too much.Report
Ashamed of stating the obvious? Antisocial? Some lame-ass tempest in a teapot, squeals of intemperate outrage about firing someone for calling someone else a Bad Name — I have no monopoly on sanctimony around here. I’ve tried to keep this on topic, making it about Riley Cooper and what should be done about him — but nothing doing — this has become about me.
Those who would reduce this argument to insulting me do so at their peril. It only demonstrates they’ve run out of argument and have now commenced screeching like so many monkeys flinging shit from the tree branches. I’ve made my point, not that I’ll get a response to that point, that Riley Cooper shouldn’t be fired, he should have to go back into that situation and live with the consequences of his name-calling. This really is Politically Correct Bullshit of the bullshittiest sort. That point I’ll go on defending.
And learn to conjugate Elizabethan English. It’s “methinks thou protesteth too much.”Report
Blaise, you do see that, while most people here have disagreed with Kazzy, they’ve done so without attacking him, right? He posted an opinion, a valid one, but one with which most of the people here disagree. In other words, he wrote a blog post. Only you’ve gone on the attack, and taken any disagreement as a personal affront, as per usual.
It’s a shame that you so frequently mistake pity for fear. It’s a shame that you can’t use your intelligence constructively. It’s a shame that any conversation in which you participate on this blog devolves into this. It’s a shame that you think that this is because we just can’t handle how big and bad you are. It’s just a shame that thinking that doesn’t inspire you to be even a little smaller and a little softer. It’s a shame, period.
You are, of course, going to respond to this by attacking me personally. That’s a shame too. I’m sure, if you were motivated to do so, you are smart enough that you could actually offer me some constructive criticism, but you won’t. You’ll just try to tear me down, not because you think it will actually affect me, because deep down you know it won’t, but because tearing me down makes it easier for you to dismiss what I’m saying as the product of envy and inferiority. I wish you’d hear what I said, though. I wish you’d roll it over in your mind and act at least for a moment, treating it as though it were true and wondering, even if it’s not, what you might have done to have caused me to think this way. And I promise you that I am not the only one here who thinks this way. Oh well, like the sands of the hourglass…Report
I’ve laid out my point: that this is PC Bullshit. You can either deny it, demonstrate that it’s not bullshit, or maybe get off your high horse. I am not black, that much is true. Neither are you. So why did you make that point? You don’t have a locker with your name on it in Lincoln Financial Field either.
Nobody’s a peon around here. We are all special little snowflakes, fluttering in the wind. I do not lie out here, nothing’s served by such lies and anyone who wants to find me certainly can. You don’t have to buy my bullshit. My story’s a lot weirder than even I let on around here. If I explain what I’ve seen and how it doesn’t square with some glib generalisation, you can roll your eyes up an it please thee. I have the same reaction to all these Pat Pronunciamentos without a lick of experience to back them. There Kazzy goes again.
Threats being either real or feigned, your cardboard thunderbolts don’t even begin to constitute a real threat. You wrote a post nobody agreed with and if that makes you sore, I can understand that sentiment. So just don’t be sore. Mind over matter. You shouldn’t mind and I shouldn’t matter.Report
Blaise’s “correction” of Scarlet’s Methinks thou doth protest too much. (Methinks thou protesteth too much.) suffers the fate of most internet corrections in also being wrong. Correct would be either Methinks thou dost protest too much. or Methinks thou protestest too much (i.e. the suffix for second-person singular is “-st” or “-est”).Report
The only good news here is that thus far no one has written “They use that word, why can’t we?”Report
Are we really going to talk about being civil to people on this discussion? Are we going to say that to say something is PC is now an attack upon Kazzy? Chris are you really going to complain when YOUR initial salvo into the conversation was oh so conducive to a discussion?
What is really funny is I read this post not long after Kazzy had posted it. I wrote a few responses and deleted them all as I had to leave for work and it wasn’t worth starting anything I couldn’t finish. Blaise had to listen to my opinion of this article for a few heated minutes as he woke up. I looked up the actual video, read Kazzy’s link and exclaimed…..WTF is he going on about? Can we over sensationalize things any more? I have read the posts on rapping and wanted to call bullshit when Kazzy said that the word was not in is vocabulary. But then maybe he doesn’t sing along to rap like I did when I listened to it. But I didn’t. I came home from work, sniffling and sneezing from a cold that I just picked up from there, saw Blaise’s post and thought great I wanted to ask that same thing.
This whole discussion has proven my point I have said over and over to Blaise; if you don’t believe as I do you are a racist. If you don’t believe as I do you are privileged. If you don’t believe as I do stfu and go sit down. Blaise and I are on two different sides of a pretty heated political spectrum. He tells me what liberals think about social issues. I tell him how a conservative, or as he calls me libertarian thinks. I ask him, what makes you think this way about unions? What makes you think this way about policies that can help the poor. He does the same to me. We don’t agree on either of these issues. I respect his beliefs, I understand how his past experiences have shaped his current political beliefs. I don’t have those same experiences. I in turn answer his questions about why I believe as I do. That I have worked in a Union shop, I have gone through a Union trying to organize at another job. I have been poor, homeless, working two minimum wage jobs at the same time to be able to take care of my adolescent brother and mother after I got out of the military. In other words, I have different experiences. Since we have known each other my views on some things have changed, on others, not so much.
Long ago, when I first met Blaise I asked him why he spends so much time writing on blogs, what is the point talking to people you don’t know about issues that you probably aren’t going to have an effect on. He told me that he wants to understand why people believe as they do. His beliefs over time have grown into what they are now. His beliefs aren’t the be all and end all of rightness. Maybe someone on a blog will have ideas and reasons for why they believe what they do that will make him see things in a different light. That life is about learning, something Blaise is all about. He will never stop learning, changing and for whatever you all might think becoming a better man.Report
Good contribution Just Me. Thanks.Report
@blaisep 1:00p
Sigh.
I clearly stated that you should be ashamed for bragging about the following, not for your opinion on the OP:
I’m meaner than you and I stopped caring about what people think of me a very long time ago
And, yes, that is symptomatic of antisocial behavior.Report
Just me, no one has called Blaise a racist. Everyone has disagreed with Kazzy, but he hasn’t called any of us racists.
Blaise just did what Blaise does, which is to say acts like an ass. I pointed it out, and then apologized for doing so. It wasn’t a productive comment, to be sure. Would you like for me to apologize to you as well? I’m sorry, I should have left well enough alone. Your comment, aside from being a defense of Blaise (are you Blaise?), doesn’t appear to have anything to do with this conversation at all either. So I guess we’re three completely unproductive folks today.Report
Really, Chris that is your come back? Are you Kazzy? Two can be ridiculous. Though just because I can I am going to take that as a compliment. If you can’t tell the difference between my admittedly sub-par writing style and Blaise’s admittedly above par writing skills then I forgive you.I don’t require an apology.
At least between this post and the last I got to find out who the new Doctor Who is, which I will admit has more impact on my life than anything I have read from you on this discussion.
I never said that anyone called Blaise a racist. Maybe you read what I did say wrong or I wrote it confusingly in the first place. I have just noticed over the last few months a trend of racist and privileged being thrown around when someone just doesn’t get “it”. This time it was the whole privileged shtick again. You know the whole how dare you be white and talk about a black perspective when you yourself are white talking about a black perspective.
You don’t know me, you don’t know Blaise, I don’t know you and I don’t know Kazzy. I, unlike some here, ask when I have a question. I asked Kazzy if he was an only child, not because as he assumed as a derogatory but because I honestly wondered why he is so hell bent on putting the worst possible light on so many topics. I wondered why he didn’t understand that you can be hurt at the words someone says but in the end actions speak a whole heck of a lot louder and mean a whole heck of a lot more. When people are to the point where their assumptions are all they see then it is either time to stop talking to them or to question them, find out what makes them act, believe, and respond as they do. At least that is where I come from. Maybe I grew up with a crazy situation, where what was visible on the surface didn’t necessarily reflect what was true. I question when I see someone make the same statement over and over and I wonder why they respond as they do I ask. Maybe this is not the forum for such a thing. So be it, I don’t comment on here enough for it to really matter to me. I read it because the man I love spends so much time on here. I can not know him if I ignore a a big part of his life. I work, I travel, I have family and loved ones to see. I don’t chose to live my life on this blog. I respect those that do. If I ask questions on here be assured I am asking those same questions in real life. I am just me, a flawed human who is not perfect and does not expect perfection from others. When I see those who do I wonder what their lives are like that they think that perfection is possible. Maybe mine is just horribly different from others. I see someone like Riley Cooper make a stupid comment and I don’t automatically think that he hates all black people. I think that he was pissed off at someone or someones and said the worst thing he could think of to them. Kinda like when you are a kid and scream you’re not my mommy to your mother just because you knew it would hurt her. Did that mean she no longer loved me because I said a horrible thing? No. Maybe in other’s lives they don’t have tempers or maybe they don’t say horrible things to others. Maybe they are more evolved, I don’t know. I kind of doubt it, but I suppose it is possible. Anything is.
This could have been a productive topic. We could have discussed how each of us would have handled this situation, why we would have done so. But the original post did not choose to ask questions or offer solution. Well I guess firing the guy was a solution. It offered absolutes, overstated the story and made no attempt at growth or understanding. I wish sometimes there was a blog where humans could go and understand that not everyone believes as they do. That just because they believe differently doesn’t mean they are mean or “bad”. That learning why each other believes as they do, questioning assumptions, having real discussion without the constant apprehension that if I as a white woman comment on a topic that is not about white woman I will be called out on it because I can have no idea how someone of another background could feel. While I must at the same time understand why someone who is just like me, race and gender, is the one who is calling me out.Report
Just, if you are not, in fact, Blaise, then you have his ear, so I’m thinking maybe you could affect his behavior. With that in mind, I will ask you this: can you find me a discussion from this blog in which Blaise has been engaged, and in which someone disagreed with Blaise, that didn’t result in the discussion devolving into, well, this, or in everyone basically disengaging because Blaise had climbed on his high horse (an example of the latter would be the hip hop discussion from the other day)?
Look, I think Blaise is bright. Grandiloquence in a deep shade of purple is not the sort of prose I prefer, but he’s clearly bright. I believe that, if he could calm down long enough to realize that being disagreed with is not a personal affront, that some people not named Blaise may know what they’re talking about (they might, on rare occasions, even know more than him), even if they disagree with Blaise, and that people who say things with which Blaise disagrees may in fact be doing so in good faith, and not out of some moral, intellectual, or cultural failing that Blaise must point out, he’d be a benefit to any discussion.Report
Just Me, p.s. I don’t mean any of this as a “come back.” Part of the reason I think you might be Blaise is that, while you don’t write in his purple style, you clearly think in his adversarial style.Report
Are you and me reading a different blog? Have you thought that maybe you are so accustomed to assuming the worst of Blaise that you have stopped reading his words and read into them what you think he is saying? Have you ever questioned him, asked him what he meant? This went off the rails because Kazzy got PO’d about the two letters. PC. Pure and simple. If you would like Blaise to tone it down have you ever asked him to? Have you asked him to explain why he says the things he does? Why he believes what he believes? I know a few of you seem to have a history on here and seem to butt heads. But this I can tell you, If you can prove to Blaise that what he thinks may be wrong and give him proof he will honestly look into that proof and if he see’s what you see admit that hey I didn’t know this, that does change things.. I mean real solid facts. Facts about why YOU believe what you believe. He has come to his beliefs and ideals through some pretty deep soul searching and research. If you can conclusively tell him how he is wrong, back it up. If he takes the time to research a topic then you better too. He is not going to change his understanding of a topic just because you tell him to.
I may be prejudiced on this topic but from where I am sitting it takes two to make a conversation go off the rails. Learning to talk to people you don’t agree with is a skill, and like any skill it actually takes some effort. Effort to question them. I can’t say that enough. Ask questions. There is a sad lack of questions. Can’t have a two way conversation when you don’t. Seems to me we all jump at the bait. If we were fish we would be dinner. We get to be so accustomed to how someone will respond we stop listening to them or we stop thinking about what they said before we respond. I learned that from Blaise. There were times I read something and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I would turn to him and sputter, wtf! He would say no, read it again, read it like this, it is you reading it in your tone of voice that is making you mad. Not how the person actually wrote it. Read it like this, now what do you think. Me being me, would be like Oh…ooops. Gotcha. Ok but if he really meant that it would be f’d up. I wonder if other’s don’t have the same problem I do when reading a blog post.Report
Dude I am 40 year old woman I have taken care of myself for years When I am passionate about something I am not afraid to say it like I see it. And if you think I have the same adversarial style, is it that I speak my mind that makes it adversarial? Or should I be all sweet and nice? Should I be all well you just say what you want to say, never mind that I have a brain and an opinion, I will keep it to myself. Can you let me know what makes my style adversarial, I am curious about that I have to admit.Report
Just Me, one discussion. I asked for one. Can you find one?
Also, by adversarial, I meant that you see it as a “come back,” rather than as merely a reply.Report
Chris I respectfully have decided that our definition of engaged is different. And again, I will say, you need two people to engage. A conversation is two or more people communicating on good faith. Which is what this post could have been. A conversation where people of good faith discussed a current issue. I will have to read some other posts before I give you any better answer than that. I don’t read everything Blaise writes. I do know he was engaged in this discussion before it went hay wire.Report
So you can’t find any examples either?Report
You are beyond ..how do I say…..ridiculous. You have a beef with Blaise take it up with him. You are not gonna find what you hope to find in me. As I have said over and over, it takes two to have a conversation and where I am sitting that is not what you have been looking for. You are out to prove some kind of point, a point might I say that proves more about you then it does anyone else. Why I should be surprised after seeing some of your posts how this almost conversation went I don’t know. Must be because I have too much faith in my fellow humans. I always give them the benefit of the doubt. Until they prove they are unworthy anymore. Even then I think they can grow and learn. Talk to you later. I’m not interested in talking at people or around them. I prefer the to and with kinda talking myself.Report
@greginak thank you and your welcome.Report
Kazzy,
The issue is that you’re preposterously far out ahead of any solid ground you could possibly think you could have to assess where this leaves the team in terms of football. It’s literally humorous to see you thinking you know better than the Eagles at this juncture that keeping Cooper on the team will hurt their football competitiveness. They’re in the midst of assessing that; how in the world do you think you’re in a better place than they are and that this is a better time than they think it is to make that decision?Report
From my perspective, which is that of a fan of the team, every minute spent talking, thinking, and dealing with it is time wasted. Now, teams waste time on lots of stuff, much of it needless. But this is dominatig camp, for a team on a two-year downswing working under a new coach. I think he should go. Others think differently. I’m okay with that. But we can express our feeligs, no? My only objection to contrary opinions is those steeped in anti-PC, everyone-is-overreacting nonsense.Report
Others… like the people in charge of the team, apparently, so far.Report
I wish I could write more on the subject, but for now I will simply say that the Philadelphia Eagles absolutely should cut Riley Cooper after his violent and racist diatribe.
Why? Because it’s good for the locker room? Because the Eagles need to establish their anti-racist bonafides? Because doing so sends a message to other people that racist language simply won’t be tolerated?
Or is it because Cooper is actually a racist (which was the justification you gave) and he has revealed himself as such? Is kicking him off the team a response to his being a racist, or revealing himself as one?
Again, this is one of the things I admit to getting very confused about. Especially since Cooper’s post-incident comments have struck me as full of contrition and brutally honest self-awareness.
I guess I just don’t understand what it means for me to say that Riley needs to be kicked off the team. So, you know, can’t agree. Sorry, dude. Am I being the bad kind of bad liberal for thinking that way?Report
Still,
I think reasonable people can disagree. I see a simmering situation that I fear gets worse.
And while I think his apology was better than most, he only offered it after the video went viral. This happened in late June. Was he not apologetic than? Why not reach out to the guard then?
Check Vick’s recent comments. He feels like he doesn’t know Cooper anymore. I think that’s an issue for the team.Report
RE: Vick and Cooper
I can’t imagine why Michael Vick would want to draw attention to someone else’s shortcomings.
I can’t help but think of a song lyric:
My brother had confessed he was gay, it took the heat off me for a while
Look, if it’s really that divisive to team morale/unit cohesion, then obviously they will have to let him go. At the end of the day, if it’s so disruptive that it puts them at risk of losing games they wouldn’t otherwise have lost, then that is reason enough to take the action of firing.
But it seems to me that the NFL should have bigger issues than someone using the n-word – why was Riley scuffling with concert security to begin with? I have had my own weird interactions with event security in the past, so it could just be a random misunderstanding, but it sure seems like a lot of NFL players have made it into the news lately for various acts of violent/anti-social behavior, and that to me is more intriguing than whatever words they used while getting up to their hijinks:
http://www.utsandiego.com/nfl/arrests-database/Report
There is no doubt that the NFL has other issues. But dealing with issues at a League-wide level isn’t zero sum… Not when you are a multi-billion dollar org.
As for Vick, he was the first to come out and forgive Cooper publicly. Separately, he was asked by a reporter how it was going, etc. I don’t think it is fair to ask him to perpetually bite his tongue because of his own unrelated sins. Plenty of other players have also offered similar if not stronger sentiments.
Fwiw, the team has dismissed Cooper from team activites while he pursues counseling, which will not include alcohol counseling.Report
Who was he supposed to apologize to in June? #confusedReport
Scarlet, the incident happened in late June. He only apologized after it went viral in late July. He didn’t need to apologize to his teammates then, but if he’s genuine about wanting to apologize to the security guard, why did he make no effort until now?Report
Did the security guard even hear the comments when they were made? I’m sure if he used that word in front of the security guard he would have been ejected post haste.Report
Scarlet,
A fair point. When I first saw Cooper’s apology, I was impressed that it wasn’t the usual, “If anyone was offended, I apologize” drivel that we so often get in these situations. But as he has continued to speak about it, he has spoken about how disappointed in himself he is and other such things. The sorts of things that would lead someone to take responsibility for something independent of if someone expressed offense.
Now, it is possible that Cooper doesn’t remember it happening, either because of drinking or being caught up in the moment or the word rolling so easily off his tongue that it didn’t sit with him or some combination therein. Each of those would elicit a different reaction from me (e.g., “too drunk” would make me think he should consider his relationship with alcohol; “too easy” would make me think that this word might slip from his tongue elsewhere).
I should probably amend my statement on this to say that I’m curious why Cooper wasn’t moved to act until it came to light, rather than draw any sort of definitive conclusion, given how much is unknown.Report
I haven’t seen any of the Eagles players calling for Cooper to be fired, as opposed to expressing real disappointment in him. He seems (as far as you can tell these things) to be genuinely contrite and determined to improve as a person. This makes him the opposite of Paula Deen, whose response to a similar situation is to deny, obfuscate, and insist that her critics are “PC”. It makes no sense to me to treat both of them as the same sort of person.Report
his violent and racist diatribe
It’s possible the 20-sec clip I caught was edited down, but “I will jump that fence and fight every n* here” is not what I would normally think of as a “diatribe” – which to me means “to go on at length” (though on the M-W dictionary site, I am informed that my understanding is archaic – so take that for what it’s worth).
But the point I would like to make, I think, still stands – he doesn’t seem to be going on and on about something that reflects some deep worldview of his; rather, he appears to be a male, likely intoxicated, certainly amped up on adrenaline and testosterone, who is using stupid “fighting words” because, well, he either thinks he just was almost in a fight, or is expecting to possibly get in one. If he was black, and vowed to “fight every cracker/honky out there”, I wouldn’t really be taking that as evidence of animus against an entire group, under these circumstances.
It is a threat of violence targeting a racial group.
See above. I don’t think putting this on the same level as pogrom-inducing propaganda makes sense. He was not targeting blacks as a whole or “threatening” them, so much as he was making a “I’ll take on anybody!”-type fighting boast. It’s stupid, and it’s rude, but I am not sure it’s indicative of any problem greater than “some males like to boast and fight, especially when drunk.”
I do not believe for a second that that was his one and only utterance of such hateful language. No matter how drunk or angry I get, I don’t spew French curse words. You know why? Because they are not part of my vocabulary. This word was and is in his vocabulary. Otherwise, it would not have so easily slipped from his tongue.
We just went through a week of hip-hop posts in which that particular word cropped up (along with many, many others that I find distasteful at best and outright offensive at worst), at minimum estimate, dozens of times in popular music. As one of his teammates points out in your linked article, Riley has no doubt heard that word used dozens of times in the locker room, under other contexts (whether this is a good thing, I leave aside for other debates). Point is, I am willing to buy that he used the word in anger, with no deep thought about it.
I know Michael Vick has been brought up here, and I hate to go back to that well, but someone convicted of cruelty to animals makes me much more nervous, in terms of their possible danger/unpredictability, than someone who uses a single racial slur in the heat of the moment (and doesn’t even get involved in any actual violence AFAICT).
Honestly, the form of sensitivity training I would recommend would be similar to this, except I suspect it would be in violation of the NFL’s substance use regulations (there is NO WAY these two dudes are not as stoned as skunks):
(Slight language, but probably SFW):
Report
Riley has no doubt heard that word used dozens of times in the locker room
Which is quite different from using it, particularly in anger. Your real vocabulary is what you use when you’re too mad to reach for words. When William F. Buckley was furious with Gore Vidal, he called him a “fag”, not some seven-syllable Greek word.Report
I have a bad tendency to mix up students names for no good reason. I’ll call Bob Charlie and Charlie Susie. But I’ll never call Anthony Napolean because Napolean isn’t in my bank of names because none of my students have that name.
I’ll cop to the words fag and retard once being part of my vocab. I worked hard to scrub them. Every now and then one will pop into my mind and I have to continue to reject it. If it slipped and I was called on it, I couldn’t honestly say I had never said it before. Which is why I struggle to accept that part of his apology. Which, again, came a month after the incident and hasn’t yet reached the security guard.Report
Sure. They are “fighting words”, deployed when one is looking for a fight. There are lots of offensive and uncouth words people use when angry that they wouldn’t otherwise; use of those words doesn’t mean that they think the person they are angry with literally has sexual relations with their own birth mother, or is physically capable of performing auto-intercourse.
They are words whose use displays the user’s anger by disregarding conspicuously the feelings of others. But as some sort of window into the user’s eternal soul? I dunno.
I wouldn’t use Riley’s OR Buckley’s words (at least, I certainly hope not, no matter how angry or intoxicated I was – but enraged/intoxicated* people do funny things sometimes), and I don’t think it’s good to use them, because, well, they are provocative and hurtful.
I personally think it would be more interesting to talk about how guys whose whole job is performing a dance of ritualized violence for our national entertainment and cash – modern gladiators, essentially – are expected to be the kind of guys who aren’t uncouth testosterone-heavy brawlers to begin with. That to me is more interesting than why one of said brawlers said something uncouth.
But that’s just me.
* I used to think that intoxication only reveals someone’s personality – that it is strictly a lowering of inhibitions, revealing inner intentions and feelings, but is not an alteration of fundamental personality traits or beliefs. But I have known enough alcoholics now that I no longer believe this to be so cut and dried.
Sometimes when someone says “he became a totally different person when he drank”, there’s a real truth there.Report
@mike-schilling My esteem for WFB just doubled.
@kazzy I find it odd that you would call a boy a girls’ name, unless you were exaggerating to make a point. As a teacher, you should know better than to ever use “retard” so I give you credit for admitting it.Report
Scarlet,
I can’t explain the tendency. It’s just a brain tic I have. I don’t mix the kids up… I know full well that I’m looking at Charlie and am talking to Charlie, but my brain says “Samantha”. It crosses gender, race… everything. My kids laugh at it… point it out as one of the things Mr. Kazzy needs to work hard to get better at.
It took me a decent while to accept “retard” as a word I shouldn’t say. Probably between the end of high school and middle of college. I don’t know how much of my turnaround had to do with being an educator, but it certainly has cemented the fact.
I ain’t perfect. I know that full well. I’ve used some choice language in my less enlightened days, which fortunately people have helped to educate me away from.Report
Re: Vick
Eagles brass met with team leaders to confirm he could integrate into the locker room. With Cooper, Eagles brass (the leaders of which are all white) did no such thing. That was a whiff in my opinion.Report
@just-me so be it.Report
Why visitors still make use of to read news papers when in this technological globe the whole thing is available on net?|Report