OT: Mizzou black football players taking a stand

[BlueDogs]

There is a very simple reason that the list was absurd. They wanted him gone! They demanded things that he would never do because he needed to be fired or resign. Why? Because he ignored issues of racism on campus for at least 2 years! Issues that have been a problem for 50+ years! If you took a moment to look beyond your own ignorance you MIGHT understand this.

I hate when things like this happen because it always shows me just how insensitive people (particularly SOME white Americans) are. The audacity to even have an opinion on how minorities should react to racism.... SMFH.

Smells similar to the Red Chinese denouncement process to me. Free speech is allowed as long as it meets standards of p0litical correctness. Its from the same mindset that kicked out a counter-feminist author from Williams because her words did not create a "safe space" for woman. Nonsense drivel.

 

[Stainmaster]

Smells similar to the Red Chinese denouncement process to me. Free speech is allowed as long as it meets standards of p0litical correctness. Its from the same mindset that kicked out a counter-feminist author from Williams because her words did not create a "safe space" for woman. Nonsense drivel.

So you're telling me that if you were a college student whose school was hosting Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton, you'd be okay with it and wouldn't take any action?

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

I disagree that the course is sugar-coated or however you describe it. In fact, the course is depressing in the sense that many people take it and see the light of day, which shows the kind of cocoons we all live in.

Perhaps your university's students, even if mandated to attend, are quite fortunate to participate in quality seminars, classes, etc. and the latter actually open some eyes and brains. Kudos! In contrast, and repeating the prior point, it was clearly suggested many organizations just click a we conducted diversity training box versus those which actually deliver quality classes and provide ongoing support across all groups. Read: symbolic sugar coating, or proverbial slapping lipstick on their campus/corporate race relations pig, versus productive, eye opening training as may occur on your campus. But, how's the football team?

 

[traitor71]

Don't forget the hunger strike!!!

We all need Bobby Sands.

Fact is ... this is a Watershed moment for College Sports and what the NCAA feared. I, however, find this as Black athletes - the subservient money makers - finding their power. To Spackler: this is not bad for Mizzou. This is showing ... with Sam two years ago ... that we have a new generation. KUDOS for Gary Pinkel. We know not where this will take us. But, the fact that the athletes can step up ... tells me that the UNC fraud classes can also be addressed by the Black Athletes that are getting screwed.

How were they getting screwed in that situation? Guys that are in college to play ball, because they can play ball, most of whom would not be in college otherwise, aren't going to rock the boat over anything that made it easier for them.

 

[traitor71]

Confused yet?

Missouri Communications Professor Yelled for Muscle to Expel Media, Days After Begging for Coverage

I like how she sort of gave him a smack at the end there. Can you imagine if the roles were reversed? And how would she react if someone was to call for "some muscle" to remove her from being there?

 

[traitor71]

I agree that much of what they are looking for is not only reasonable, but logical and necessary. The other stuff they want makes it hard to take them seriously though.

A poor delivery often obscures a positive message. The demand for mandatory classes was absurd to say the least and pretty scary to me.

 

[pnow15]

Guarantee there is no organization that is more sensitive to diversity, political correctness, more responsive to quotas, more concern with the feelings of it employees and their cultures than the VETERANS ADMINISTRATION.

 

[upstater]

Smells similar to the Red Chinese denouncement process to me. Free speech is allowed as long as it meets standards of p0litical correctness. Its from the same mindset that kicked out a counter-feminist author from Williams because her words did not create a "safe space" for woman. Nonsense drivel.

There actually is no free speech to be racist on campus, you're right about that.

 

[upstater]

Perhaps your university's students, even if mandated to attend, are quite fortunate to participate in quality seminars, classes, etc. and the latter actually open some eyes and brains. Kudos! In contrast, and repeating the prior point, it was clearly suggested many organizations just click a we conducted diversity training box versus those which actually deliver quality classes and provide ongoing support across all groups. Read: symbolic sugar coating, or proverbial slapping lipstick on their campus/corporate race relations pig, versus productive, eye opening training as may occur on your campus. But, how's the football team?

There was a lot objectionable about the demands, like taking over the curriculum, but there are a lot of people on that campus that could easily design a strong curriculum for such training.

 

[Carl Spackler]

Don't forget the hunger strike!!!

We all need Bobby Sands.

Fact is ... this is a Watershed moment for College Sports and what the NCAA feared. I, however, find this as Black athletes - the subservient money makers - finding their power. To Spackler: this is not bad for Mizzou. This is showing ... with Sam two years ago ... that we have a new generation. KUDOS for Gary Pinkel. We know not where this will take us. But, the fact that the athletes can step up ... tells me that the UNC fraud classes can also be addressed by the Black Athletes that are getting screwed.

Hope you're right Pudge. Are there circumstances where a mutiny is warranted? Sure. It's not something where say the thought process should go from: "I don't really like what our leadership is doing" to....."let's strike/riot/do whatever it takes to get them to resign or be fired."

I'm not suggesting that it wasn't warranted in Missouri - an that that there were not a set of steps inbetween that were taken - but a leadership accountability problem certainly existed long term, and something tneeded to be done. But reading that list of demands? Umm - not good IMO.

I think it's a bad road to go down, for people to begin to accept that strikes/riots/boycotts/protests etc. are a normal, expected, and at worst - primary - mode of seeking accountability and if necessary - change - in leadership for any group or organization of community. Is it viable and effective? Sure - but it should be a last resort - and it should never be done without careful thought and consideration about what you do, if you are actually successful.

I think it got to that point that it was a necessary option and viable at UMissouri, but I think very little thought and consideration was put into what the University community does now.

Slippery slope.

 

[Pudge]

Where were the faculty at Missouri?

Seems that is a generational thing whereby the strong voices that existed as I entered college decades ago are no longer influential.

 

[Waquoit]

Where were the faculty at Missouri?
Seems that is a generational thing whereby the strong voices that existed as I entered college decades ago are no longer influential.

Generational in the sense that past generations of strong voices weren't worried about getting fired for speaking out.

 

[Pudge]

Generational in the sense that past generations of strong voices weren't worried about getting fired for speaking out.

And the Scott Walker thinking ... yanking away tenure from a Globally Ranked University of Wisconsin gets us down this path to what?

 

[upstater]

Where were the faculty at Missouri?

Seems that is a generational thing whereby the strong voices that existed as I entered college decades ago are no longer influential.

Faculty backed the students.

 

[noeynox]

There is a very simple reason that the list was absurd. They wanted him gone! They demanded things that he would never do because he needed to be fired or resign. Why? Because he ignored issues of racism on campus for at least 2 years! Issues that have been a problem for 50+ years! If you took a moment to look beyond your own ignorance you MIGHT understand this.

I hate when things like this happen because it always shows me just how insensitive people (particularly SOME white Americans) are. The audacity to even have an opinion on how minorities should react to racism.... SMFH.

While not as forceful as you, I find a little difficult to understand how people not currently on that campus to witness or experience what it feels to have to see fecal signs of hate could form such a strong opinion against what these kids are protesting.

The demand that the school president admit to being a benefacor of "white male privelage" i'm ehhh on. But the fact as president of the school people brought specific examples of racist harrasment and he didn't address it, well that I could see being a big problem. Still can't believe he resigned though. Really blown away by that.

 

[CL82]

Where were the faculty at Missouri?

Seems that is a generational thing whereby the strong voices that existed as I entered college decades ago are no longer influential.

Well one faculty member can be seen at the end of this video:

But most shocking is at the end of the video, once the photographer has been forced to leave, the person recording the video we are watching is asked to stop filming by a woman identified by CNN as Melissa Click, an assistant professor of mass media communications at Mizzou...

"You need to get out," yells the journalism professor. "I need some muscle over here," yells the holder of a PhD in Communication and "Outsanding Mentor 2011" to a nearby group of students, "to get this reporter out of here." At that point a man is seen running in our direction and the video ends.
Link

 

[junglehusky]

I think it's a bad road to go down, for people to begin to accept that strikes/riots/boycotts/protests etc. are a normal, expected, and at worst - primary - mode of seeking accountability and if necessary - change - in leadership for any group or organization of community. Is it viable and effective? Sure - but it should be a last resort - and it should never be done without careful thought and consideration about what you do, if you are actually successful.
Slippery slope.

This sounds like something George III and his advisors would say if they were around today.

 

[Jimmy Serrano]

"Let this be a testament to all of the athletes across the country that you do have power," Tigers defensive end Charles Harris said Monday. "It started with a few individuals on our team, and look what it's become. Look where it's at right now. This is nationally known, and it started with just a few."

The Missouri team's stand was credited with escalating the protest about long-simmering tensions about race and other student welfare issues on campus. It was a serious threat with financial implications: The Missouri athletic department faced a $1 million dollar payment to BYU if it had to back out of the teams' game.

This whole situation makes me want to take a shower. Less about black & white, more about green. Icky.

 

[Carl Spackler]

This sounds like something George III and his advisors would say if they were around today.

I'm not sure if that's a jab to the front, or a pat on the back - but I'm glass half full kind of guy - so I'll take it as a compliment, because I hope that King George, if alive today, would have realized that not only should he have listened to the concerns, complaints and critique and acted upon them much more effectively - but that we also had a damn good plan after we managed to evict the red coats.

 

[Carl Spackler]

"Let this be a testament to all of the athletes across the country that you do have power," Tigers defensive end Charles Harris said Monday. "It started with a few individuals on our team, and look what it's become. Look where it's at right now. This is nationally known, and it started with just a few."

The Missouri team's stand was credited with escalating the protest about long-simmering tensions about race and other student welfare issues on campus. It was a serious threat with financial implications: The Missouri athletic department faced a $1 million dollar payment to BYU if it had to back out of the teams' game.

This whole situation makes me want to take a shower. Less about black & white, more about green. Icky.

This kind of immediate feedback directly from the event does very little to ease my concerns about things, that junglehusky thinks would be something that the late King George III might have said.

What I would be happy reading, hearing - is something to the effect that "we tried for years and years to get something done in this community, but the leadership wouldn't listen and we regret that it came to this kind of forceful event to initiate change, but we felt we had no other option other than to threaten the loss of $1million in revenue. We are glad that we do not have to pursue this course any further and this is our plan of action at this point, now that there is a leadership change - the plan is this:........"

I can't continue - because I have no idea what the plan might be now at UMissouri.

But that's not what the player said. He's impressed with himself for making national news.

Guess what kid - that's not too hard to do these days. It will be gone from the national news faster than it got there.

 

[Pudge]

This kind of immediate feedback directly from the event does very little to ease my concerns about things, that junglehusky thinks would be something that the late King George III might have said.

What I would be happy reading, hearing - is something to the effect that "we tried for years and years to get something done in this community, but the leadership wouldn't listen and we regret that it came to this kind of forceful event to initiate change, but we felt we had no other option other than to threaten the loss of $1million in revenue. We are glad that we do not have to pursue this course any further and this is our plan of action at this point, now that there is a leadership change - the plan is this:..."

I can't continue - because I have no idea what the plan might be now at UMissouri.

But that's not what the player said. He's impressed with himself for making national news.

Guess what kid - that's not too hard to do these days. It will be gone from the national news faster than it got there.

Look ...

You can't take this out of the context of the last year + of events. Some - thinking of you Chris Christie and others on my twitter circle jerk - want to point #BlackLivesMatter as an assault on cops. Frankly ... just No! It is an accumulation of ... "wait for it" ... videos because we all have cameras. And, now that we see video after video of Blacks (mostly young males) getting senselessly shot or beaten, we are at a tipping point. Admittedly, all of these lack the full context. University of Missouri, being less than 2 hours from Ferguson, is a grand stage. 58 scholarship blacks out of 84 on the Football team. What we are talking about is not "Green" ... per se. It is about Leverage. For the same things we argue about frequently and often make their way on the CR board: the Football team is the front porch. It is the University's primary presence in the State and Nationally.

National news? Nope. This is about "LEVERAGE" a protest model from the streets to the bigger stage. Do all these videos have a common thread? Damned if I know. But, the incidence of them and the steady drumbeat across multiple states and TV markets have brought this front and center. A University, by the nature of its culture, has always been the crucible of protest. The Tiger football team won't be the last.

 

[Pudge]

I think you see the answer. Head Coach Gary Pinkel (and his AD) took a firm stand Sunday. This means, to me, that the Football players understood the limits of what they were doing. And, then it is back to the Team Concept to play next weekend.

As for what happens on campus, the Board of Curators (6 of 7 White and almost as many lawyers) of Missouri clearly are behind the quick move. This was the second President at University of Missouri who had ZERO academic background before being made head of the place. Running a campus asylum will never be like running the Domestic business for a corporation. The first weeks will be placing a solid leader in the chair. On campuses, you often lack continuity beyond a few years as students move on; so, there lacks the institutional history to carry much along. The whole event? I think largely symbolic.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I think you see the answer. Head Coach Gary Pinkel (and his AD) took a firm stand Sunday. This means, to me, that the Football players understood the limits of what they were doing. And, then it is back to the Team Concept to play next weekend.

As for what happens on campus, the Board of Curators (6 of 7 White and almost as many lawyers) of Missouri clearly are behind the quick move. This was the second President at University of Missouri who had ZERO academic background before being made head of the place. Running a campus asylum will never be like running the Domestic business for a corporation. The first weeks will be placing a solid leader in the chair. On campuses, you often lack continuity beyond a few years as students move on; so, there lacks the institutional history to carry much along. The whole event? I think largely symbolic.

Thanks Pudge. As I wrote yesterday, and I did first engage in this thing with a pretty light and facetitious comment. As I noted already - at this point in my time on this planet, I can bloviate in my own inflated opinion quite well on a number of subjects, but I know my limitations. I'm not an expert on the code of conduct, academic and business mission, community structure and the disciplinary review and hiring process at the University of Missouri - I have no desire to learn these things - not in my scope.

What I do know, is that mutiny is dangerous business, and should never be engaged in lightly without a plan of what to do after.

 

[Jax Husky]

Hope you're right Pudge. Are there circumstances where a mutiny is warranted? Sure. It's not something where say the thought process should go from: "I don't really like what our leadership is doing" to....."let's strike/riot/do whatever it takes to get them to resign or be fired."

I'm not suggesting that it wasn't warranted in Missouri - an that that there were not a set of steps inbetween that were taken - but a leadership accountability problem certainly existed long term, and something tneeded to be done. But reading that list of demands? Umm - not good IMO.

I think it's a bad road to go down, for people to begin to accept that strikes/riots/boycotts/protests etc. are a normal, expected, and at worst - primary - mode of seeking accountability and if necessary - change - in leadership for any group or organization of community. Is it viable and effective? Sure - but it should be a last resort - and it should never be done without careful thought and consideration about what you do, if you are actually successful.

I think it got to that point that it was a necessary option and viable at UMissouri, but I think very little thought and consideration was put into what the University community does now.

Slippery slope.

I've been blasted by LRock for being insensitive so I really don't know if it is worth responding in this thread anymore, but protests and boycotts are fundamental to the reasoning behind this country's founding.

I am behind the students in their requests for training gs, diversity classes, etc. But I am apparently insensitive because I don't agree with the group's call for vengeance and arbitrary hirings.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I've been blasted by LRock for being insensitive so I really don't know if it is worth responding in this thread anymore, but protests and boycotts are fundamental to the reasoning behind this country's founding.

I am behind the students in their requests for training gs, diversity classes, etc. But I am apparently insensitive because I don't agree with the group's call for vengeance and arbitrary hirings.

Protests and boycotts are a method of expressing free speech. Absolutely. Incredibly valuable.

Here's the thing, and pay attention because it's important. It's not subtle difference. Making your opinoins and thoughts heard and expecting to be acknowledged and acted upon appropriately is a cornerstone of American society. Working toward having someone to be forcibly removed or forced to resign from a position of authority outside whatever existing community structure and guidelines exist for accountability and review is NOT a cornerstone of American society.

Working toward modifying accountability and review procedures such that leaders are actually held to a standard of performance that is supported by those they lead? That's a much better thing to do - IMO.