morpeth

The issues concerning such matters are important, and deserve careful attention beyond sound-bites to the actual statistics.

Oakvillian

That phrase, that one right there that I highlighted in red, is exactly why people like Colin Kaepernick are exactly right to protest when they have a public platform to do so.

Would you make the same comment about, say Jimmy Kimmel's opinions on healthcare, which are informed by his own family situation? Would you have made the same comment about NFL owners supporting Trump's candidacy last year? It's not "sports and entertainment figures" you have a problem with, is it? It's black people. Stop hiding behind your weasel words.

morpeth

This is exactly part of the problem in public discourse these days, insulting impoliteness, and constant looking for some reason to call someone racist. I wrote "sports and entertainment figures" - I have just as much disdain for Hollywood figures pontificating on subjects they know little about as professional sports figures. Heard Ted Nugent on an interview a few months back, forget the subject but remember wondering why would anyone be interested in listening to him on the particular subject he was speaking about- it applies to both the right and left, just happens in our PC drenched world the conventional wisdom of the left is used by these sorts of people.

Oakvillian

What was "PC drenched" about what I wrote, exactly?

I stopped short of calling you a racist, because I don't know you except by your posts on here. You do have an infuriating habit, though, of suddenly denying knowledge of a subject you know you'll lose an argument on, and pontificating about political correctness and left vs right when somebody calls you on it.

Let me ask you a couple of direct questions, in the hope that there may be a direct answer or two forthcoming: Does the protest movement started by Colin Kaepernick, to draw attention to the differential treatment of black Americans by law enforcement officers, have a legitimate complaint about the way minorities (specifically, black men) are treated in the USA today? And if there is a legitimate complaint, why is a respectful and peaceful protest in a very public forum not a legitimate way of drawing attention to it?

Shard

I don't know why some people have an automatic disdain for the opinions of sports figures or celebrities. Far better to listen to what they are saying, and then decide whether it is informed or not.

morpeth

I do not know enough about the crime statistics nor police tactics to judge specifically based on media reports alone the extent of the issue. If anything I would prefer more focus on devoting the resources economically with new programs to reduce the size of the underclass in the inner cities, which I believe would be more effective at finding longer term solutions to the problems being faced. And my own opinion is listening to people sports and entertainment figures on such serious subjects is usually a waste of time , and always amazes me why people take their views at all seriously when usually it doesn't seem they have done serious study on the issue. Which was my point anyway. Perhaps this Colin fellow has serious studied the issue with some amount of objective analysis, has had the experience and training to research such an issue, and has some specific policy proposals to offer for consideration, and devoting the extra resources he commands personally to helping address the issue.

It might be a public forum, but if he is being paid to do a job I would think that is what he should do. I have had employees who felt passionately about certain issues, they didn't interrupt their jobs they were being paid to do to take time off for such things.

BristolUK

That was priceless. Now that I've stopped laughing, you are being extremely negative about these people having their opinion and using their position to try do something about it and then - as Oakvillian says - you claim insufficient knowledge to know whether the people you just ridiculed have a case or not.

dave_j

I think we have to face it that a hundred and fifty years or so of post slavery america has done little to eradicate the underlying discrimination that black people face. Like Newton's first law of motion, sometimes referred to as the law of inertia, things don't change unless somebody does something to change it.

Like it or not, police do target groups they identify as trouble makers. Years ago as a student I lived with a fellow student who dressed badly. The local police targetted him and he was stopped regularly for doing nothing other than walking along the pavement. He broke no laws, was stopped and searched regularly, was never arrested but was somehow identified as a 'person of interest', and this was in Birkenhead UK and the police were british and they were wrong to do what they did. Had my friend not been as laid back as he was then no doubt some resistance on his part would have landed him in court..

These black footballers will have grown up in areas where their skin colour will have identified them to their local police, like my friend, as 'persons of interest'. Their family and earstwhile schoolfriends will still live in neighbourhoods that they have left and no doubt current tales will still remind them of their time of being persons of interest, They now see, as 'persons of interest' in a much different context, an opportunity to make their voices heard and I for one applaud them for it. It is an indictment of the society they live in that the act of lifting the lid just a little on this particular can of worms draws so much condemnation and criticism of their actions whereas the underlying issues are simply felt to be too difficult to tackle on a nationwide basis.

The US is a very conservative country where bad things are tolerated. I remember witnessing King's 'I have a dream' speech of 1963.. not that long ago.. but still 100 years AFTER slavery had been abolished and what had changed then and what has changed since?

caretaker

Profiling's been around forever, it's the epidemic of shootings of unarmed blacks by police that he's protesting. Taking a knee on the field was an extension or acknowledgment of #BLM.

magnumpi

With statistics like this it's going to be an up hill struggle for non whites in USA

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks accounted for 39.4% of the prison and jail population in 2009, while non-Hispanic whites were 34.2%, and Hispanics (of any race) 20.6%. The incarceration rate of black males was over six times higher than that of white males, with a rate of 4,749 per 100,000 US residents.

caretaker

Our stats for First Nations inmates probably mirror that. Up Hill Struggle could be a good title for a book about the civil rights movement.
Some states which use contract prisons and have 3rd strike laws jam the system up and do nothing to address the problems causing them to re-offend.

Atlantic Xpat

Talking of celebrities.... George Clooney's interview (with the Daily Beast but reported widely such as here ‘F–k you!’ George Clooney blasts Trump for ‘Hollywood elite’ comment | National Post ) is quite entertaining. Particularly the bit about shitting on a golden toilet.

Former Lancastrian

Im pretty sure if this was happening in the UK how many in the UK would be just waiting for a sports personality such as Wayne Rooney to have an intellectual take on this and listen to what he has to say

scilly

Never forget that similar racial profiling of blacks also occurs in Canada.

Any black person driving a nice car can, and often is, stopped in Toronto, NS, and other areas just because he or she is black and it "looks strange to the police officer". It's happened to doctors, lawyers and politicians!

Racial profiling on this side of the country is probably more of First Nations, if only because we have a relatively smaller black population than elsewhere in this country.


I wonder who will speak out up here????

morpeth

I have no problem admitting I do not know everything, and having no interest in sports or entertainment figures who have little knowledge and even less experience doing proper research and trying to reach reasonable opinions whether it meets current conventional wisdom or not. I mean really, listening to some of these sports figures speak how can I take most of them at all seriously on non sports issues ?