OT: Georgia Tech Prospect Decommits Because of Bad Experience With Stadium Cop
Jordan Johnson, a 3-star guard prospect (No. 530 overall), is decommiting from Georgia Tech because a campus cop accused him of forging his stadium pass during Saturday's game against Georgia.
http://michigan.247sports.com/Bolt/Prospect-decommits-from-Georgia-Tech…
Bet the coaching staff is really happy with that cop.
December 1st, 2015 at 1:31 PM ^
Copy-paste from a GT message board:
Saw the whole thing happen. I sit in the Letterwinners club inside on the first row. The student section in the north stands is just below my seats. There were a number of people who were not students sitting in the row below. Two white Georgia Tech police officers came into that area and asked everyone who was not a student to leave the area. Everyone did except a black woman and two young black men (teenagers). Both of them were wearing recruit lanyards. One of them immediately moved his tag to his back where the officer could not see it. The officers approached and asked them to move. There were some ensuing verbal exchanges that I could not hear. All three seemed to be getting more and more hostile. The officers appeared to remain calm. The two recruits began leaving but the woman stayed. The recruits then returned. One officer asked for identification. One of the recruits got his ID out and held it in front of the officer. When the officer reached for it, he pulled it back and put his arm behind his back. There was a heated exchange between them and the officer grabbed the recruit's arm and tried to lead him away. The woman was having a fit. At that point a black officer approached and talked with the white officers who then left. The black officer talked for a while to the three people. He then led them out of the stands. The section for recruits is just across the aisle and all other recruits were sitting in that section. My thoughts were that the officers originally focused on no one. They simply asked all non-students to leave the section. Everyone else did. They only approached the recruits when they didn't move. They seemed to remain very calm in the face of escalating hostility. Things became a problem when the recruit decided to play hide and seek with his ID. The officer who interceded did the right thing to calm things down, otherwise the recruit would likely have been arrested. I saw nothing inappropriate on the officer's part no matter what race the recruits might have been. No one was profiled or singled out. The recruits singled themselves out by not doing what everyone else did when asked. They acted like entitled jerks and were solely responsible for what transpired. Personally, no matter how good they may be, I would not want to see that kind of person representing Georgia Tech whether black or white. Sorry for the length of this post, but I feel an eyewitness account was needed.
December 1st, 2015 at 1:32 PM ^
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December 1st, 2015 at 1:40 PM ^
I think the poster is saying the cop wasn't being racist.
December 1st, 2015 at 1:42 PM ^
but that would require reading the article before he makes the RCMB-worthy "mental midgets" comment.
December 1st, 2015 at 3:37 PM ^
BOX house is a bunch of clowns
December 1st, 2015 at 1:48 PM ^
Which is why our questionably literate friend wanted to contribute his own racist perspective and self-referentially observe the presence of mental midgets.
December 1st, 2015 at 2:09 PM ^
I think a blanket statement that anyone who ever makes a suggestion that a racist act was committed is a "mental midget" would qualify as racist. I don't know, maybe it's just me, maybe I'm stuck in the past, but I believe racism still exists today.
December 1st, 2015 at 2:19 PM ^
Racism exists and will continue to. But it is often an overused and misused term. People use it out of laziness, ignorance, and all too frequently as a way of suppressing opinions they do not like it.
December 1st, 2015 at 2:46 PM ^
Hmmm..."suppressing opinions they do not like." Kind of like - I don't know...maybe saying that any opinion that racism was a factor in anything is the thinking of someone who is mentally inferior?
It's absolutely at the very least racist in effect. Don't think so narrowly.
December 1st, 2015 at 4:10 PM ^
It is in no way racist. His insult is directed at anyone due to their race. That, by definiton, makes it not racist.
All that statement tells us about Olaf is that he is narrowminded and possibly uneducated.
December 1st, 2015 at 4:54 PM ^
Racism is the systematic reproduction of privlege for a favored in-group, to the detriment of outsiders who are marked by race.
When racism is alredy prevalent in a society, then suppressing speakers who identify manifestations of that racist system tends to preserve a racist status quo. Hence, even if the specific words used to suppress those speakers are not racial in content, the suppression is racist in context.
December 1st, 2015 at 5:29 PM ^
Sure, and crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparities aren't racist either, because the laws don't explicitly mention race. Get a clue.
Actively trying to shut down all opinions suggesting that racism might be involved ever in any set of cirucmstances by saying such suggestions are indicative of mental inferiority has an obvious disproportionately negative effect on people that are more likely to encounter discrimination because of their race. The effect of the comment is racist.
Edit: EGD's explanation above is much better than mine.
December 1st, 2015 at 1:47 PM ^
December 1st, 2015 at 1:59 PM ^
That is a bold (and extremely innaccurate) historical claim. But you're right on the rest.
December 1st, 2015 at 2:08 PM ^
but is this really accurate or just you making assumptions about American history? I would guess if you looked back over the centuries that there have been many racist countries in the world. Maybe by racist you're just talking about prejudice against black people, since you only mention the USA nad Africa...there are lots of races out there and many countries have demonstrated racist tendancies over the years. I just think that is a pretty strange statement to make but as I say, I'm no history major so I could be wrong and maybe America is one of the most racist countries in the world.
December 1st, 2015 at 2:26 PM ^
December 1st, 2015 at 4:45 PM ^
Meh. Depends where you live I guess. Here in the bowels of Wood County it is not uncommon to hear people talk about wanting to kill someone because of the color of their skin. Where quite a few people I know hold the opinion that slavery was actually a good thing for black people, and that they should he happy that their ancestors were brought over here.
December 1st, 2015 at 5:15 PM ^
I was a bit unclear in my post. America has huge, significant, enduring problems with race relations that have to be addressed. That is, in my opinion, undeniably true and more evidence appears about this daily. My point was that, historically, we are far from "one of the worst ever" in the world. Ask a Han Chinese person their thoughts about a Tibetan or a Uighur, or ask a white South American about a person of African descent or an indigenous person, ask a Dominican about a Haitain, ask a white Dutch or German person about a Turkish minority, etc., etc., etc., and you can pretty quickly find out how virulent racism is in some other countries. It is between a little and a LOT worse than the kind of racism you find in America...
December 1st, 2015 at 7:16 PM ^
December 1st, 2015 at 2:32 PM ^
Worse than Imperial Japan?
I could go on to list a ton of others but I think my point is made.
*I also fully believe race is a huge issue here but you need to check your history my man
December 1st, 2015 at 2:50 PM ^
Oh boy, I'm really reluctant to wade into this discussion, but I will just say that it depends an awful lot on how we define "racism" and, more importantly, "race." Was, for example, Japanese treatment of the Ainu an example of racism if we (in current usage) would consider both Japanese and Ainu as "Asian"? (Same could be asked about Japanese treatment of Okinawans, or Chinese, or Koreans.) Or Hitler's treatment of undesirable groups that were considered racially distinct in Nazi Germany, even if we don't categorize them as distinct races? Or any number of other ethnic groups that were mistreated or marginalized by others of the same "race"?
It is a bit of a cliche at this point, but "race" is a concept that is socially constructed, so it can mean very different things to different peoples at different times. Therefore it is exceedingly difficult to compare different societies across time and space and determine that one is more or less "racist" than another.
(FWIW, I am a historian, and I do think that the United States, because of its particular demographic conditions, has a history in which "race" seems to weigh more heavily than it does in many other places.)
December 1st, 2015 at 3:09 PM ^
and almost didn't put Japan down for that reason but in the end I believe it to be and didn't think this board was the place to make that distinction. I certainly am willing to listen to those who disagree and make it more of an ethnic issue between the same race.
For the Nazis, I think it is clear cut. They targeted many peoples who were not of their race (also religion and a whole other number of things as well) and often killed them en-masse. If you want to compare that to Andrew Jackson's treatment of Native Americans, I suppose you can make an argument. However, I would still probably come to the conclusion that the Nazi's were worse.
December 1st, 2015 at 3:14 PM ^
"Do you consider the Turks of 1915 and the Armenians to be from different races?"
An irrelevant question - all that matters in determining whether it was racism is did the Turks of 1915 THEMSELVES consider the Armenians to be a different race.
Race is wholly social construct that has no scientific existence - but as long as people believe race is a real thing, the reality doesn't matter.
December 1st, 2015 at 3:23 PM ^
So I don't have an answer for you on what the Young Turks believed (was it race, religion, economic, or just fear of a minority group take over). Of course, Turkey's current unwillingness to admit they committed genocide really limits our ability to understand what the Young Turk leadership's thought process was that caused them to kill ~1.5 million of their own citizens.
December 1st, 2015 at 3:26 PM ^
I don't know if we can say there is zero scientific basis for racial classification; we know, for example, that certain genetic traits are more common among some populations than others. However, societies have taken these insignificant differences and used them to create huge social barriers.
December 1st, 2015 at 4:13 PM ^
There is zero scientific basis for what 99% of humanity consider race.
There are certain ethnic groups which are more prone to certain genetic traits - but, unlike the social concept of race it's a continuum where one can be part of multiple groups.
December 1st, 2015 at 4:56 PM ^
If I state that Europeans and Sub-Saharan Africans can be distinguished by their skin tone, there is no scientific basis for that?
There are some genetic differences between different groups of people. It's just that these differences are trivial (essentially, superficial) and have been unfairly used to create social distinctions. Also, the need to categorize everyone within neat little racial boundaries fails when it comes to the many people who are of mixed racial background.
December 1st, 2015 at 7:36 PM ^
December 1st, 2015 at 9:45 PM ^
It is one thing to say that light-skinned Europeans and dark-skinned southern Africans have recognizable differences in appearances. But that doesn't mean that you can group these people into meaningful categories of "race." Is a southern African part of the same race as an Arab north African? And when do Russians go from being Europeans to being Asians? And as long as we are on the subject: are Uzbeks part of the same group as Sri Lankans and Indians and Indonesians? These aren't just a handful of exceptions to the larger rule of racial categories--these and many, many other examples show that the idea that the human population can be divided into three or four or five (or fifty) racial categories--based on some shared genetic qualities--is is crazy.
This isn't to say that we can't use these categories or definitions--just that we categorize people in certain ways because it serves our purposes, not because there is some intrinsic scientific reason for doing so.
December 2nd, 2015 at 10:39 AM ^
If I state that Europeans and Sub-Saharan Africans can be distinguished by their skin tone, there is no scientific basis for that?
No.
If a European and a Sub-Saharan African have a child -
Will you be able to distinguish that the child is European or Sub-Saharan African by it's skin tone?
Is the child European or Sub-Saharan African?
Then consider that the Sub-Saharan African may be more closely genetically related to the European than he is to another Sub-Saharan African living a few miles away...
Also, the need to categorize everyone within neat little racial boundaries fails when it comes to the many people who are of mixed racial background.
ALL people are of mixed "racial" backgrounds.
December 1st, 2015 at 2:52 PM ^
when someone says "racist" without defining what they mean by that then what can result is mass confusion. By my definition this country was built on it.
December 1st, 2015 at 3:08 PM ^
Race relations have been troubled in our country's history for a long time, but to call our society "one of the most racist on the planet" is unfair. For one thing, we didn't invent race-based slavery and discrimination - we inherited that from our colonial master, the UK . . . who in turn copied the idea from the Spanish and Portuguese . . . who in turn followed the example set by the Arabs. And on and on.
I'd note as well that Europeans who used to lecture Americans on racism have grown a lot more quiet lately, as they've discovered that race relations in their own countries (which have become more diverse due to immigration) are often far from harmonious.
December 1st, 2015 at 3:19 PM ^
As an American living in South Africa, I must be the worst!
December 1st, 2015 at 2:01 PM ^
December 1st, 2015 at 2:01 PM ^
December 1st, 2015 at 2:06 PM ^
Sort of like what you're doing with this post.
December 1st, 2015 at 2:53 PM ^
Says the guy who didn't read the post.
December 1st, 2015 at 1:43 PM ^
Thank you for the informative copy pasta.
December 1st, 2015 at 1:53 PM ^
Would gloss over again.
December 1st, 2015 at 2:07 PM ^
I think this might turn into one of those threads that unexpectedly ends up having to be locked.
December 1st, 2015 at 6:18 PM ^
December 1st, 2015 at 1:32 PM ^
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December 1st, 2015 at 1:50 PM ^
Why is Olaf still posting. Go back outside before you turn into a puddle, silly snowman.
December 1st, 2015 at 1:55 PM ^
You're really crushing it in this thread, huh?
December 1st, 2015 at 3:04 PM ^
December 1st, 2015 at 1:37 PM ^
Do you really want a kid like this on your team? If he bails because some cops asked to see his tickets, what will he do when he's running hills and doing up-downs at 5 AM?
December 1st, 2015 at 1:40 PM ^
December 1st, 2015 at 2:53 PM ^
By far the Best Movie IMO.