OT: Black Missouri players threatening to strike from football activities of demands aren't met.

Submitted by SAMgO on
Here's the PDF list of demands that a student group called "Concerned Student 1-9-5-0" at Missouri is making, which 32 black Missouri football players are a part of: http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/columbiatribune.com/content… Judging by the extremity and in some cases probable illegality of their demands, it seems highly unlikely that they will be met, which actually leaves uninvolved onlookers with quite the intriguing situation. Will Mizzou pull the scholarships of all these players? Will they relent and show up to practice tomorrow? I, for one, think it'll be fascinating to see how this plays out.
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Optimism Attache

November 8th, 2015 at 3:54 PM ^

But the university wouldn't offer these kids the opportunity to attend if it wasn't getting something of value in return from the players.

And don't forget that the NCAA sets rules that severely limit what the athletes can get from the university. Those rules mean that Mizzou is actually giving the athletes LESS in compensation (in the form of scholarships, etc) than the value they provide to the institution. If it weren't for NCAA rules, who knows how much more the athletes would get for their playing, but it would certainly be more than the status quo, esp at a big school like Missouri.

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SalvatoreQuattro

November 8th, 2015 at 4:30 PM ^

Stop resorting to gross distortions of what I wrote. What I said is that the university has every right to respond in kind. There are reactions to every action.

These kids are damaging Mizzou as much as they are helping it. I believe that they think that they are helping Mizzou, but they can't help how others will react to their actions. Those reactions may have unforeseen repercussions for Mizzou.

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SalvatoreQuattro

November 8th, 2015 at 4:27 PM ^

Second, white privilege is a misnomer. It's black disadvantage. It's not that i disagree that blacks have and often still are at a disadvantage it's the whitewashing and simplificaiton of not jsut the white experience but those of other groups as well.

When I say player privilege I say in regards to the student body as a whole. I have no issue with it as I believe societty agrees to it. So long as it is agreed upon privilege is acceptable.

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trustBlue

November 8th, 2015 at 6:36 PM ^

So then the football players don't have "football player privelege" regular students just have "non-football player" disadvantage.

The only reason that you think that "white privelege" is a myth and "football player privelege" is somehow a real thing is because you consider being a white, non-football player as the norm and define everything else as the deviation from that norm.  

Therefore the advantages of being a football player player can be  "privelege" -- based on your definition of a non-football player norm.  

Whereas being white can't be a a privelege - not because being white confers advantages over being black (as you readily admit it does) -- but simply because you define being white as the "norm", and therefore everything else can only be defined in reference to it. 

If that's not a hilariously perfect example white privilege I don't know what is.

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Jon06

November 8th, 2015 at 2:31 PM ^

I'd be surprised if his speech here weren't protected. Mizzou is a state school and cannot punish constitutionally protected speech. At a minimum, they'd be asking for serious legal bills if they fired Pinkel for this. But that's why you're a guy on the internet and not in charge of anything.

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Jon06

November 8th, 2015 at 5:07 PM ^

Kim Davis not doing her job is plausibly political speech. I suspect not playing would be political speech. But he didn't say he wouldn't coach, so IDK what the point here is.

Edit: I'm not editing the original comment as it appears in the previous paragraph, but I actually think I was wrong here. Davis is protected by religious rights, not speech rights. Anyway the last sentence stands.

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carolina blue

November 8th, 2015 at 12:57 PM ^

I'm not sure I fully understand. The players are complaining that there are a lot of racist acts happening on campus and they won't play/practice until the president is booted and there are policies or some type of justice is brought against the people committing these acts. Do I basically have that right?



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turtleboy

November 8th, 2015 at 1:15 PM ^

I'm also unclear what it is that is being protested. I can understand general student unrest at the schools mismanagement of the graduate student benefits, but I don't understand what the university president has to do with a few incidences of individuals using slurs.

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bacon1431

November 8th, 2015 at 1:22 PM ^

There was also an incident a couple years ago where the diversity center (or something like that) was filled with cotton balls or something like that. They are also upset about the response from the president when protesters stood in front of his car in a parade around campus. There was also a swastika drawn with fecal matterin one of the dorms and the university response was basically just "we don't support that kind of behavior". So it's not just slurs. It's about the lack of response to them and response to the cries of perceived injustice from minority students from president. 

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turtleboy

November 8th, 2015 at 1:26 PM ^

I saw, though, that the president and board pushed through a mandatory class for all students focusing on tolerance and diversity. I forget what they called it, but I'm not sure what can be done at an institutional level to stop random individuals from smearing poop, or shouting a word out of their car window.

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coldnjl

November 8th, 2015 at 2:26 PM ^

Vandalism should be punished, but as abhorent as a swaztika is or any other racially sensitive slur/imagery, it is protected by the first ammendment. Furthermore, this being a college campus, the protection of all viewpoints legally and safely expressed should be mandated. Overall, I just don't understand what they wanted the president to do in repsonse to these events. I respect the 1950 point of view, but this seems like a very severe overreaction to point of views that they disagree with. 

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turtleboy

November 8th, 2015 at 1:31 PM ^

That's pretty much how I saw it too. There's a lot of generally upset people, and the campaign to have Thomas Jefferson's statue removed from campus isn't enough of a response to satisfy how worked up people are getting, so the president is now the focus of general angst. Maybe he can institute a school nap time, or something.

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Gulogulo37

November 8th, 2015 at 8:14 PM ^

Yeah, I'm also confused. I'm aware racism is still a big problem in America. I realize I have white privilege, or, more accurately, minority disadvantage as Salvatore put it (though I don't agree with everything he said). And I'm also for black people protesting and fighting for equality, but I feel like this movement that has sprung up recently has a political PR problem. They have every right to be angry, but if you want to advance racial harmony and equality, a protest style like MLK, Jr. espoused would be much more effective in advancing the cause. Black Lives Matter is making things very confrontational, us vs. them, when I just think that, regardless of how justified it is, it's just not the most expedient way to advance your cause.

The Daily Show recently did a piece on this that was funny. There was a march in DC called Justice or Else, but no one there knew what the "or Else" was supposed to mean. And when the reporter went around asking white people how they would interpret "Justice or Else", not surprisingly they thought of "or Else" as a threat. It wasn't clear from the video though if they knew the Justice or Else march or if the reporter just asked them about the phrase.

EDIT: Of course I write this and a couple posts down a Mizzou grad has useful info about what a big problem it is and that the vast majority of us don't have enough background info to know what's going on there. Still, I think as a national movement, there's a PR problem here.

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wolverine1987

November 8th, 2015 at 1:19 PM ^

Students there are mad that after a few racist incidents (one example, on the way home from an event, the black head of the student body was yelled at with the usual racist expletives by some yokels in a pickup truck) that the university President did not speak out earlier and more forcefully. One student leader is on a hunger strike until the President resigns. And unfortunately, the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement are getting involved. 

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UofM-StL

November 8th, 2015 at 2:41 PM ^

I'm going to try to add some context to this, since I don't think this development is purely a result of the events of recent weeks and months.

First, Mizzou absolutely has an issue with systemic racial segregation and discrimination. There are black areas of campus, black tables at dining halls, black apartment complexes for off campus housing, etc. Of course, none of these things are official or enforced in any way, but they are a reality of life in Columbia. Overt expressions of racism aren't constant, but are common enough that it's not really surprising to hear about the ones that are being reported with this story. The Confederate flag hangs in many a dorm room, and the attitude that accompanies it isn't one of states' rights.

Second, and very importantly to this story, the power structures of the city and the university refuse to acknowledge race as a serious issue, instead treating incidents of aggressive racism as isolated instead of indicative of a pervasive cultural issue. With no active steps taken to end the physical segregation of black and white students on campus, the "us-vs-them" mentality that leads to racial tensions has continued to thrive.

The protests on campus and threatened non-participation of the football team are not the result of a couple of racial slurs and one instance of the university president dismissing the complaints of the protesters without serious consideration. This is a boiling over of years of racial slurs that black students can expect if they're walking through unfriendly territory, and repeated insistence from the office of the university president that these issues aren't deserving of a response beyond the typical hand-waving "racism is bad and we don't condone it."

The movement isn't about "fix these problems," it's about "acknowledge that these are in fact problems and start taking steps, any steps, to address them." The fact that one of the things that spurred it is a group releasing a list of demands that makes them seem more like hostage takers than concerned students is unfortunate, but it doesn't invalidate the issue at hand that has been plaguing Mizzou for decades now.

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stephenrjking

November 8th, 2015 at 3:37 PM ^

At the risk of dipping my toe into the issue:

If there are, indeed, segregated areas of campus; if there are, indeed, segregated areas of eathing; if there are, indeed, segregated dormitories or housing areas...

Then those issues should be raised, quantified, and addressed. 

You say this:

"The movement isn't about 'fix these problems.'"

Then it's not going to fix the problems. It can get attention, it can get media coverage, it can get sympathy, but the problems will continue. What you describe sounds more like people seeking attention rather than solutions. I could be wrong, and I'm not there, but that's what it sounds like.

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UofM-StL

November 8th, 2015 at 4:11 PM ^

Then those issues should be raised, quantified, and addressed.

That's the whole point. Despite these conditions existing for decades at Mizzou, the university administration has never made any serious attempts to address them, instead preferring to pretend that the outbursts of overt racism are totally isolated and not a result of the environment that the university is fostering.

When I say the movement isn't about "fix these issues," the point I'm trying to make is that we're not seeing protests because racism exists in Columbia. Under different circumstances, a few shouted racial slurs would not have incited this reaction. The Mizzou administration doesn't seem to consider the racial issues the university is facing as a problem it can/should deal with directly, and that's the root of the whole issue here.

The list of demands is a poor representation of the environment surrounding the protest. It makes the protesters look like irrational idealists demanding that the university solve racism with the stroke of a pen. In actuality, the thing these protesters are fighting for is acknowledgement from the university. Acknowledgement that there is work to do on racial issues at Mizzou and that the university can and should play a direct role in that process.

And yes, it definitely seems like many of the elements of the protest have been engineered to capture outside attention, and they probably were. But again, remember that this isn't a sudden reaction to recent issues. Race has been a problem at Mizzou forever, and even when white students covered the lawn of the Black Cultural Center in cotton balls a few years ago nothing was done to address the root issue. The courting of outside attention here is tactic to finally force the university into action. It would have been great if such a tactic weren't necessary, but the university has had plenty of chances to act on its own and has consistently refused to do so.

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Erik_in_Dayton

November 8th, 2015 at 4:27 PM ^

The Nazi Party platform - as I'm sure you know - was not at all soley about killing non-Aryans. But we treat the killing part as dwarfing all the rest given the horror of the killing. The Confederate flag can mean different things to different people, but the Confederacy was born to protect slavery. And the horror of slavery ought to trump any other connotation in the same way the Holocaust does for the Nazi flag. I'm not interested in arguing about whether someone who hangs the Conferedate flag is racist - it's not like we can throw them in a well to see if they float or drown. But it shouldn't be hung unless it's in a museum.

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The Mad Hatter

November 8th, 2015 at 12:59 PM ^

And all I really have to say is good luck with that. If I was a betting man I'd say that the school will probably pay some lip service to some of the issues raised, and then yank the scholarships of any student athletes that refuse to participate in team activities. The idea that a university president is going to make a statement acknowledging his white privilege is hilarious.

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Optimism Attache

November 8th, 2015 at 1:55 PM ^

Not to mention they will absolutely not yank these kids' scholarships. That would be completely idiotic on their part, for reasons aside from recruiting.  However, the athletes may very well relent and stay on the team playing, even if  Wolfe doesn't go, so long as there is some signal that the administration is taking these issues more seriously.

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Jinxed

November 8th, 2015 at 10:07 PM ^

Ummm, this is a dumb comparison..If an NCAA football team loses half of its roster in one year you might as well cancel football for a couple of years... It's that bad. You lose half your roster and then you get a massive APR hit that prevents you from recovering within the 4-5 years it would take you.

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SalvatoreQuattro

November 8th, 2015 at 1:53 PM ^

noxious terms ever put out by academics. What they are referring to is the disadvantage of being black in America. That's how it should be defined.

But instead they decided to use a label that: a)places whites on the defensive(we all should know how defensive people react) b) ignores the reality that many blacks and non-whites benefit from the white-dominated system and other whites do not and c) complete ignores class. This last one is why many socialists despise the term. 

That so many have mindlessly accepted this rather stupid term is a testament to the brainwashing that goes on in academia. College kids are largely an easily manipulated lot with little life experience or knowledge to prepare them to handle those select academics who use their role as educators to promote and advance a poitical agenda. American academia has been perverted on multfronts for years. Corporations on one end and leftist ideologues on the other.  

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coldnjl

November 8th, 2015 at 2:34 PM ^

This relatively new idea that colleges should be "safe zones" where no minority group should ever be offended is sickening. It conflates different points of view to offense. I have a problem with what this group is doing, taking a punative approach (and extremely childish in bringing up white privilege) over events that don't appear on the surface to be endemic or institutional at the University of Missouri. 

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MGoBender

November 8th, 2015 at 7:46 PM ^

@coldnjl, you're almost right but miss the major point.  Colleges (or any place) should not be places where any groupd is not subject to free speech.  Everyone should be able to be offended anywhere.  This is America, damnit, and if I want to be a bigot, I have that right.  In turn, if everyone in the world wants to hate me, not talk to me, not befriend me, not hire me, that's there perogative.

Now, I'm certainly not PC Principal.  But you do have to recognize that some communities of people are more shunned (for lack of a better word) than others.  If I were Muslim (I'm a white male from a lower-middle class family, BTW), I would probably not feel most at home at most American universities.  I'm I were a black female I probably wouldn't feel at home at most American univiersities.  But I should.  I shouldn't have to have any kind of generalizations or slurs thrown MY WAY.  I shouldn't have to deal with more challenges than others solely based on my skin color, ethnicity, religon, able bodiness, or sexual or gender identity.

Note: That is different than sterotype jokes made on a Stand-up comic stand where I have the abilitiy to attend or not.  That is different than a controversial film being shown where I have to choice to attend or not.  That is different than there beign a class on Nazism where, while I may disagree with the subject matter that's taught, I recognize the school's right to offer such a class.

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