ESPN's Black Power & SigR Idiocy

Re: ESPN's Black Power Idiocy

God, Sig, you're a flipping moron.

 

Re: ESPN's Black Power Idiocy

The column is well written but contains at least one risky proposition: that Smith and Carlos bear some responsibility for the slaughter of the Israeli athletes four years later. A great deal happened between 1968-72. Seems to me the killers of the Israelis didn't need two Americans to be "inspired" to do their deeds.

 

Re: ESPN's Black Power Idiocy

The Civil Rights movement is distinct from the Black Power movement. From what I understand, Black Power wanted a militant revolution that did not stop at equality, rather, went to the extreme and elevated Blacks above Whites. The civil rights movement wanted equality and adopted non-violent methods to achieve that goal.

I don't blame them for their anger or for their desire to stand up against oppression. But I do fault them for choosing the wrong team, and for choosing to use a symbol of racism.

This kind of has me interested though. Are there any (decent) books/articles about these guys and what their personal beliefs were?

 

Re: ESPN's Black Power Idiocy

... and the Black Power movement is quite distinct from Harry Edwards' Olympic Project for Human Rights, which involved quite a few white athletes, as well as Smith and Carlos.

So what in the HELL are you talking about? ???

 

Re: ESPN's Black Power Idiocy

1968 (I was 19 at the time) was one of the most tumultous years in American history.

King and Kennedy assassinated. The Chicago police riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. My Lai.

Yeats "The Second Coming" pretty much sums it up:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Sig needs to read some books BEFORE he posts.

The column was embarrassing

 

Re: ESPN's Black Power Idiocy

Responding to Ragu's post:

A socialist and a libertarian are both pretty pissed off at what George Bush and the neo-cons have done for the country over the past 8 years, but they have very different ideas for how things should be different. Both fit into the category "Anti-Bush". But I'm not sure that makes them similar enough to label them "not distinct". Similarly with Black Power and Civil Rights movements, both were fed up with getting shit on, but each had a different goal in mind for how to change things and how things would be once they were changed.

I don't think there was anything awful about their gesture given it could have meant any number of things to those two individuals who used it. I just don't think it ought to be glorified given it's divisive, racist meaning. Unless I'm totally wrong and people used the Black Power expression to show their desire for equality as common practice during the 60's?

 

Re: ESPN's Black Power Idiocy

And you're assuming that the gesture was an affirmative sign of the specific Black Power movement as opposed to an organized protest against the treatment of blacks in this country, a protest organized by Harry Edwards in the Olympic Project for Human Rights -- not the Black Power movement (or the Black Panther party, of which Edwards was once a member.)

 

Re: ESPN's Black Power Idiocy

Where did you get this idea that this gesture was racist? People may have been offended by it, thought it was inappropriate at the time, but racist? Please.

Civil Rights groups, anti-Vietnam protesters, feminist groups used it.

It was a slightly more militant version of the peace sign

 

Re: ESPN's Black Power Idiocy

Yeah. Get reading. Anything. A basic fucking history book would do for starters.

You sound like an ignorant moron on here.

 

Re: ESPN's Black Power Idiocy

Welfare-receiving? Really?