Men Who Love Goons...

Zag, please work on your quote function skills. That was really confusing.

Also, please stick to one argument at a time. You compared the NBA to the NHL and Stoney and I addressed that comparison. Then you switch to the NFL, which still doesn't address the issue of the history of the sports.

 

Patrick,
Conn Smythe also said "If you can't beat 'em in the alley, you can't beat 'em on the ice".

I don't follow the NBA but wasn't the brawl at the Palace an aberration? I mean, how many fights (real fights) are there in the NBA?

 

Nobody is switching arguments and while I know it is tough for you to think outside of your little box but let's try --

The football and basketball are two sports which, for whatever reason, have been linked most closely with the hip hop culture of thug life...

Oh, I remember why, because they are two blackest sports by far and because many of the members of the media can't "identify" with their athletes and don't think often speak of their athletes being the kind "they'd like to marry my daughter"....which is a cutesy way of saying "hockey and baseball players are white and we like them because they don't scare us"

Thus when Tyler Kennedy gets into a nasty fight with a Ranger player and the Penguins go on to win the game we get photos of the fight on the front page of the newspaper with headlines or cutlines that celebrate the fight. We get columns about how the fight set the tone for the game and the series and how gritty and gutty Kennedy is. We get four straight hours of talk radio celebrating the fight and highlights for the next three days about the fight and the other scuffles that proved the Penguins were tough enough.....

The funny thing is -- a few years ago the same airwaves and the same columnists talked at length about how the Pistons and Pacers were thugs, how the fight clearly was a statement about black American and hip hop culture, how it proves the NBA has been taken over by gangsters. Ditto when Miami, a team that is primarily black, fought against FIU, another team that is primarily black.

And now the same people who were calling bullshit on the whole "dogfighting is a cultural thing and thus Michael Vick should get a pass" argument are trying to make the claim that "fighting in hockey is cultural and thus it is OK whereas in basketball, fighting equals thuggery...."

Amazing. Simply fucking amazing.

 

You are the one who simply refuses to see anything but race in a situation that involves much more than differences in skin color.

And yes, you did change your topic. You compared the NBA and NHL and that is what was addressed. When the holes in your argument showed, you switched.

I'm done. You're wrong on this one and it just isn't worth the threadjack because you will never admit it.

 

Are you borderline retarded or do you just like to argue?

There are no holes in my argument --- racism is racism and hockey fans and media types that claim they love hockey but hate the NBA because of the "thugs and gangsters" in it are racists. And they are the same group who say the same things about football teams.

I didn't switch anything -- the fact is when black fights fight it is considered goonery, thuggery and a reflection on black society and the hip hop culture.

When white athletes fight they are considered scrappy tough guys and it is considered a part of the game.

There isn't much you can argue about there, just turn on the television or read columns after a fight happens in an NBA game.

And most of that perception is based in racism, pure and simple.

Now I know it is pushing some buttons in you because nobody wants to admit they have even a tiny amount of racism in them, but it is something that cannot be argued.

 

Zag,

I follow your reasoning, but I don't find it very persuasive -- you make some really big logical jumps, like from A-to-M, and ground it in a lot of premises and assumptions that you seem to take for granted as fact, even though most of them are neither factual nor even really provable, at least the ones that are a matter of your subjective perception of the world at large.

For instance: " many of the members of the media can't "identify" with their athletes and don't think often speak of their athletes being the kind "they'd like to marry my daughter"....which is a cutesy way of saying "hockey and baseball players are white and we like them because they don't scare us" ...

Go back and think about how many assertions you're making here. Who are these media members? How many are there? How do you know what they can and can't identify with? You put "identify" in quotes --- what do you mean by the term, exactly? When do they speak of daughters and marriage? Do they, really? And is it actually often? If so, how often? Do these media members really like hockey and baseball players if they are white, and then only because white players do not scare said media members? How do you know any of this? Are you basing it in specific personal experiences? Public incidents? Intuition? You write as though it's obvious and does not need to be examined, as if you're discussing Newtonian physics. Do you believe that? If so, why?

Look, I'm not saying you should feel any different about any of this. I'm not even saying you're right or wrong. I like and respect your passion. But I am saying that you would benefit -- as all of us do -- by first applying your notion of "thinking outside your little box" to your own arguments and beliefs. Especially if you want to persuade anybody else.

Getting incredulous and dismissive when others don't agree with you -- throwing up your hands and acting as though everyone else is an idiot -- is the surest way to get trapped in that box, and never even know it. When you say that something cannot be argued, I actually feel a little sorry for you. Without argument, without testing and going over and wrestling with what we hold to be true, how else are we ever supposed to come to new knowledge or understanding?

 

Zag, I don't see anybody here claiming that race has absolutely nothing to do with those differing perceptions. You're making some sweeping overgeneralized assumptions about people's beliefs. I think most would agree it does.

But you are simply ignoring some very compelling explanations rooted in the traditions and cultures of the respective sports that explains a great deal of it. Fighting being more accepted in hockey than basketball and football is NOT a recent phenomenon. It was that way 50 years ago too. Why is that? Race certainly doesn't explain it, because the NFL and NBA were lily white back then. So what is your explanation for that?

 

I'll go slow -- have you ever been to a really big event -- say a World Series or a Super Bowl and spent any time at a media reception or any event where there is a media gathering and listen to the way these people talk about athletes?

Further -- let's make it even simpler -- read the columns by hockey guys around the country with regards to fighting in hockey and then go back and read what the same columnists had to say about the Pacers-Pistons thing.

This is not something I am pulling out of thin air, this is something I have watched closely ever since the Pacers-Pistons brawl and it was furtherd with the Miami-FIU brawl.

These words I use like "hockey players are guys we can relate too" -- are not words I have made up or pulled out of thin air -- they are words I have observed.

Many of the same middle-aged white media guys who celebrate hockey fights condemn fighting as thuggery and a part of hip hop culture in basketball and football.

 

Media perception is a powerful thing and even to your point -- guy who played in the NBA and NFL in the old days who were known to fight a lot -- guess what, they are usually celebrated as being scrappy, hard-nosed players - so your argument that perceptions haven' changed in 50 years is off base.

Yeah, it has.

And I don't discount that on some level people view hockey as a part of the game of fighting, but the bottom line is I still don't see how anyone can justify it in one sport and condemn it in another.

 

"When white athletes fight they are considered scrappy tough guys and it is considered a part of the game." - Zag

Zag....it IS part of the game of hockey, do you understand that? There are rules around fighting...it's a 5 minute penalty, an instigator penalty, etc. The only rule about fighting in the NBA and NFL is ejection, often followed by a fine and suspension, which means it's not within the rules of the sport.

 

Dude, look at who wrote the article and ask yourself that first question again. If miss the pitch completely, how do you ever expect to convince anyone you hit a home run?

 

Seriously, it has nothing to with racism and everything to do with the rules. Fighting is "allowed" in hockey and used as a tactic, hence the columns on why a fight turned the game around. (Ashy beat me to this.)

Also, in the 70s the Philadelphia Flyers were viewed as "thugs" and that perception holds true of the team today, whether right or wrong. That certainly wasn't racist now, was it?