Since some of you dont believe Racism is alive and well.....

[Adam Gamradt]

Jana,

I think the answer to why the kid wasn't elected was inherent in his question.

I would be concerned about Mom and Dad here, and would probably have involved them as well.

[Jana]

You had a valuable chance to teach him a "life lesson" and that's your only response? Why didn't you tell him exactly why the other team members were selected as team captains over him? Why didn't you tell him what he could do to improve his standing with the coaches & his other teammates? Maybe, just maybe, he would learned a little more from the situation instead of focusing blame elsewhere and become a more productive member of the team moving forward.

It's easy to look on from far away and say that, but at the time I was so surprised that I didn't have the perfect answer formulated in my head for that scenario.

Rowing is different than lacrosse in that we spend the first 20 minutes getting hands on the boats and carrying them to the dock, getting oars down and pushing off. This is all on a strict time schedule, because there are 4 teams other and 200 kids to get boated and launched in 20 minutes. It's like herding cats and there is tremendous pressure on coaches to get it done efficiently, without damaging $30,000 racing shells.

Stopping this process to teach a life lesson would be similar to stopping a car on a 1way road with 30 cars behind you, who all need to be at work on time, and do not care about your life lesson. There is a time and place for those conversations, but that was not it.

I have given this particular foot-in-mouth disease boy several comments over the past 4 weeks on behavior he can improve his standing within the team structure. In this case, we had already explained to the team the reasons we chose our co-captains before we announced names. The kid already knew why. I will see his mother tomorrow at the first regatta of the season and if I can find a private moment with her, explain the scenario. I also don't want to put the team captains in the position of feeling awkward, they should be in the spotlight for their athletic skills and leadership skills, not their religious heritage as a focus of controversy.

[GrayBear]

http://forums.collegelax.us/viewtopic.php?t=9289

[StrykerFSU]

Family, under pressure, removes its hanged dummy
Display brought two days of turmoil to Madison...

Chesla Flood couldn't believe her eyes. A hangman's noose circled the neck of a black-hooded, jeans-clad dummy suspended from the chimney of a house in Madison.

Flood called her mother, Millie Hazlewood, who reported the Halloween display to police.

"It's no more like freedom of speech anymore," Cheryl Maines said. "My son had to take this down because these people have blown this thing out of proportion."

Before the figure was removed yesterday, Madison Mayor Ellwood "Woody" Kerkeslager said "the appearance and the suggestion (of racism) is there, and it's inappropriate."

...the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People denounced the display as offensive, racist and insensitive.

http://www.nj.com/starledger/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1192509993309380.xml&coll=1

Next thing you're going to tell me is that kids can't dress up like ghosts anymore either...

[Beta]

Next thing you're going to tell me is that kids can't dress up like ghosts anymore either...

1) Frankenstein is offensive to anyone who's had re-constructive surgery
2) Dracula offends vegetarians
3) Muslims are angry that the witches have too much freedom and aren't covered head to toe
4) Skeletons offend people with bulimia
5) Black cats offend PETA because they're feral and haven't had shots
6) Werewolves are offensive to bald men because they're showing off their hair
7) The sea creature is offensive to people that stayed during Katrina because he symbolizes THE MAN with his ability to be resistant to any problems (floods) because of his upbringing
Mummies offend hippies because of all the trees it took to build his clothes

Happy Halloween you racist, insensitive, intolerant hate-mongers

[StrykerFSU]

Don't forget, Wolfman has gnards...

[Danny Hogan]

did you spell check 'gnards'?

[StrykerFSU]

It's my closest guess...am I the only one that remembers the great movie "The Monster Squad"?

[Dan Wishengrad]

It's my closest guess...am I the only one that remembers the great movie "The Monster Squad"?

Sorry Cliff, I'm a movie buff but must have missed that one.

But as one of the oldest folks on this site, I can relate that Halloween sure isn't what it used to be when I was 10 years old. Back in the '60s in the "safe" New Jersey suburban town I lived in before moving to Hawaii, we could not only fill up numerous bags full of candy at every single house we went to, but would also often get invited inside homes and get served fresh baked goodies, fruit punch with dry ice to give off that spooky mist, etc. We could roam the neighborhood by ourselves or in small groups without parental supervision, and there were never stories of wackos poisoning candy, or putting razor blades in apples or the like. Mom never even inspected our "loot" afterwards. We would make some pretty imaginative costumes on our own, and never bought more than a mask fom a store.

The last time I was home for Halloween here in Seattle (two years ago?), I bought enough candy for about 100 trick-or-treaters. The doorbell rang once before 7pm, with a large group of very young kids (4-7 years old, maybe?) in generic, store-bought cheap costumes, with an equally big phalanx of moms and dads hovering protectively behind. Then no visitors until after 9pm, when I opened the door to find a group of African-American teenagers all about 16 or 17 years old-- and none in costume -- who didn't even say "Trick-or-Treat" but just thrust out empty pillow cases which I generously contributed to. Then they turned and left without even saying thanks. I ate the rest of the candy myself and got sick to my stomach LOL.

Halloween just sure isn't what it once was.

[Beta]

Wow, this is a controversial subject in itself.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,302836,00.html

Although...the last paragraph raises an interesting point in the argument.

"There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically," he writes. "Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

[bste_lax]

http://forums.collegelax.us/viewtopic.php?t=9289

I knew that was coming from a mile away....possibly two miles.

[TheBearcatHimself]

Stopping this process to teach a life lesson would be similar to stopping a car on a 1way road with 30 cars behind you, who all need to be at work on time, and do not care about your life lesson. There is a time and place for those conversations, but that was not it.

This is the same logic that kept Jim Crow laws in effect from Reconstruction until the 1960's. There was a time and place for teaching whites life lessons, but not while they're busy eating in their whites only restaurant or peeing in their whites only bathroom or drinking from their whites only water fountain.

Life was still moving, so why change it?? I guess it just takes millions of people who are finally fed up with being second-class citizens to make them pull the car over and then realize your engine is on fire. May we never stop to challenge the status quo, because everyone is happy like they are.

[LaxRef]

Stopping this process to teach a life lesson would be similar to stopping a car on a 1way road with 30 cars behind you, who all need to be at work on time, and do not care about your life lesson. There is a time and place for those conversations, but that was not it.

This is the same logic that kept Jim Crow laws in effect from Reconstruction until the 1960's. There was a time and place for teaching whites life lessons, but not while they're busy eating in their whites only restaurant or peeing in their whites only bathroom or drinking from their whites only water fountain.

Life was still moving, so why change it?? I guess it just takes millions of people who are finally fed up with being second-class citizens to make them pull the car over and then realize your engine is on fire. May we never stop to challenge the status quo, because everyone is happy like they are.

I think you're a little out of line here. Just because Jana felt he couldn't address it at that moment doesn't mean he's letting it drop completely. It sounds like he wants to address it.

Besides, sometimes taking the time to formulate a thoughtful response is far better than blurting out the first thing you think of.

[Zeuslax]

I'm surprised that Laxfan25 hasn't posted a link to last months New Yorker yet. Very interesting opp-ed piece on racism and incarceration.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2 ... _talk_coll

The state of Louisiana, true to its reputation for rococo extremism in all matters political, locks up in prison a higher percentage of its population—black, white, and all other races combined—than any other state in the nation. It might be of some comfort to politicians, then, if the Jena case, like the disgraceful treatment of displaced African-American victims of Hurricane Katrina, could be rationalized as an isolated, swamp-inspired exception to a more temperate American norm.

The opposite is true, however. In July, the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy group, released a state-by-state study of prison populations that identified where blacks endured the highest rates of incarceration. The top four states were South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Vermont; the top ten included Utah, Montana, and Colorado—not places renowned for their African-American subcultures. In the United States today, driving while black—or shoplifting while black, or taking illegal drugs, or hitting schoolmates—often carries the greatest risk of incarceration, in comparison to the risk faced by whites, in states where people of color are rare, including a few states that are liberal, prosperous, and not a little self-satisfied. Ex-slave states that are relatively poor and have large African-American populations, such as Louisiana, display less racial disparity.

[Beta]

From the article:

Discrimination in the American justice system is not only a Deep South thing; it is a national embarrassment.

WOW. Yes, discrimination on a nation-wide scale is the cause of the incarcerations, and not because the crimes are being committed at ridiculously disproportionate rates. (Sarcasm)

Even though 75% of the US is white (12% black)...it is surely racism on account of everyone in the justice system that has caused 40% of the prison population to be black.

But since the Asian population of the US is roughly 4%...and they take up only 1% of the prison population...that can only mean that Asians receive reverse racism or better treatment since there is a disproportion.

Because why take responsibility? It's never your fault in America....it is always....

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THE MAN