Quote:
Originally posted by JRutledge
Quote:
Originally posted by ChuckElias
The thing that amazes me is that they were sympathetic at all to the violinist. I thought the point of your tale was to show Rut that Artest's behavior would not be acceptable, even in a different setting (contrary to his explicit claim).
You want us to conclude that it's ok for a concert violinist to vault into the audience and pummel a drunk concert-goer?!?! 
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Not at all Chuck. I think what jdDuke is saying is that you cannot treat anybody anyway and not expect they are always going to turn the other cheek.
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For what it is worth, I thought that the point jbduke was making was that people - in this case his students - carry stereotypes with them. His students had more sympathy for the violinist because of stereotypes they carried about that violinist's values, and perhaps race, compared to their stereotypes about Black athletes.
I would hope that all of us would be honest in confronting our own stereotypes. Even Rut. Respectfully, Rut, you are not allowing for your own fallibility when you say: "It is clear to me the reasons many disagree" with you. You also say: "Because of what I am and what my background is I have always known how different the values of those individuals based on their backgrounds." Is it so clear? Have you really always known? How? You don't know my race, or my age or my background. And if you knew those things, you still wouldn't necessarily know me. You'd have more information with which to make assumptions -- some of which may turn out to be true -- but you wouldn't *know*.
Most of us who are officials both (a) are confident in themselves and (b) recognize their own limitations. I think some of you are full of it ... and some of you think I am full of it. And we're probably all right at least some of the time. But we keep coming back to these messages boards because we can learn. We can do better and, more importantly, we can be better. I learn from everyone who participates in these threads and I hope this community continues its lively and engaging interaction, including the humor that comes from many of you (like Dan_ref's post above).
As Rut so often says, Peace.