Quote:While athletes in the NBA and the rest of the sports world pretend that they are taking a meaningful stand by taking a couple of days' vacation from their season, it’s worth noting that there already is a model for achieving policy changes as a celebrity with President Trump in the White House, but athletes don’t want to take that route.

Kim Kardashian West helped push the president toward prison reform, meeting frequently at the White House to discuss the issue. She kicked off the issue by pushing Trump to commute the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson. In one 90-day span, she managed to secure commuted sentences for 17 inmates.

So why would the NBA not reach a hand across the aisle to work on police reform? The First Step Act passed through a Republican-controlled House and Senate in 2018, and Republican Sen. Tim Scott has already brought forward a police reform bill this year. All of the provisions in the Republican bill are also supported by Democrats, making it the most likely reform to pass right now.

The reason is politics. Just like Democrats blocked Scott’s bill so they can use police reform as an election-year issue, athletes and sports teams are doing the same. That’s why the Baltimore Ravens endorsed the bill brought forward by House Democrats that has no chance of passing. After all, LeBron James was the one that said change would start in November.

Athletes, like congressional Democrats, don’t care about police reform if they perceive that its enactment will help Trump. The Republican convention was sure to promote the First Step Act as an accomplishment this week, and Alice Marie Johnson spoke at the convention. Apparently, police reform isn’t actually that urgent: it can wait until January.

This isn’t about meaningful reform, and it never really was. If electing Democrats could cure the maladies of racial tensions, then Democrat-run cities such as Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, wouldn't be burning. If athletes really cared about reform, they would start there before going up to the federal level. But even at the federal level, it’s not solutions they’re after, just Democratic victories in November.

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The NBA is killing itself. Period.

(08-29-2020 02:56 PM)450bench Wrote:  The NBA is killing itself. Period.

This is happening at the college and high school levels as well. One of the problems I have is these schools are registering these kids to vote and organizing their plans to have them cast their ballots. I think there is a conflict for schools funded by taxpayer dollars arranging this. I can understand and appreciate letting kids speak their voices but are they also educating these kids on alternative points of views and providing fact-checks? Are they educating them on Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Elder and other conservative voices? Are they bringing in police officers and letting the players ride with them so that they see what these officers see each night?

Here's the thing. Ultimately athletes are just normal people with big salaries. Aside from pay, they are just us. Just as informed/ill-informed and just as biased. Just like us, they aren't going to trust the intentions of someone they perceive to be an enemy.

Police reform also doesn't lay at the feet of patrolmen. That's something that people on both sides don't understand. It's at all the levels above them.

(08-29-2020 04:47 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  Police reform also doesn't lay at the feet of patrolmen. That's something that people on both sides don't understand. It's at all the levels above them.

We need idiot criminal resisting arrest reform

(08-29-2020 02:56 PM)450bench Wrote:  The NBA is killing itself. Period.

Wish they'd hurry up.

I read a column yesterday where the author said he was hoping that they would not only cancel the rest of the NBA playoffs but cancel themselves and cancel their league - because NOBODY cares. Their ratings are tanking even before this. The last thing we need is for a bunch of rich, spoiled young adults lecturing us about anything. They seem to think that because they can dribble a ball or shoot it that we just can't wait to hear their uninformed political opinions. Even IF they were well informed, we tune in to watch SPORTS, not politics. It is an escape for us. If these athletes want to pontificate, do it on your own time and not during a game.

Now, not only is MLB falling into the same trap but my one hope for a sane league that realizes that they are entertainment has fallen for it as well. The NHL.

To all professional athletes out there and the leadership and ownership, please hear this;

WE WATCH SPORTS TO ESCAPE FROM SOCIAL ISSUES AND POLITICS. WE ARE NOT AT ALL INTERESTED IN YOUR POLITICAL OPINIONS. IF YOU CONTINUE THIS CRAP, WE ARE DONE WITH YOU AND YOU WILL HAVE SUCCEEDED IN CANCELING YOURSELVES.

They forget where much of the $$ comes from that pays their exorbitant salaries. Piss off your fans enough and the $$ dries up.

We can get trained seals to throw a ball in a hoop. And they work for fish.

(08-29-2020 04:40 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  Here's the thing. Ultimately athletes are just normal people with big salaries. Aside from pay, they are just us. Just as informed/ill-informed and just as biased. Just like us, they aren't going to trust the intentions of someone they perceive to be an enemy.

ya left out kids and me Nike contracts....

fk the prima donnas......I have zero sympathy in this bs....

good luck corralling the sheeple ya sycophantic fks...I'll fight ya tooth and.....

w/o question, we're gaining on line 1b) vs. 1c) in a caged match coin flip......the 'when'......she's a bugger.....

Most athletes are exactly rocket scientists, that's why a majority end up broke within 5 years of ending playing career. I guess they want dems to win so they'll be able to fallback on welfare once they blow through their millions.

(08-29-2020 04:47 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  Police reform also doesn't lay at the feet of patrolmen. That's something that people on both sides don't understand. It's at all the levels above them.

Disagree. Most know that it is the laws cops are charged to enforce and other perverse incentives the lead to the law enforcement we have today. what is difficult to get through are the bills necessary to change that.

(08-29-2020 04:40 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  Here's the thing. Ultimately athletes are just normal people with big salaries. Aside from pay, they are just us. Just as informed/ill-informed and just as biased. Just like us, they aren't going to trust the intentions of someone they perceive to be an enemy.

Ummmm no

When they cross over to political activism during the airing of their games and press conferences they should be treated as such.

Believe it or not there are everyday people all over the country who make that kind of $$ and dont have their platform.

You start pushing political agendas then you should be classified as such.



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(08-29-2020 04:40 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  Here's the thing. Ultimately athletes are just normal people with big salaries. Aside from pay, they are just us. Just as informed/ill-informed and just as biased. Just like us, they aren't going to trust the intentions of someone they perceive to be an enemy.

The bottom line is there is only one old white man making mileage off of dead African Americans, Biden. And there is only one party profiting by their circumstances, the Democratic Party. The misery of the African American is the only horse they have to ride and they are literally following guys with records waiting for the next reason to riot.

What is pathetic is that African Americans trust these ass-clowns at all!

If these young athletes would stop and ask the question who is profiting from our suffering they might see things differently. But calling theft reparations and convincing them that society owes them something when it owes none of us anything, is just another manipulation which will eventually put them in harm's way.

And who profits from the Democrats? Some of the wealthiest, pastiest, white corporate CEO's in the nation who only want leverage to keep Americans poor for the sake of profits with their new suck buddy China, a nation that has no American's well being as their concern, and indeed has been sending harmful products to the U.S. from toys for our children with toxic paint and parts easily swallowed, to faulty furniture, to substandard industrial bolts which go into overpasses, to poor parts for aircraft, to tainted meds recalled for cancer risks.

So why support people who profit by your misery, encourage behavior that will only endanger you, and take away job opportunities for sweat shops in China, and supports all manner of inferior product that has proven harmful to lethal to our people?

It's well past time that African American youth got up to speed on how the world outside of their neighborhood really works, and who their enemies really are. And they need to realize that they are much more likely to be killed by a jealous rival in their neighborhood than they are are by a cop.

But hey, it's the liberal Democrats that fail to teach them viable skills, math and science, and the truth in high school so that they have a guaranteed voting block for their boondoggle politics that are destroying the nation's largest cities.

At some point you have to be able to look at the world and no matter your education have the common sense to ask, "What's wrong with this picture? We've been doing the same things and supporting the same groups for over a century and a half and nothing has changed!" As one outstanding African American Educator, Marva Collins, once sought to change, public education is the biggest enemy of the African American child in that they start them off in life with the greatest obstacle of all, an inferior education.

If a white crackheaf or rapist resisting arrest is shot, the whole white race doesn't start burning and looting. Nor do they get helmet stickers.

(08-29-2020 06:58 PM)shere khan Wrote:  

(08-29-2020 04:47 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  Police reform also doesn't lay at the feet of patrolmen. That's something that people on both sides don't understand. It's at all the levels above them.

We need idiot criminal resisting arrest reform

Watch your mouth! Do not speak of common sense here. Rapist and killers are only pointing out how the police shoot them just for fightin or pointing a gun at them. And they only do it to black folk. We need to defund the police so these criminals won’t have to get shot or return to prison. It just ain’t fair!

(08-30-2020 08:09 AM)SoMs Eagle Wrote:  

(08-29-2020 06:58 PM)shere khan Wrote:  

(08-29-2020 04:47 PM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  Police reform also doesn't lay at the feet of patrolmen. That's something that people on both sides don't understand. It's at all the levels above them.

We need idiot criminal resisting arrest reform

Watch your mouth! Do not speak of common sense here. Rapist and killers are only pointing out how the police shoot them just for fightin or pointing a gun at them. And they only do it to black folk. We need to defund the police so these criminals won’t have to get shot or return to prison. It just ain’t fair!

Have you seen the videos showing 'protesters' chanting, "who do we protect? Black criminals!" I couldn't believe that they did that. Spoke the truth.

A couple of points, if there was interest in equality the NBA, NFL, etc. would be 13% black and teams would fill "quotas" taking the best players of each race until the professional leagues "looked like America". Funny taking the best to have the best result is important for professional sports, and college for that matter, but not the highest priority for college, law school, med school, etc. Corporate hiring definitely doesn't believe in hire the best all we've heard since the George Floyd incident from corporate America is they need to hire more people of color.