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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.
Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.
There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.
He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.
I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.
The lights are all blinking red.
How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.
And we’re all out of bubblegum.
I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.
Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.
… gradually, and then suddenly.
“Let’s not pretend [Trump] wants to engage in high-minded discourse.”
Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.
Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.
fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)
It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.
Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.
Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.
Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.
Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.
Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?
It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.
You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.
Skerry
Only girls with good hair were allowed in the photo
Raven
They won’t be able to leave her out tomorrow.
StarkyLuv
I’ve been noticing a lot of these pictures of the team excludes Gabby Douglas. I mean, I’m seeing this is in every picture.
wrb
You can be happy even if you must wear salmon?
Raven
From Today
“When a U.S. gymnast wins a gold medal in the all-around final, she instantly becomes on a first-name basis with her country.
America, here’s Gabby.”
Southern Beale
You know what else? First this bullshit about Gabby Douglas’s hair sparking “raging debate” (really? On Twitter? You fucking kidding me?) And now this from Yahoo News:
Cold blooded? Seriously?
Sweet Jesus. When did we stop heaping adoration and praise on our gold medal-winning Olympic athletes? I mean Christ, figure skater Debi Thomas was African American, we adored her. Why the vicious attacks on Gabby Douglas? Who by the way I find gorgeous, wonderful and extraordinary. WTF?
Baud
@Southern Beale:
I hear she once shot a man just to see him die.
ABL
@Raven: she’s breaking barriers, that’s for sure.
~spoiler alert~
this tweet from dominique dawes is cute.
ABL
@ABL: that spoiler alert was totally unnecessary.
ha!
time for me to have another chocolate stout float.
Geoduck
Out of morbid curiosity, is the fifth woman in the picture the team coach?
ABL
@Southern Beale: i LOVED debi thomas. i was glued to the tv that year.
and i have no words for that statement.
she’s a goddamn gymnast, not an archer.
Craig
@Southern Beale: Calling an athlete a cold-blooded assassin is pretty much always a compliment. It’s when they’re calling you emo that you know the press hates you.
Just Some Fuckhead
Is it possible she is a vampire and therefore doesn’t show up on film?
Raven
@Southern Beale: Damn right cold blooded, it’s a rigorous and demanding sport and you damn well better be if you are going to be the best.
gnomedad
I’m not seeing this on the toob, at least. Hope that’s not just me being clueless.
marduk
There are five kinds of people in this world.
The people who understand the Law of Fives, and the people who don’t.
The movie Pi is instructive for those who don’t.
ruemara
@Southern Beale: That pissed me off so much I had to tweet that jackass with some feedback.
Raven
Jack Tatum was “The Assassin” and he was one of the greatest football players ever.
Shawn in ShowMe
Gabby’s features are too African for the white folks. If only she were more .. fair-skinned.
But at least she’s a “cold-blooded assassin”, right?
Part II of the darkies/lighties saga: The track and field coverage of Carmelita Jeter vs the coverage of Allyson Felix.
Baud
@Raven:
But was he an assassin with a sweet, wonderful smile?
Raven
@Baud: While he knocked your dick in the dirt.
jl
@Southern Beale:
I guess they need some goofy angle, and looks like this is the best the writer could come up with. The angle seems weird and off to me.
That Gabby is really a fierce competitor, unlike all the other layabout slackers competiing in the olympics. WTF?
Jack Tatum, Gabby Douglas, separated at birth!
Jim C
Ole Gunnar Solskjær, soccer player, was known as “the Baby-Faced Assasin” for his boyish looks and ruthlessness on the pitch.
I always thought Mary Lou Retton was a cold-blooded sporting assassin, but I don’t remember the media calling her that.
Southern Beale
@Baud:
LOL
The Dangerman
@efgoldman:
In a sports context, “cold-blooded” is about the highest of compliments.
As for the picture, recall that the person in the center of the photo (Jordan something) was being marketed heavily by the people that do that stuff; I’m not surprised she gets a disproportionate amount of the attention.
magurakurin
@efgoldman:
cough cough ***Tanya Harding *** cough cough
Southern Beale
@The Dangerman:
Bullshit. Never heard an Olympiad referred to that way. Certainly not a female athlete, and a gymnast to boot.
Cassidy
@Southern Beale: I think it’s also an oblique reference to how competitive female gymnastics is and that the Women’s team is never really a team. Even when they’re qualifying as a team they’re competing against each other.
OTOH, I’m a white dude, so I could be missing something.
Shawn in ShowMe
@efgoldman:
Remember back in the day when America fell in love with that assassin, Mary Lou Retton? And that cold-blooded killer, Shannon Miller, in the ’90s? Good times.
Irving
It’s a bit awkward to refer to a competitor as an “assassin” when the contestants don’t even make physical contact, let alone go head-to-head. But I get the whole icewater-for-veins thing the Gabby does indeed posses.
Raven
@efgoldman: And Chuck Hughes died when Butkus hit him. Stingley knew the risks of football and Tatum didn’t exactly go without suffering for his time in the game.
urlhix
I find it hard to believe they couldn’t find a picture with all the girls in it.
USA Today indeed.
jeff
I gather that something unfair has been done in the photo, but I don’t know which person in that picture is the winner or really anything at all about the topic. Hair? Whose?
I also heard something on NPR about (possibly) this topic, but I never heard enough to contextualize.
Please feel free to tell us what happened.
Southern Beale
@efgoldman:
Actually, I do.
Matt in HB
Isaiah Thomas was often called a baby faced assassin. Unquestionably a compliment.
And that was long before he shived the entire knicks franchise.
pgl
This thread is ridiculous.
1) I see none of you has worked in newspaper layout. You want a photo of the spontaneous celebration, right? Guess what: Gabby ran over to wave to her family — she was nowhere near that group. I rewound it when I was watching because I was trying to figure out where she went. So if you want a picture with all of them, it would be the posed, grip-n-grin; not the authentic celebration.
That’s really the only point I should respond to, but:
2) Cold-blooded assassin is ABSOLUTELY a compliment. Wtf? Doesn’t anyone here watch sports?
3) People love this girl. I don’t where the faux rage is coming from.
wonkie
Gymnast don’t compete agaisnt each other. They compete against a standard, fighting their own limitations. To talk about a gymnast knocking out competitors or assassinating them is stupid. IT isn’t a contact sport.
I think it is weird thatthe writer can’t see Gabby as being as sweet as her smile. Clearly she has self disipline, focus ddrive, all that stuffr that enables a person to work as hard as she did, but none of that is linked to being cold hearted.
Raven
Well, hash it out and I’ll check out what you decide in the morning.
The Dangerman
@Southern Beale:
Google “Michael Jordan” and “cold blooded”. As for “woman” and “Olympian”, google Misty May or Kerry Walsh and the same word. As for gymnast … whatever…
…for sports junkies, it’s a compliment. Sorry.
Cassidy
Lol
Craig
@wonkie: Gymnasts are scored, and those scores are compared against each other, and the person with the highest score wins. Yeah, it is a direct competition.
magurakurin
@efgoldman: Sorry, I didn’t mean to defend the comment of the sports writer. I meant to agree with you. I’m pretty sure they never called Tanya an assassin. And she was, you know, actually an assassin..for real.
Raven
As the Olympics kick off, here is a list of fierce female athletes that you should follow not because of the way they look, but because they embody everything else that females can and should be: strong, determined and fearless.
handy
@Shawn in ShowMe:
There is somewhat of a tendency among lazy sports writers looking to fill pages with ink to lean on these kinds of cliches. See also, “Prepared for battle,” “Going for the jugular,” “ice in his veins” and of course the oft-discussed killer instinct. All phrases often spoken in the context of people dribbling, catching, throwing or chasing a ball around.
That said, using the term “cold blooded” in describing a gymnast just comes off spectacularly goofy and Wetzel probably deserves any and all manner of drubbing for going there with it.
Neutron Fluz
@Raven: Kansas City and Pittsburgh fans disagree.
magurakurin
off topic, but Reid just punched back at Rmoney’s weak “put up or shut up” jab. He stands firmly behind his source. Front Pagers, anyone awake. This is going to get interesting I think.
Dave
“Cold-blooded assassin” or any variation on it is a well-established sportswriting trope. And is meant in a positive manner.
That picture, OTOH, is a joke. Gabby should be front and center.
Corner Stone
Man. Matt Kuchar is the whitest guy you’ll never meet. He doesn’t physically contact any competitor he’s against.
And yet he’s widely known and loved as the “smiling assassin”.
magurakurin
I’d say calling her a cold blooded assassin maybe could be called either way. But seriously, why isn’t she in that photo? That’s fucked up.
Craig
@handy: Gymnasts are badass athletes, with peak level physical conditioning. Writers should treat them like other athletes, including using the same dumb cliches.
Elizabelle
“Cold-blooded” and “assassin” sound strange to me as Olympics commentary when we’ve just had a mass shooting at another entertainment event.
“Steely” or “determined” sound fine.
Joel
@Raven: He also ruined Darryl Stingley’s life. And played for the Raiders. Not the best example.
Joel
@Raven: He also ruined Darryl Stingley’s life. And played for the Raiders. Not the best example.
Corner Stone
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/london/gymnastics/story/2012-08-01/gabby-douglas-womens-all-around-preview/56665754/1
marduk
@Southern Beale:
I just want to say that I’ve actually yelled out “cold blooded” at the TV. In recent memory in regards to the performance of a Tom Brady touchdown pass and a Paul Pierce 3. It’s part of the whole sports as combat metaphor that has proven such rich fodder for sports commentary. “Clutch” players who perform well in high stakes high pressure situations are called cold blooded quite often. I think of it as high praise. The 3 pt shot in basketball that puts the game out of reach in the waning minutes of the game is often called “the dagger”. It’s delivered by a “cold blooded” “assassin”. A bloody metaphor but all complimentary to the player. That’s how I understand it.
Corner Stone
For every pic of Gabby not being in some setting with the team there are 10 where she’s the only person pictured.
handy
@Craig:
In the interest of fairness point taken, as a turn of phrase to describe a gymnast it is gauche. At least references to a golfer as an assassin fit, since like real life assassins golfers get paid to make shots.
The Dangerman
@Craig:
The guy gymnasts have been flat ripped; the gals, perhaps more artistry than badass, but still damned good athletes.
Most ripped athletes I’ve seen during my watching episodes has been water polo (and, damn, but do those guys and gals go at it, holy smokes).
Raven
@Joel: Bullshit, everyone that steps on a football field takes that chance, especially in the NFL.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Corner Stone:
We already know she’s being treated as “the other”. What some of my willing-to-give-media-the-benefit-of-the-doubt brethren here are contemplating, is why.
Montysano
Maybe there’s a problem here; I dunno, it’s a bit too meta for me. Even is there is, it’s completely obscured by the continued ascension of women’s athletics. When I was in high school in the late 60s, a strong, powerful woman was often seen as a freak. Now, strong and powerful is celebrated. It’s been a huge cultural shift, and as an athlete and a sports fan, it’s been an amazing thing to watch.
I mean…. Gabby Thomas is on my teevee right now, doing that amazing stuff that she does. She’s stunning. Does some picture on the internet really detract from that?
Raven
@Corner Stone: Come on now, this is a picture of the “team” after they won the “team” medal.
jl
@Elizabelle: How about cheerful and vivacious but intense, cool calm and collected.
When I watch Gabby Douglass, oh, yeah, I get that assassin vibe.
I thought I saw an interesting combination of intensity, but also inner calm. But maybe that is not stereotypical enough.
Steve
Just finished watching her on uneven bars (taped, of course). She’s awesome. America loves her and will continue to love her.
Oh, 60 seconds with Nexis produced this newspaper article about Dominique Moceanu:
Standard sports cliche. Even for cherubic Olympic gymnasts.
Raven
@Montysano: And whoever the woman is doing the commentary just said she had trouble focusing on the unevens. The ADD Assassin!
jl
@The Dangerman:
” and, damn, but do those guys and gals go at it, holy smokes ”
Hi Dangerman,
uh, what Olympics channel you watching? I might be interested. Thanks in advance. That doesn’t sound like a medal sport, but might be interesting to watch.
thanks in advance.
jl
handy
@Steve:
That ’96 team had me hooked. Every summer olympics since women’s gymnastics has become one of my must-watch events.
delurking socialist
In their defense, Gabby had just run off the left side of that picture, so she was out of the frame for the key emotion shot. I also agree that she will probably be a little more prominent in tomorrows papers.
Corner Stone
@Raven: HAHAHAHA!
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/index
Corner Stone
@Shawn in ShowMe: Yeah. the “other” as in a world champion athlete.
Calm and confident, gymnast Gabby Douglas makes history
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/london/gymnastics/story/2012-08-02/London-Olympics-Gabby-Douglas-gymnastics-Christine-Brennan/56719036/1
Oh, but wait, never heard of her.
No. I watch Olympic coverage and Gabby is the centerpiece for the women’s team.
This is micro-nonsense.
handy
That is freakin’ awesome. Team USA tied with China for gold!
The Dangerman
@jl:
Hey, I hear where some woman got briefly de-bikini’d in the water polo action; soft core porn in the pool!
I haven’t watched much water polo since leaving undergrad and even not much then; I recall it being physical, but these games have been, um, rather assertive (there was a forearm shiver in some game I saw that was outright MMA).
Steve
My 5-year-old really loves gymnastics and is super excited about watching all this on tape tomorrow. I can’t wait for her to watch Gabby and all these other inspiring girls. Of course I think my daughter might already be too big to be an Olympic gymnast but still, girl power.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@wonkie:
Horseshit.
Keith G
Great, we now have commenters who are so invested in finding grievance that they don’t want to recognize a rather pedestrian (cliched) sports compliment.
@Southern Beale: Get out of the water. Your shark, she has been jumped.
Foxhunter
@Raven:
When you say Jack Tatum, I think ‘stickum’. A Lester Hayes. Thanks for pushing me into a frickin nfl wiki black hole for the night. :)
StarkyLuv
Scottie Pippen was called The Silent Assassin
MattMinus
GIGAINVALIDATION!
Shawn in ShowMe
@Corner Stone:
Uh, Stone it would have looked kinda strange for the USA Today to have a blank square where the gold medal winner is supposed to be.
But for two major newspapers to have the team’s best gymnast missing from their group shot is nearly as strange. It’s not like there’s a shortage of team photos with all the girls together.
Keith G
@delurking socialist:
Sorry dude. This statement, even if completely true, will not be taken as evidence as it does not fit the narrative established last night. Your facts cannot satiate this most righteous outrage,
karen
Now that she’s won gold, do you think she’ll get endorsement deals or will it be like it was with Kristy Yamaguchi?
Steve
@Keith G: You can’t just disagree, can you? You have to stir the pot. Come on, be better than that.
Gwangung
definitely not as renumerative as would be with other girls.
jl
@Corner Stone:
” Calm and confident ”
Ha! See, cool calm and confident. Just like I said.
Corner Stone
@MattMinus: Poor bastard. You just can’t micro accept the aggression that has seeped its way into the major news outlets by somehow posting 10X times the pics of Gabby Douglas v other 2012 women’s gymnastic competitors.
Somehow…someway…the macro has got you.
magurakurin
@Corner Stone: hence the term “micro aggression.”
Corner Stone
@jl:
Maybe it’s just me. But I’ve been using a lot of DVR time to search Gabby’s neck to see if she has the bar code on the back like “Hitman” does.
Maybe I just don’t wanna see it.
mainmati
@Southern Beale: I agree. I don’t get the “controversy” over her. She’s extraordinarily talented and beautiful as well. Exactly what’s not to like or is controversial?
Patricia Kayden
@Skerry: No, you didn’t!!
Not sure why Gabby wasn’t in that photo, but that’s okay. She’s a golden girl. Go on, Girl!
Steve
@karen: Kristi Yamaguchi was in a Mitt Romney commercial! You can’t get any bigger than that.
Shinobi
Not that choosing this photo was okay, but when I watched the coverage that night I did notice that Gabby walked out of the shot a lot. There were a lot of moments where she was off by herself celebrating while the other girls were all next to each other, and I was like “What, no love for gabby?” and then she’d come back and get hugged and then disappear again.
That said, they took a bunch of official photos that she was definitely in, so why they are using candid shot that exclude a member of the team I do NOT understand.
Keith G
@Steve: Aww Steve. I was just being exuberantly declarative.
James E. Powell
I remember that moment, when the finals scores went up, and I saw Gabby turn and walk toward the stands. I assumed she was waving to her family. She came right back and posed with the others.
The key is, which photo does the editor decide to use? If I’m the editor, I want one with all five members in it. I don’t care if they are all nearly identical blonde pixies with turned up noses.
I doubt it was deliberate in the ‘get me a photo without the black kid in it.” But if it had been Jordyn the Martyr who was not in the photo, I wonder if it would have been used.
Also too, ‘cold-blooded assassin’ is not just a compliment, it’s a ‘much respect’ compliment, an ‘I can’t believe the stones on that kid’ kind of compliment.
Corner Stone
Man. The ENTIRE stadium clapping along with the floor exercise of one of the USA women’s gymnastics competitors routine.
They must really disregard how awesome she is. Maybe they saw the wrong pic.
offered without anything.
RaflW
Just watching Gabby now on NBC delay on the floor exercise.
Wow. WOw. WOW.
I often dislike the floor, thogh I’m almost always amazed by the tumbles, the more arty/dance parts are frequently awkward.
Gabby nailed the insane tumbles and made the dance parts flowing/fun/beautiful and she smiled a natural smile while doing it.
WWwwwwow.
the Reverend boy
FWIW, there is an article in the Washington Post about Gabby.
I caught very little of the Olympics, but what I did see when I watched was the rest of the team was not that chummy with her as they were with each other. From start to finish she has seemed kind of like an outsider. But she always held her head high and acted very much the professional and beamed from ear to ear!
Being a white boy serving in a predominantly black church has made me a bit more sensitive and aware of these things.
Now if you want to talk about pressure, you try being a gay white male preaching to a black congregation….
jl
@Corner Stone: Gabby’s adorable and I am in love. You meanies quit picking on her. Right Now! Stop it!
Mnemosyne
@pgl:
How many front-page pictures of the 1991 Bulls championship team did they run without Michael Jordan in them?
That’s why this is standing out in such a weird way — Gabby Douglas is the team captain and the standout gold medalist, but the press rarely seems to run photos where she’s part of the team. They show the other four as a group, and they show Gabby by herself, but they rarely show the five of them together as an integrated team.
And that’s despite the fact that NBC has been referring to them as the “Fab Five” all week.
However, I do agree that “cold-blooded assassin” is supposed to be a compliment. As in, “You’d think she’d be all cute and sweet because she’s a guuurl, but she’s actually a real athlete, just like a guy!”
clayton
Corner Stone and Keith G sitting in a tree
S-P-E-W-I-N-G
First comes snark
Then comes . . .
I can’t even type it.
You two belong together.
J (reader)
i have not watched a second of the Olympics, so i don’t get it. of course, not surprising that an ABL post lacks context and is directed to an in-the-know choir.
Keith G
@clayton: If the S-P-E-W fits….
clayton
@Keith G: Like I said you two belong together. Spews of a feather.
ChrisNYC
Bob Costas would like everyone to know that while barriers to non whites are a thing of the past in gymnastics sometimes there can be an “imaginary barrier.” Imaginary because it would be “based on how one sees oneself.” He may be trolling ABL.
Caz
Can’t possibly be a mistake by someone working for the paper who is not following the Olympics and has no idea who any of the girls are or that anyone was even left out of that photo. Couldn’t possibly be someone who just picked a photo out that looked enthusiastic and has no idea how many girls are on the team, who they are, what their scores were, etc. The person who picks the photos is not the same as the one who writes the articles. The writer obviously needs to know something about what’s going on, but the person picking the photos is just picking out what he/she thinks are good photos and might not have a clue about which photos leave out who.
But any chance you have to pull out that race card, you won’t pass that up! I think you wish there was way more racism than there really is, because you thrive on racism. You love it, it gives you something to be consistently pissed about and make a scene about. Without racism, you really have nothing to talk about, so anything you can possibly inject racism into, you do it.
People like you are the reason racism, even though it exists less than ever before, continues to be an issue.
When there’s uncertainty or unknowns, do you ever give the person the benefit of the doubt, or do you just automatically yell “racist!!” ??
It’s fucking sad, really.
rb
I think the photos are evidence of subconscious racism. It just would not happen that a while captain would be left out this way.
But I think the ‘cold blooded assassin’ thing is a separate issue. That’s a high (if standard and cliched) compliment in sports journalism. It actually represents an advance (again, in a cliched way, but still) in the way women’s sports are seen – the writer is saying: yes, there are cutesy costumes and makeup, smiles and style points, but don’t be fooled. They’re every bit the fierce competitors as athletes in any other sport.
Now I suppose it would be possible to argue that reporters could subconsciously find this easier to say about a black female athlete vs. a white one, because the dominant picture of femininity in our culture is white. So you could, it’s conceivable, have a cross-cutting of sexism and racism here that makes Douglass more easily to see as being “like a man” than would a white woman.
It’s possible, but it would be exceedingly difficult to parse that out. “Cold blooded” is just too common a compliment to be subject to analysis.
magurakurin
@J (reader): yeah, it’s almost as if it was a blogpost…
Keith G
@clayton: It seems your punsmanship needs a little practice.
BTW That was quite a push in by the NBC camera person – pores and all.
rb
@Caz: People like you are the reason racism, even though it exists less than ever before, continues to be an issue.
Oh Christ, just shut the fuck up already.
Guaranteed, nobody good-faith arguing that this isn’t racism wants to be associated with this sort of shit. It’s OK to be wrong in good faith. It’s a completely different thing to come out with ignorant bullshit like the above.
Whidby
Oh, are we supposed to give a shit about sports now?
Ohay. Since its Abl posting, I assume that pic is racist or is somehow unfair to Obama, so I am OUTRAGED.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Caz: Asshole.
ABL
@rb: That is hilarious — not quite as hilarious as whomever said I have open disdain for white America, but nonetheless hilarious.
ruemara
I love how a bunch of admitted white males who know fuck-all about photo editing and even less about being black in America, always arrive to defend an entire segment of the population from even the slightest hint that they may, may have a bias that affects their choices. You asses. It happens. Whether or not you want to believe it, it happens. People don’t have to wear white hoods and keep a copy of the White Nationalist Home and Gardens in their desk to subconsciously prefer representations of their norm. The decisions to pick a team photo and it is missing a key member of the team, is fucking strange. If you can find 2 team shots of the past women’s gymnastics team, where the team captain is missing and is not even mentioned, then you’d have a point. By the way, do you see Michael Phelps missing from any swim team shot or articles about the swim team?
Gwangung
@Caz: The Chinese judge gives a 1.2 and the East German judges gives a 0.9.
Up your game, dude.
rb
@ABL: Yeah, I suppose I shouldn’t feed the trolls, but sheesh. You’ve got more patience than me (and infinitely more practice having to put up with that sort of tripe, obviously).
Caz
How do any of you know this wasn’t an honest mistake by someone who isn’t following the olympics and doesn’t know that this photo omitted somebody? You don’t. You just jump to the assumption that it’s racist because that’s what you do. And responses like “asshole” just prove my point that you don’t care about what’s true, you just care about making the most inflamatory accusations you can, and you LOVE using the race card so much that people don’t buy it anymore because it’s like the boy who cried wolf. Your first response to everything is “racist!” Most people aren’t racist, so odds are this is just an honest mistake.
Mnemosyne
@Caz:
So a clueless editor picking the picture because s/he is somehow unaware that the team’s captain is black and assumes that the entire team is pictured is an excuse?
Of course, since you support Republicans, I can understand why you don’t find complete and total incompetence at doing one’s job to be a problem.
rb
@ruemara: I love how a bunch of admitted white males who know fuck-all about photo editing and even less about being black in America, always arrive to defend an entire segment of the population from even the slightest hint that they may, may have a bias that affects their choices
Heh, when you put it like that, it almost seems tacky.
clayton
@Keith G: and Caz makes three.
Do you like that company Keith G? I know CS does.
Corner Stone
KPRC, the local NBC affiliate here in the 4th largest city in the nation, just blew the doors off this troll post by ABL.
pseudonymous in nc
@Caz: One point deduction for poor dismount from trolling high-horse.
As I said in the previous thread, the problem is that photo editors make split-second calls on what “US gymnasts celebrating” translates into, photographically. But anyway, Bob Costas says this is the end of racism in America, because a black gymnast beat all those foreign diva bitches.
rb
@Caz: you don’t care about what’s true, you just care about making the most inflamatory accusations you can
Please. Blaming the victims of racism for racism itself = asshole behavior.
It’s possible to disagree on the question of these photos. I happen to think you’re flat wrong, and that racial bias is precisely the reason the Gabby (and only Gabby) is being left out of team photos. But it’s possible to disagree without being … wait for it … a total asshole.
Try this on for size: You just jump to the assumption that it COULD NEVER, EVER be racist because that’s what you do. It threatens you SO much that it may get noticed that someone, somewhere might be biased against people of color that you lose control of your common sense. It really raises issues about your own insecurities around race.
clayton
@Whidby: Oh look there’s four. Keith G., do you like your friends?
mark
…all of you who don’t live in mixed or minority communities nor consume minority media don’t seem to realize how big a poke in the eye this is. its been Olympics topic numero uno for DAYS. this post is just a window for those of you who don’t know what this is about. its been the topic de joir at minority places of business and social scenes like you obviously wouldn’t believe. you shouldn’t be here saying “I don’t see it and I didn’t notice,” instead you should try to understand what’s going on in the other 40% of the country you don’t understand.
and I say “minority” and not “black” for a reason, as I’ve also heard it observed often in the hispanic and puerto rican neighborhoods too. we all are also talking about the same thing with the Cuban gymnast, danell leyva, to a lessor extent (I think because both he hasn’t been as dominate as gabby plus other minorities on the team, who had his own issues). danell is only shown with a quip about his father, never as part of the team either.
but its mainly gabby that has all of us furious.
now you know
Gwangung
@Mnemosyne I’d put it, : American team wins gold, you leave out the team captain and a leading candidate for individual gold? And without a “not pictured is team captain” in the caption?
Editors lucky to have a job…..
clayton
@Corner Stone: Having watched the same broadcast, no they didn’t.
CS, there are other people in Houston who read this blog. You can’t just post that shit and hope it sticks.
Keith G
@clayton: Ouch. You have bested me. I yield.
Shame. Oh mournful shame.
Corner Stone
@clayton: Who anchors that broadcast? Mona?
clayton
@mark: Agree completely. My god, the commentary was terrible. Nothing of the build up for either of them, or any of them. Gabby led the entire way. Nothing about how monumental this would be from anyone.
People like CS, Keith G, and those other two noners I don’t care to remember just don’t GET IT.
How I wish those four and all of their friends on the internet could just feel the joy, instead of looking for ways to troll.
Assholes, all of them.
ABL
@Mnemosyne: the sports journalists were all sick. the person who put that together usually writes obits.
clayton
@Corner Stone: What? It wasn’t the female who covered it. It was the nonwhite hispanic guy.
imbrium
Taking the cake: Guardian article originally uses the following verbiage:
Now changed to:
link
Scroll to the comments for proof of and reaction to the original. Including Guardian’s explanation for the edit:
Billy K.
No one will read this or care, but I watched this unfold, and Gabby Douglas did a weird thing where she kind of wandered off away from the group … repeatedly. The Powers That Be tried to get her to stick to the group as photos were taken, but she didn’t seem interested.
This is why she’s not in the triumphant team photos. There is no racism here. And anyone trying to imprint racism on this event is pushing back our cause.
clayton
@imbrium: Great catch. I’m sure that CS and Kevin G, along with their two buddies will defend that now based on merriam webster online.
rb
@mark: now you know
Thanks so much for this comment (sincerely). We could use a bit more of this perspective around here.
clayton
@Billy K.: I watched it too. She was there, but the focus was on Jordyn and Allie. They discounted Gabby. It was clear as day. They — the camera crew, the network, the press, never expected what was right there in their faces: Gabby was the only one who did all four events for the team. They ignored her because Jodyn was supposed to be the net one.
How you don’t get that is explainable.
mark
@Billy K.: actually, this started AFTER the first day where her hugs were ignored or met with non-smiling indifference. it was psyching her out, so she started going to the coach and looking for her family. There was only 1 teammate that genuinely hugged and tried to hold her hand during team circles and such.
gabby and jordyn wieber had bad blood between them before the olympics started and jordyn tried to hold teammates on ‘her’ side. just typical teen girl bickering and bullying. gabby started nailing her landings when she stopped messing with it and looked to her family in the stands instead. if you ‘watched this all unfold’
the team dynamics were awful before today’s 2 person show. but thats no excuse for the media’s handling of all this.
gossip that soup
rb
@clayton: They—the camera crew, the network, the press, never expected what was right there in their faces: Gabby was the only one who did all four events for the team
Indeed. His awkward “breaking barriers” minispeech tonight notwithstanding, it was refreshing that Costas acknowledged this to Douglas directly when he was interviewing the team after they won the group competion. “A third of the work!”
clayton
The quatro here bellyaching are probably fans of Ryan Lochte. Asses all of them.
rb
@clayton: A low blow, sir. Low indeed.
Gwangung
@clayton: When I was trained as a journalist and if there was the one photo on the page, I was taught to stick in, ” not pictured was xxxxx.”
This would have been more important if the absent member was an all round medal hope.
Liquid
Nobody seems to remember that fool Bob Costas asking Gabby how tremendous the pressure/weight must feel on her “narrow shoulders.”
It actually made me stop and say out loud “Did that stupid fuck actually say what I think he said?”
clayton
@rb: Yeah, so the picture of the girls who only did part of the work is that more egregious. Gabby carried the team. Gabby proved it twice. She never lost first.
ABL
@mark: That’s interesting background if true. And thanks for your other comment. It’s usually a clownshow in my threads. Glad I came back to read comments!
ABL
@rb: Black president and black individual gold medal gymnast! Behold the infinite majesty of post-racial America!
clayton
@rb: But a winner nonetheless!
Whidby
Wait, so there was a picture in some crappy newspaper that left somebody out.
That’s what this is about?
clayton
@Whidby: CS, Keith G and you. There is one person left out of this picture.
Who is the Gabby of the racist trolls?
Gwangung
@ABL: You would think that this would be picked up by the crack journalists in the mass media.
rb
@ABL: Ha! Hysterical.
In fairness, I don’t think Costas would actually say things are now post-racial or that racism is over (though the kinds of things he was saying about Gabby Douglas are often code for that IMO.)
But even for an “admitted” white dude like myself (good one ruemara), it’s just so wince-inducing to see Bob Costas professing to read the minds of young black girls across the country in re Gabby Douglas’s accomplishment.
Why, it’s almost as if there’s some unconscious racial insensitivity floating around in the media.
Cris (without an H)
Oh yeah, on this blog that bleeds gold and black for the Steelers, that has posts about the NHL and MLB, that has a front pager whose entire beat is world cup soccer, WHY THE FUCK ARE WE CARING ABOUT THE OLYMPICS #ragequit
Glasseater
I must say I did notice during the qualification round that Gabby was by herself a lot and it seemed odd, so the psyching out by the rest of them led by Wieber is plausible. Gabby has shown she is all class and we can all be proud of her!
AxelFoley
@karen:
Fuck Kristy. She’s a Romney shill.
Mnemosyne
@Caz:
It’s a sports section specifically about the Olympics.
If the person working on the Olympics issue isn’t following the Olympics, their asses need to be fired for not doing their fucking jobs.
Though now I am starting to wonder who that third person in a team jacket is. If you hadn’t watched a single minute of the competition, you might count five women and think, “That must be all of them, because there’s five on the team and who else would be wearing a team jacket in the picture?”
But that brings us back to the question of who was brought in to work on the Olympics supplement who didn’t bother to watch a single minute of the event s/he was supposed to be working on?
Whidby
Yes Clayton, failing to give a shit about how USA today pictures igymnasts is SO RACIST,
You really suck at thinking.
rb
@clayton: No doubt.
AxelFoley
@J (reader):
Then why post in this thread, mothafucka? If you and all the other trolls/sockpuppets don’t like ABL’s diaries, why post in them? Bounce your bitch ass the fuck out of them.
Whidby
@Mnemosyne: Yes if you can’t depend on USA Today to be competent, what can you count on in this world?
rb
@Whidby: Dude, be funnier. You’re like the Carrot Top of trolls.
AxelFoley
@Whidby:
What I said to J goes for you too, asshole.
Mnemosyne
@Whidby:
Ah, the true Republican speaks: it doesn’t matter if someone is competent at their job as long as they’re, you know, the right kind of person, ifyouknowwhatImean.
Whidby
@Mnemosyne: does dividing up the world into simple little groups like that help you to cope? Make it a little easier for you not to overtax that little hamster running around in the wheel in your head?
Could you tell us you FAVORITE part of the USA today?
I know you, like, depend on that fine paper to explain the world to you so I can see why you are just so disappointed by this oh so rare lapse in their usual impeccable standards. Do try to be strong.
Gwangung
@Whidby: Boring. And stupid.
Mnemosyne
@Whidby:
Yes, why expect basic competence from a newspaper? It’s not like a newspaper is supposed to convey information.
karen
@AxelFoley:
I know she is now. But I meant, like on a Wheaties or Kellog’s cereal cover…back when Yamaguchi won.
Whidby
@Mnemosyne: Do you like the colorful charts and graphs?
Mnemosyne
@Whidby:
Sorry, being shocked at a supposedly professional newspaper’s utter lack of competence means I’m a disappointed fan of that newspaper?
I know that they don’t teach logic in schools anymore, but I’m pretty sure even a six-year-old could jump through the gaps in that one.
Jewish Steel
I always found that Brenda Vaccaro was a little too ethnic, if you know what I mean.
/old skool racist
The Dude Abides
All I can say is, this was even worse:
http://deadspin.com/5931498/nbc-aired-a-promo-featuring-a-monkey-doing-gymnastics-at-the-most-inopportune-time
I saw it on Deadspin a couple hours ago, and waited to see if NBC would do something about it for the West Coast audience a few hours later. Nope. They showed the monkey immediately after Costas got done talking about Gabby and future African American gymnasts…smh
@VividBlueDotty
@Mnemosyne: Late to the party as always, but you always say it like no other.
Apparently, in Caz’s mind…
Photo editor working on the Olympics section of the paper is clueless about the Olympics = perfectly reasonable (and also OK with Caz!!)
There may have been some racial bias (intentional or unintentional) in the selection process of choosing the picture and/or the omission of the name of team captain and all-around-medal hopeful in this “team” story = utterly ridiculous and absurd
James E. Powell
@The Dude Abides:
So, CBS Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer does a bit about how Romney being the nominee of a major party means that Mormons are mainstream. Then they run a commercial for tickets for Book of Mormon.
What would happen then?
SRW1
@Caz:
Dude, your up shit creek. And all by your own choice. So don’t complain about the smell.
Raven
Larv
@Southern Beale:
Just a couple days ago, Sally Jenkins at the WaPo started her column about Missy Franklin with the line “For a nice kid, Missy Franklin will knife you in the pool.”
I have to agree with others that the whole cold-blooded assassin thing is a common sportswriting trope. It’s definitely complimentary in this context.
tjmn
Today’s Virginian-Pilot from Virginia Beach has an entire above the fold picture of 1000-watt smiling Gabby with the caption of “Our Golden Girl.” Below the fold is a joyous picture of members of her old gym celebrating her win as they watched her do it.
Larv
@Mnemosyne:
Is Gabby Douglas the captain? I thought Aly Raisman was. If Douglas isn’t and what pgl said at #41 is true, I’m not sure I see why there’s any reason to think race has anything to do with it. Maybe it did, but it seems to me that there are simpler and more charitable explanations. I could understand if this was part of a pattern at USA Today, but I’m not aware of one and I haven’t seen anybody mention any in the thread. YMMV.
WereBear
This is not the first time Gabby Douglas has been left out of a “team picture.” Nor do I believe it is the second time.
At a certain point, incompetence and coincidence do not apply.
Lee
I bet you got your knickers twisted 4 years ago when Cullen Jones was not in images of the celebration of the 4×100 relay.
Why was he not? He went to the side of the pool to watch who touched first or maybe the media hates black people.
Your call.
Lee
Also, I have 2 female athletes in the house.
One of which has been referred to as ‘cold blooded’ and it is definitely a complement.
MattMinus
@imbrium:
WOW! It’s like folks are trying to win an award for fucking stupidity.
It’s racist to use word’s that share many of the same letters with a slur?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
I guess y = mx + b can’t be slope intercept anymore either, because, well,you know.
Chinn Romney
Ah, so this is what it looks like when the crowd that sees Jesus in Grilled Cheese sandwiches is having a bad hair day.
A very bad hair day.
wrb
I’t is nice to be able to start the morningreading so much silliness.
Sirry ABL, I normally like your posts and have little patience with your trolls, but this one makes it seem that you truly are losing your mind.
I guess I’ll start looking at all photos for who is missing if we had photo justice.
The art isn’t about giving small odd windows, into life, into freezing a fragment for a moment, or anything like that. The photograph must contain the universe, ideally arranged, no matter how fucking boring that would be.
They would have been fine featuring a photo of the smile of the second reserve water girl at the moment of victory, not every contributer needed to be included, their size adjusted to reflect merit, as in a medieval painting.
wrb
@imbrium:
Oh horrors.
Sorry, “niggardly” is common in British usage and few imagine that this word they’ve known since infants could by others be connected to race. It was an obvious, pedestrian word choice in that context.
rb
@wrb: few imagine that this word they’ve known since infants could by others be connected to race.
I assume you mean few white people, and if that’s true, then british white people suffer from a serious lack of imagination.
Penus
@pgl:
THIS. Holy hell.
Rafer Janders
@Mnemosyne:
You’ve never actually worked on a newspaper before, have you? You obviously have no idea how lmake up happens. The actual reporter and photographer on the ground in London presumably are following the Olympics. They then send their materials back to the paper, and a bunch of people at the paper then edit and re-arrange the text and photos, taking many different factors into account, in choosing how to lay make up the page. It’s not those people’s jobs to “follow the Olympics”.
You might think that, if you limited your knowledge only to that one single photo, and never bothered to look at any other photos, read the article or dozens of other articles written about the team, watch TV coverage, or read on-line news. It seems rather strange to me, though, to demand that much of one picture….
blondie
What is wrong with people? Gabby just won the all-around. She was a pivotal member of the gold-medal team. And people are griping about her hair? Her hair!?!?
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: This is correct for the most part, but even on dailies or other pubs with very short production times, there is an expectation that photo editors will be marginally cognizant of events being reported or take a minute or two to check some facts. Otherwise you get too many photos that badly or only peripherally illustrate the thrust of the stories (or worse, are inadvertently comical), and the publications hear about it.
Having said that, yes, it’s not reasonable to expect a single photo to do what some are asking this one to do, and as someone else pointed out above, the genuine celebration shot is far preferable to the posed one. There was some discussion somewhere about how Douglas quickly rejoined the group and the celebration while photogs were still shooting, but I didn’t see it so I don’t know what happened–and there’s no way of knowing which pubs caught that.
eemom
@wrb:
This.
And that.
I don’t watch or give a shit about the Olympics at all and even *I* can see that this young woman’s face and triumph are all over the fucking place. And yet we’re supposed to infer a vast media conspiracy of racism from any and every unposed shot that gets published in which she doesn’t appear, out of the hundreds of which she’s the centerpiece.
And dare one to offer an explanation for her absence from some of those shots — she walked off to wave to her family, there appears to be tension with her teammates — then one is a racist apologist. Or a white supremacist. Or something. Besides, her teammates are no doubt racists too.
As for “niggardly” — oh my fucking God. Nobody on either side of the pond who completed third grade has the right to not know that that poor maligned word has NO etymology in common with “n*gg*r” — and anyone who demands that its usage be censored on that basis is just as pigfuck ignorant as a teatard.
Not that anyone gives a shit, I realize, but my formerly high esteem for a bunch of people around here has nosedived in the last two days.
rb
@eemom: And yet we’re supposed to infer a vast media conspiracy of racism from any and every unposed shot that gets published in which she doesn’t appear
No, that’s not it. You’ve missed the point.
It may be because you don’t watch or give a shit about the Olympics. I hope so.
wrb
@rb:
Why should anyone give a fuck about imaginary etymology?
“Niggard” is a good old English, Chaucerian, Shakespearian word, that predates “nigger” and the trade in “neegers” by at least a few hundred years. British writers needn’t pander to illiterate Americans by faking illiteracy .
Rafer Janders
@shortstop:
Agreed, but I think the “marginally cognizant” bar has been met here, as they illustrated a story about the team winning the gold with a reaction shot of the team right after winning the gold. The fact that one member of the team had wandered off to the side and out of shot at that exact moment of spontaneous celebration is unfortunate, but hey, that can happen.
Uncle Ebeneezer
Honest question here: what is the standard for how they pick which photos to use? My band used to get lots of photos taken at gigs and we would sort through them afterward to decide which ones to put on the website or what not. With 6 band members it was almost inevitable that 90% of them left out somebody (usually me, as the drummer in the back behind the kit etc.) The only way we ever got all of us together in a decent pic, it had to be one where we posed together. Usually those pics did no justice to capturing the moment of the live performance. In this case (olympics) isn’t it possible that the photographers only got a bunch of photos, only a small portion showed the team together, and that those were not the best ones for capturing the moment.
IIRC, Gabby was standing away from the rest of the team briefly while they were waiting for the final score to determine whether the US had sealed the deal, but they grabbed her and got her with them for the official announcement and celebration. So there should have been plenty of pics with them all together.
Re: assassin…meh. I don’t think there’s any there there. I watch alot of sports and hear terms like: killer instinct, assassin, goin’ for the jugular, ice water in the veins, constricting like a python etc. And I watch alot of women’s tennis and these expressions are often used to celebrate the great female players.
rb
@wrb: You didn’t say they don’t care, you said they couldn’t “imagine.”
I reiterate: if British white people can’t imagine why that word causes double-takes, then they are seriously dense.
Rafer Janders
@rb:
I can imagine lots of bizarre misapprehensions and false beliefs that Americans can have. That doesn’t mean I have to take them into account, especially if I’m a British writer writing for a British audience.
rb
@Uncle Ebeneezer: isn’t it possible that the photographers only got a bunch of photos, only a small portion showed the team together, and that those were not the best ones for capturing the moment.
More likely those where judged the best photos and the fact that Gabby Douglas was left out never occurred to them.
Which is precisely the point: the omission doesn’t have to be overt and malicious to reflect longstanding racist bias.
History suggests that if Jordyn Wieber were the one not pictured, newspapers wouldn’t have forgotten her or failed to notice she was not included. If no other photo was available, at the least her name would have been in the caption with a “not pictured” appended. Especially if she were the team captain and the only gymnast to have scored in every event.
Also: if Wieber fans complained about the omission, there wouldn’t be thousands of “disinterested” truth-tellers suddenly taking a HUGE interest in shouting down the complaints, “explaining” that Wieber got a corner of the cover (again without her name printed), so she should shut up and be grateful for being pictured at all.
rb
@Rafer Janders: Right, you’re insinuating that you can imagine them. wrb is insinuating that you can’t.
eemom
@rb:
And if you can’t imagine why it’s pigfuck ignorant to insist that a word be censored because a bunch of other pigfuck ignoramuses believe it means something it DOES NOT, you’re a — well, use your imagination.
wrb
@rb: Also: if Wieber fans complained about the omission, there wouldn’t be thousands of “disinterested” truth-tellers suddenly taking a HUGE interest in shouting down the complaints, “explaining” that Wieber got a corner of the cover (again without her name printed), so she should shut up and be grateful for being pictured at all.
wrb
@rb:
My phrasing was sloppy.
Of course someone COULD imagine that a word means something that it doesn’t, I just don’t see why they should bother.
Rafer Janders
@rb:
That’s because Jordyn Weiber was built up as the star. If McKayla Maroney or Kyla Ross (what’s with all the “y” names?) had been left out of the photo, the same fuss would not have been made.
Also, too, you’re assuming without evidence that she was “forgotten” or not noticed. Maybe they just looked at several dozen or hundred photos, some with some members, some with all of them, some with an individual, and made a subjective aesthetic decision as to which photo they thought looked best.
Rafer Janders
@rb:
No, he or she is not. Read more closely.
Uncle Ebeneezer
On a tangent, did you all see the first US, female gold medal winner in Judo? She has spoken openly about being abused by a former coach and is really into victim’s advocacy and awareness. She seemed really down-to-earth and humble, and her victory was pretty inspiring.
Larv
@rb:
That’s probably true, because at the time the picture was taken, Wieber was, IIRC, the defending world champion and the star of the US team. Douglas was at that point just another team member (NOT the captain, I’m pretty sure that’s Aly Raisman). If the team competition were held now that Gabby is a huge star after winning the individual gold, I’m pretty sure the situation would be different. That has nothing to do with race and everything to do with stardom and the fickleness of media attention.
Yeah, because anybody who thinks we should be more careful in levying accusations of racism is most likely just a bigot themselves. Obviously.
WereBear
Except that the member of the team who won the gold wasn’t in the shot.
rb
@eemom: to insist that a word be censored
Again, you’ve missed the point.
rb
@Rafer Janders: That’s because Jordyn Weiber was built up as the star.
Douglas WAS the star. She’s captain, she carried the team, she did 33% of the work, she did every rotation with no mishaps while others slipped up.
And this was overlooked or ignored. You are proving my point.
rb
@Larv: If the team competition were held now that Gabby is a huge star after winning the individual gold, I’m pretty sure the situation would be different
Right. Now that Douglas is at the very pinnacle of the sport, we can be “pretty sure” she wouldn’t be inadvertently left out of team photos.
So post-racial.
Yeah, because anybody who thinks we should be more careful in levying accusations of racism is most likely just a bigot themselves. Obviously.
Your interpretation, not mine.
I am just noting the number and turned-up-to-11-ness of those who feel they must, yet again, explain to ABL that she is not seeing what she is seeing.
Whether these folks are or are not bigots themselves is a matter of opinion. The number of them, and the degree to which they are fucking exercised about this, is empirical fact.
Rafer Janders
@WereBear:
No, this was a picture of the team gold — the entire team won the gold as a group effort, so she was not “the member of the team who won the gold.”
Douglas didn’t win the individual gold until last night, two days later. You’re confused about the timeline.
Cassidy
@rb: Raisman is Team Captain.
Rafer Janders
@rb:
Screams broke out in the Newton gym when the scores were announced: The US women’s gymnastics team – their team, headed by their girl, Aly Raisman – had triumphed over Russia to take the gold.
Seventy-five little gymnasts slammed their fists and feet against the ground as the scores came in, chanting, “USA! USA! USA!”
But the gymnasts at Exxcel Gymnastics and Climbing, where team captain Raisman trained as a child, never doubted for a moment that the United States would take home the gold Tuesday.
http://articles.boston.com/2012-07-31/metro/32956072_1_gymnasts-raisman-needham
Mattminus
@Rafer Janders:
Timelines are nanodisenfranchisements!
Rafer Janders
@rb:
LONDON — This was not what the Americans expected.
Oh sure, being atop the standings by a comfortable margin after their qualifying session in women’s gymnastics, that went according to plan. But world champion Jordyn Wieber, a heavy favorite to add the Olympic gold, won’t even get to contend for the all-around title after finishing behind teammates Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas.
It was a stunner for Wieber, who had lost only two all-around competitions since 2008 — though both to fellow Americans — and it left her teammates reeling.
….If anyone was going to avoid the 16-year curse of world champions going without Olympic gold, it was going to be [Wieber].
http://espn.go.com/olympics/summer/2012/gymnastics/story/_/id/8210915/2012-summer-olympics-american-gymnast-jordyn-wieber-qualify-all-around
shortstop
@rb:
It’s a five-person team. Allowing that she was stronger in the combo of all four events than her teammates, this seems like an arbitrary percentage.
eemom
@rb:
And proves what?
That a bunch of people don’t just roll over and play dead at what they perceive to be a false accusation of racism proves WHAT, exactly — on a blog where various people routinely “feel they must explain” why FPers are full of shit about all sorts of different things having nothing to do with race, about which such people routinely get “fucking exercised”?
The other night it was being bandied about that the ONLY people protesting were those who always and only show up here for no other purpose than to troll ABL’s threads. I’m not one of those, and neither are the others protesting on this thread.
Mattminus
@Cassidy:
Facts are neo-colonial-pseudonegations
wrb
@rb:
What is the point then?
That words that sorta sound like a word that offends sould be off limits?
As should any word that causes second graders to shriek with titillation?
That descriptions of shooting or eating a certain game bird be avoided to guard against offending sons of peasants everywhere? After all there is only one letter different and anyone could imagine that the one implies the other.
Larv
@rb:
Bullshit. As I’ve said several times, she is not team captain, Raisman is (at least according to Wikipedia). Prior to her individual gold, Douglass had never won a major event. Wieber was defending world champ, the established star of the team, and the favorite to win the individual gold. Douglass may have been a star in the making, but simply was not at the time the picture was taken and printed. Her consistency is I’m sure very impressive, but at least in this country, consistency does not a star make. Winning does.
Mattminus
@wrb:
OMGZ! You said titty!
Cassidy
@Mattminus: I’m not joining the scrum. I just wanted to point out that Raisman is the TC. When they cut away from the athletes after routines, she’s always there getting her team centered or comforting someone who made a mistake. I was really impressed with her leadership on the sidelines.
Nathaniel
The fact that abl can find multiple pictures with out Douglas to me shows this isn’t racism. Douglas wandered off at the moment of spontaneous celebration, ie the picture that every photo editor wants to used as it is better than posed shots.
All of you non sports fans please remember this picture was taken before she won the all around
Rafer Janders
@Larv:
Well, Wikipedia, NBC, ESPN, and every other news source on the planet.
wrb
@rb:
I’m someone who frequently sees racism in the reactions to ABL but am exercised, in a friendly spirit, buy this one, because it is so eye-buggingly ridiculous.
Mattminus
@Rafer Janders:
So what you’re saying is that news is white supremacist?
Larv
@rb:
Okay, if I misinterpreted you, please explain how I should have read what I responded to.
Whereas you are obviously not exercised about this at all. Calm and disinterested, right? News flash: Somebody is upset about somebody else being wrong on the internet! Bigotry is the only possible explanation.
rb
@shortstop: It’s a five-person team. Allowing that she was stronger in the combo of all four events than her teammates, this seems like an arbitrary percentage.
She did all 4 events though. No other team member did.
So there were 12 total events performed (right?), and she did 4 of the 12. So: 33%. The most of any team member.
And she had fewer mishaps.
rb
@Larv: Douglass had never won a major event. Wieber was defending world champ, the established star of the team, and the favorite to win the individual gold. Douglass may have been a star in the making, but simply was not at the time the picture was taken and printed
If we are focusing on “the time the picture was taken and printed,” Wieber was not even in the running for the individual gold.
Douglas (one s) had just defeated Wieber in the US Trials in all-around and was the US’s best shot to medal.
No question Wieber was still the bigger star, but Douglas was not nobody, and if you’re talking “winning,” she’s the one who did so at the trials.
The point on captain I concede.
wrb
@rb:
Your comment up thread about the amount of passion Gabby’s success has generated in the black community is interesting. The desire that others share that passion is human.
However, I wonder whether it isn’t a good thing that they don’t. Why should non-blacks be more excited about a black winning in gymnastics that any other athlete winning any other event? Blacks have been excelling at athletics for years now. People are used to it.
A non-black person who thought a black winning was something special, and something to get passionate about, is probably someone who resents it, I expect.
The passion is evidence the attitudes toward women’s’ gymnastics are deep waters.
Rafer Janders
@rb:
Ah, you’re back. Want to address your false claims above that Douglas was the team captain and the star of the team? Or are we just supposed to gloss over those clangers?
rb
@eemom: That a bunch of people don’t just roll over and play dead at what they perceive to be a false accusation of racism proves WHAT
But no one accused them of racism, falsely or otherwise. Or at least hadn’t until the usual shit-slinging started in these threads.
So toning it down does not amount to “rolling over and playing dead.” Your personal honor isn’t on the line.
Nobody on this thread – to my knowledge at least – has anything to do with these photo choices. So whether there was or was not a specific accusation of racism in the OP is not a matter to take personally.
But numerous posters are “sick and tired” of ABL having the temerity to give voice to what she sees.
Even supposing ABL is 100% wrong in this case, the absurd volume and personally insulting nature of her opposition would be silly if it weren’t so low and sad.
shortstop
@rb: Looks like Wieber, Douglas and Maroney did the vault; Wieber, Ross and Douglas did the uneven bars; it was Ross, Douglas and Raisman on the beam; and Douglas, Wieber and Raisman on the floor. So yep, you’re right about the 33 percent.
rb
@Rafer Janders: I conceded the point on captain above. But she was the star that night, which is what I said initially.
Mattminus
@rb:
Even when ABL is wrong, saying that ABL is wrong is racist.
It is a science, men!
Congrats, you may have made the dumbest claim in this thread, which is no small thing.
shortstop
@wrb:
Well, um, sports aren’t interchangeable. This is the first time a black woman has won Olympic gold in gymnastics. I’m not black and I find it very cool.
Larv
@rb:
earlier:
now:
But she still did 33% of the work, right? Therefore racism!
Mattminus
@Larv:
The rules of captaining are institutional dinoindignities. In a just world Gabby would be the captain because ABL says she is.
rb
@wrb: Your comment up thread about the amount of passion Gabby’s success has generated in the black community is interesting.
You may be giving me credit for someone else’s comment – I’m not sure.
But I agree with your general point that a hypothetical non-black fan feeling excitement over a black athlete’s success specifically because that athlete is black is at the least complex and could be deeply weird.
On the other hand, I think a lot of white voters in both the Obama and McCain camps probably felt a kind of pride in the president’s election, after the fact. If that devolved into too much self-satisfaction, it could be problematic, but I wouldn’t say it was necessarily strange or that people had no right to feel that way at all.
shortstop
@rb: “Star” in this case means “Who had the biggest name recognition at that point?” By last night, the answer was Douglas. Two nights before that, it was still Wieber. Photo editors picking team photos are not frantically calculating which members of the team had the best scores that night, unless somebody or several team members fucked up deluxe and everybody knows about it.
Cassidy
I’m not sure I understand the dust up here. As much as we’ve made fun of dressage, gymnastics is an expensive sport. For a minority to break into it and win at the highest level is a big deal. Even if it wasn’t intended, even the appearance of being left out is beyond stupid and tone deaf.
Pete
Guess who’s the new Kellogg’s Corn Flakes cover girl?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31751_162-57486410-10391697/gabby-douglas-the-new-cover-girl-for-corn-flakes/
D. Mason
This again?
wrb
@shortstop:
To those of us who don’t watch them they are, kinda.
Last gymnastics I saw was won by a cute Romanian named Nadia.
shortstop
@wrb: Well, that explains it! But oddly enough, the end of the Negro League (that’s baseball) and Jesse Owens’ success (track and field) did not render the barrier/first time issue over and done with.
wrb
@rb: Fair point
rb
@Larv: Calm and disinterested, right?
Trying to be calm, yeah. Disinterested, no. Very much trying to respond to your statements and not straw men.
earlier / now
What I meant was on the night the photo was taken Douglas was unquestionably the star. She performed the most AND the best. In addition, she had outperformed the favorite in all-arounds at the US trials, instantly becoming the team’s best chance at an individual medal, a fact much-commented upon leading up to the competition.
But she still did 33% of the work, right? Therefore racism!
Please see the point on straw men above, as well as my earlier comments.
The omission does not have to be malicious to reflect racial bias. I happen to think it does, but I also think it’s complicated.
@wrb:
What is the point then?
That words that sorta sound like a word that offends sould be off limits?
Of course not. I am not about to argue that we shouldn’t use the word ‘country’ because of its first syllable.
But it’s not an either/or thing, right? Recognizing that certain words (the N word being at or near the top of the list) are extremely sensitive seems reasonable. Recognizing that a certain small number of words are SO sensitive that words other that sound very similar, even if one knows they have no relationship to the “bad” word, may still ring in the ears of people who have every right to be sensitive about the “bad” word in question, just seems like good manners to me.
Until persuaded otherwise, I’m of the opinion that trying to go without “country” would be infinitely stupid. But why do I need “niggardly,” when “stingy” and “miserly” are so near to hand?
More precisely, why is it just SOOO important that I be able to using “niggardly” up and down and all day long and expect people not to look at me kind of funny?
I’m basically a free speech purist. So of course: yeah, you can use it, I don’t think it should be “off limits.” I emphatically DON’T think that people should be fired for it (and people have, in our stupid country) or punished in any way for using it, verbal or written.
But: really? THIS is the hill we free speech advocates are choosing to die on? Why not just have good manners and say “stingy”?
Mattminus
Tomorrows ABL posts…TODAY:
http://www.uproxx.com/webculture/2012/08/nbc-racist-monkey/#page/1
rb
@shortstop: Right, I agree to a point. I just think that on that night, Douglas had starred. She was the story of the competition, and had been the story of the trials.
She deserved considerable attention, at least to be mentioned in a caption if she was not included in the ‘team photo.’
My overall point has been that this is subtle and probably not either “malicious racism!” or “so not racism!” I just think it’s the kind of oversight that happens pretty often, mostly subconsciously. Otherwise one or two national papers wouldn’t be worth discussing.
Larv
@rb:
Okay, I’ll try and lay off the snark. But I’ll observe that it takes chutzpah to complain about straw men when you admit at #234 that you simply assume anybody who thinks ABL is wrong is only doing so because they don’t want her “to give voice to what she sees.” I know that she has her trolls, and that these trolls like to come to her threads to complain about her. But you can’t just assume that anyone who disagrees with her is therefore an anti-ABL troll. Lots of the commenters disagreeing with her here are not normally among the anti-ABL crowd. I admit that I find her refusal to link to anything but her own blog a little annoying, but that’s as far as it goes. I generally like her writing, and I definitely appreciate her perspective. That I think she’s wrong in this instance does not imply that I think she’s always wrong (or ruining the blog or whatever).
I have no problem with your first sentence here, but I haven’t seen a good explanation of why you think it does. Do you think that if one of the white team members had been out of frame when the reaction shots were taken, the paper wouldn’t have run them? Or do you think the photographer left her out of the frame due to bias (conscious or otherwise)? As I said above, unless there’s some tangible reason to conclude racial bias is at work, I think there are simpler explanations. A claim of bias or bigotry on thin to no evidence is just crying wolf.
eemom
@rb:
Pandering to ignorance is not “good manners.”
No matter how you slice it, what you are saying is that people shouldn’t use a perfectly good word that has ZERO connection with a hideous racist slur for no reason other than that some people are under the completely wrong impression that it does. That’s pandering to ignorance, and has nothing to do with any kind of respect — which is what “good manners” are generally supposed to be rooted in.
rb
@Larv: you admit at #234 that you simply assume anybody who thinks ABL is wrong is only doing so because they don’t want ABL “to give voice to what she sees.”
But I very much did *not* say “anybody who disagrees.”
To be clear: I think it’s 100% possible to disagree with ABL in good faith and without personal animus; indeed I think it’s particularly straightforward on this specific post as the question here is subtle.
What I object to is the general tone (not by everyone) that ABL’s bringing it up is just simultaneously so predictable / boring and yet so very outrageous.
Do you think the photographer left her out of the frame due to bias (conscious or otherwise)?
No. Not that that doesn’t happen, but in this case: Gabby walked away, photog’s trying to get the best shot in the moment, totally organic. We saw it in real time.
Now: if Wieber had walked off for a moment of alone time, do more photographers follow her? I’d say yes. Do more of the photographers try to get a shot that somehow captures all 5 athletes? Again, I think yes. Is most of that racial? I don’t think so; I think the biggest factor is Wieber’s stature. But some of it? I think yes. Douglas just doesn’t look like what the media expects “america’s princess” to look like, up until the point that her dominance is overwhelming, at which point they realize she looks exactly like america’s princess.
Do you think that if one of the white team members had been out of frame when the reaction shots were taken, the paper wouldn’t have run them?
I think it’s likely that there would have been more discussion (if there was any to begin with). Obviously we can’t know this. Possibly USA Today has the most un-racist of all sports sections and this entire conversation is based on faulty suspicions.
A claim of bias or bigotry on thin to no evidence is just crying wolf.
But we should discuss it, because you’re simply never going to be able to prove that a particular slight is a manifestation of conscious or unconscious bias. No one will cop to it.
And so: no one is asking that USA Today to fire or censure anyone. No one is making a specific accusation against any individual person.
I think the purpose of this conversation is not to indict a particular photog or editor but to draw attention to an example (a potential example, granted) of a pattern. It is useful because this is the type of omission that happens a lot, and there’s always a (seemingly reasonable) excuse that it’s just an accident, just dictated by layout, etc.
What I personally suspect – granted, without evidence other than history and the photo itself – is this:
– Assuming the editors simply overlooked Douglas’ absence: I would suspect that the editors would have been less likely to simply overlook the absence of one of the team members with lighter skin. Someone would have said “but where’s Jordyn” or whatever.
– Assuming, on the other hand, the editors knew Douglas was missing, I suspect that they would have been less apt to run the photo if instead of Douglas it was someone else, particular Wieber.
In this case circumstantial evidence is suggestive. Douglas had been the team’s ringer that night. She was the most consistent member of the team despite having to perform in the most events. Further, she was about to be the top representative in all-arounds and had finished first at trials.
In other words, she was exactly the kind of story that sportswriters talk about and look for constantly, a hungry, fearless newcomer on a winning streak at the biggest possible moment, “peaking at the right time.” This all became extremely obvious last night, but it was already there on the night of the team competition; it had started at the trials and kept on right through the team competitions.
Douglas not being featured in the photo is uncomfortably congruent with the seeming underplaying of these facts in the general gushing over the ‘fab five.’ I believe but obviously cannot prove that if another of the team members (again, particularly in the case of Wieber, which I concede is complicated) had dominated the way Douglas did that night, it would have been a major talking point in the immediate post-competition coverage.
Larv
@rb:
I’m not asking for proof. ABL posted the picture with a link suggesting she thought the omission of Douglas from the photo was due to some sort of racial bias or animus. A commenter at #41 observed that Douglas was with her family when the results were announced and thus wasn’t with the team when the celebration photo was taken. All I want to know is why it doesn’t stop there. Why isn’t it enough that the photo editor wanted a “response” shot and Douglas was just too far away to be in the shot? Is there some hole, some reason Occam’s Razor isn’t satisfied, such that we have to invoke microaggression to further explain it?
Larv
@rb:
Assuming Douglas wasn’t in the vicinity when the results were announced, the photo editors had two choices: run the “OMG we won” photo without one of the team members; or run a different picture with all of them. I don’t care who’s missing, they’re going to run the pic with the tears and the silly grins.
rb
@Larv: A commenter at #41 observed that Douglas was with her family
No: that commenter observed she waved to her family.
She was with the group when it was announced, took two steps away from the group to wave to her family (who were in the stands), and was brought back. A photo either at the moment of the announcement or a few seconds later would have been fine.
All I want to know is why it doesn’t stop there
That is why.
rb
Pandering to ignorance is not “good manners.”
Oh please, climb down off Rafalca. Life’s full of these sorts of compromises: see, for instance, respecting one another’s religious beliefs or lack therof. It’s called being an adult.
what you are saying is that people shouldn’t use a perfectly good word that has ZERO connection with a hideous racist slur for no reason other than that some people are under the completely wrong impression that it does
No, that is not what I’m saying.
What I’m saying is that when you have to say one word to pronounce the other, the ear hears both. So why not acknowledge that fact?
Is that so hard to understand? Seriously, this is not rhetorical: answer the question. Do you understand what I just wrote?
Beauzeaux
@wrb: Not salmon. Red. The photo repro sucks. US gymnasts always wear red, white, or blue.
wrb
@Beauzeaux:
That’s a relief.
I’d originally figured that was the point of the post.
“Look! Even girls who are made to wear ugly party dresses can know happiness.”