Bubba Wallace


anatess2
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7 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

It isn't about liking him.

Cancel culture simply means that if someone does anything you disagree with at any time, you can never give them the benefit of the doubt or even offer them a chance at making a simple apology.

I find it disturbing that you don't even accept a fairly gracious apology.  Now, if you believe his apology is insincere, that is another story.  But for me, it sounded sincere.

An apology made after such eggregious accusations simply to save face is not a sincere apology, nor is it really an apology.  Let me see him go back to Don Lemon and passionately state this apology in the same manner he passionately accused people like me of being racist.  Twitter apology that is easily swept under a 2 second news coverage after all the mess he created fanning racial divisiveness going on those news rounds is either insincere or cowardly.  And where's his mother?

Edited by anatess2
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4 hours ago, anatess2 said:

An apology made after such eggregious accusations simply to save face is not a sincere apology, nor is it really an apology.  Let me see him go back to Don Lemon and passionately state this apology in the same manner he passionately accused people like me of being racist.  Twitter apology that is easily swept under a 2 second news coverage after all the mess he created fanning racial divisiveness going on those news rounds is either insincere or cowardly.  And where's his mother?

[EDIT: Two hours later and having received more information in the form of a photograph of the noose—yes, it was actually a noose—I have rethought my position on this. My current opinion is almost 180 degrees different, but I'm leaving this here for context and as a reminder to myself of how fallible our initial judgments can be.]

I find myself in agreement with anatess. We are commanded to forgive, even without apology, and we are explicitly commanded to forgive even our enemies if they repent toward us. So I cannot but believe that we are expected to do so in such a case.

My problem is that such apologies lack any apparent element of sincerity. An apology should be given with the same forcefulness and vehemence as the original false accusation. Wallace's "apology" was, "Well, good thing I was wrong about this. Thank heavens it didn't actually occur. Oh, well, a little embarrassment is worth it to insure justice for all!" It's baloney. It's fake.

The whole situation appears blown completely out of proportion. Someone tied a bowline at the end of a pull string a year ago, and as a result, a national scandal erupts. It was stupid for Wallace to make such reckless allegations, and it was of course far stupider for the lying press to blow it up into scandal territory. But did you see Wallace saying, "Hey, calm down, it was only a little noose, not an actual threat to life"? No. It was a "hate crime"! It required FBI intervention! It was a threat to society itself! And Wallace was actively fanning the flames, not seeking reconciliation or sanity, but only an ever greater outrage.

Toward a bowline someone tied a year ago.

Having thrown the public tantrum he did, Wallace should spend the next week doing the media circuit, saying that his big mouth created a scandal out of LITERALLY nothing, and that maybe this should be a lesson to others who might want to reflexively scream "Racism!" instead of actually look at what happened. Heck, if he would simply have stated, "I said something stupid. I was an idiot, and I admit it. Don't do the same thing I did", that would have been a great step forward. Instead, he indistinctly mumbles something about "embarrassment" (not "I am embarrassed and ashamed for my moronic, divisive reaction", and not even "I am embarrassed" at all, but just something along the lines of "It was worth the embarrassment") and then extols the virtue of the overreaction itself.No. It's baloney. There is not an ounce of sincerity in the wording of Wallace's non-apology. Yes, we should forgive him, because we risk losing our own souls to hatefulness and spite if we do not. This I freely admit. But don't tell me that Wallace apologized. He did no such thing. Not a modicum of contrition was on display. It's business as usual.

Edited by Vort
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1 hour ago, Vort said:

... then extols the virtue of the overreaction itself..

I can understand this is a sticking point.  But it is very human. 

No one likes being wrong.  And what people hate more is having to admit they were wrong.  For a person to publicly admit they had made a mistake at all is still praiseworthy IMNSHO.

I know I've spent a lot of time always thinking the worst of those on the other side of the aisle.  I know that I've spent a lot of time blaming the ills of society on public acts of outrage at nothing from the other side.  And when it is truly outrageous, I think it justified to call them out on that.  And I also think it is profitable to enumerate the reasons why it was so wrong.

But I've also found a startling pattern that has been on the left, that is now infecting the right.  Cancel culture.

The biggest part of Cancel culture is a refusal to forgive.  It has been on full display from the left with all the boycotts, the public shaming, the calls for closing various businesses, vandalizing, doxing, firing people for a mispoken word or phrase.  But I've seen smaller instances of the same attitudes (if not the same practices) from the right. 

But here is an instance where the right may be getting to the point that we are not willing to forgive the pecadillos of the left.  And yes, I call it a pecadillo.  I know what it is like to be raised in an environment where everything seems to be aimed against you.  And any little hint can easily be taken the wrong way when you're in that environment -- and be correct to be taken as such.  It is very easy for a person with that mindset (reinforced by reality) to tilt at windmills when they are OUT of that environment.

Should he change his mindset? Yes.  But such a change isn't going to happen overnight.  So, I'm grateful for the baby step he's taken.  I'm willing to forgive.

Edited by Carborendum
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Well, they finally released a photo of the NOOSE.

Noose.thumb.jpg.584c4f9fffa438ddc264ef9d44484fcb.jpg

He was right.  It was a straight up NOOSE.  This is NOT what you'd normally see as a door pull rope.  I saw the images of other doors with a loop at the end of the rope.  They didn't look like this one.

Now, @Just_A_Guy brings up a good point.  How could a noose be useful as a pull rope?  It is made to slip.  True. But in Hollywood, they use a variant of the old hangman's knot such that it looks like a noose.  But it does not slip.  I'm going to guess that is what this is.  I don't know exactly what they do. But that is my guess.

Edited by Carborendum
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7 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

Well, they finally released a photo of the NOOSE.

Noose.thumb.jpg.584c4f9fffa438ddc264ef9d44484fcb.jpg

He was right.  It was a straight up NOOSE.  This is NOT what you'd normally see as a door pull rope.  I saw the images of other doors with a loop at the end of the rope.  They didn't look like this one.

There goes one of my points of criticism. Whether or not it slips, that is certainly a noose, or at least designed to look like one.

I would note that as a teenager, I was taught to tie a noose, and I thought it was pretty cool in a goth sort of way. For me, the noose was a symbol of the Old West and cowboyhood. It was how a cattle rustler or a horse thief might meet his end. Tying a noose was still a ridiculous thing to do, but if I had been accused of racial harassment or intimidation, it would have been a patently false accusation. The racial aspect of the symbol of a noose would never even have crossed the mind of this western boy.

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You know, I'm starting to rethink my response to Wallace's reaction. A black man, the only black driver on the circuit, goes into his newly assigned garage and finds the pull rope tied as a noose. Ideally, he would not jump to conclusions, but is that realistic? Given the state of racial relations in the US at this moment, I think it is not reasonable to expect that Wallace would not assume such a thing was targeted at him personally.

And when Wallace finds out that he's wrong after touring the media circuit decrying this supposedly racist act, is he really supposed to say, "Totally my bad, false alarm, everything's fine"? I'm not sure it was totally his fault. It's disappointing that it turned into a media circus, but I'm not sure it's fair to lay that at Wallace's door. He did admit embarrassment; maybe it is unreasonable to expect anything more.

I'm very glad I"m not God. My judgment skills have a ways to go.

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I have an opinion that is expressed in two quotes:

Quote #1.  To a hammer everything looks like a nail.

Quote #2 (I believe comes from Shakespeare)  Nothing is as good or as bad as it seams only that thinking makes it so.

 

The Traveler

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