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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJustice Ginsburg: Kaepernick protest is "dumb and disrespectful"
When asked by Couric how she feels about San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and others athletes, refusing to stand for the anthem, Ginsburg replied, I think its really dumb of them.
Would I arrest them for doing it? No, Ginsburg elaborated. I think its dumb and disrespectful. I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag burning. I think its a terrible thing to do, but I wouldnt lock a person up for doing it. I would point out how ridiculous it seems to me to do such an act.
Couric then asked, But when it comes to these football players, you may find their actions offensive, but what youre saying is, its within their rights to exercise those actions?
Yes, said Ginsburg. If they want to be stupid, theres no law that should be preventive. If they want to be arrogant, theres no law that prevents them from that. What I would do is strongly take issue with the point of view that they are expressing when they do that.
Kaepernick has said that his bended knee during the national anthem before games is to protest wrongdoings perpetrated against African-Americans and other minorities in the U.S. The stance has outraged many even President Obama has called it messy.
https://www.yahoo.com/katiecouric/ruth-bader-ginsburg-on-trump-kaepernick-and-her-lifelong-love-of-the-law-132236633.html
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)You have a right, even to stupid speech.
Frank Cannon
(7,570 posts)The linking of the arms of the whole team.
We are all in this life together, is the message they send. We are all each other's brothers and sisters. We are here for each other.
It's just one reason why the 12s are so enthusiastic about their team.
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)is dumb, ridiculous, arrogant and stupid? Disapproval of police killings is a point of view she would "strongly take issue with"?
I always though she was one of the good ones, but apparently just another authoritarian.
WillowTree
(5,325 posts)X_Digger
(18,585 posts)MindPilot
(12,693 posts)I merely responded to what she said.
But it's a moot point now since Ginsburg has retracted those comments.
marybourg
(12,631 posts)thread has kicked it back up to the top of the page.
MindPilot
(12,693 posts)Leopolds Ghost
(12,875 posts)Am I on DU? (I haven't been here in awhile since a lot of liberals seemed to be leaving.)
writes3000
(4,734 posts)Leopolds Ghost
(12,875 posts)Has Justice Ginsburg taken a strong stance on police violence? She was a close friend of the late Justice Scalia.
Would she have been a close friend of a black, left-oriented Supreme Court justice who endorsed and excused violence against whites, and demeaned white people, i.e. if the race of Justice Scalia were reversed?
Or would such a person be a social pariah, and not invited to Ginsburg's Capitol Hill luncheons, or Texas ranches?
Paladin
(28,262 posts)And while you're at it, be grateful for Ginsburg's continued presence on the Supreme Court---and Scalia's permanent absence from it.
Ginsburg is entitled to express her viewpoints, as is Kaepernick. And you're entitled to your viewpoints, thanks for jurists like Ginsburg.
Lancero
(3,003 posts)Apparently, she isn't sensitive enough if she'd rather go after the protesters instead of going after their reason for protesting.
TIL protesting racial discrimination is "dumb and disrespectful"
X_Digger
(18,585 posts)I guess if you have an opinion about something or someone, you're 'going after' them.
spanone
(135,841 posts)i side with the football player on this issue.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)kwolf68
(7,365 posts)Kap has done little to bring attention to the plight of innocent black's being gunned down. What he has done is brought attention to whether we should stand/sit/etc for the anthem. It has become a free speech protest. NOW, I completely agree with his right to express himself and what he is protesting is noble, but the message has gotten lost in all this. Every stinking argument about Kaep seems to be based on nationalism, patriotism (even faux) and free speech...seldom anymore do I hear any real conversation about police brutality served against black citizens as part of this discussion, at least in relation to Kaep's current stand.
And to me THIS is exactly what the authoritarians want...change the issue from REAL problems (black men getting gunned down) to what is essentially a bullshit issue (standing for a song).
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)Defending the irrational isn't easy, even for a supreme court justice.
Most of the people who reactively leap to pose in genuflection to the flag or the national anthem, are utterly clueless about the constitution.
X_Digger
(18,585 posts).. in an informed position to evaluate her statements.
Free clue: it ain't what you seem to think.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)Last edited Wed Oct 12, 2016, 12:31 PM - Edit history (1)
to elucidate a coherent arguement for her disagreement, instead of labelling what she doesn't like, with slurs.
Quite frankly, she doesn't have any business telling black men how they should peacefully protest the injustice they experience. And calling them "stupid" and "arrogant", is just beyond the pale. Her words are very offensive, it's just that simple. Her past decisions are irrelevant, in my opinion. She clearly exsists in an ivory tower, now.
Peoples' irrational reaction to these protests, is a simple matter of indoctrination from propaganda that maintains their consent for militarism, nothing more.
Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)Taking issue with his form of protest rather talking about what he is protesting.
It's also telling in what seems to be outraging people more - his actions as opposed to what he is acting against.
You'll hear people claim that more people would be willing to listen to concerns if only those who are discriminated against would voice those concerns in a manner that isn't offensive (to the dominating culture). And people say this without once hearing themselves speak.
Kaepernick is very respectfully not engaging in a collective homage to a symbol (and a song can be a symbol). A symbol imbued with feelings (unity, national identity, etc..) that do not reflect the reality of America. The pledge claims "with liberty and justice for all" - yet that isn't the reality of America either.
(When theres significant change and I feel like that flag represents what its supposed to represent in this country, Ill stand, Kaepernick said earlier this month.)
The man is quietly kneeling. Nothing disrespectful in his act. What is shameful, though not the least bit surprising, is people taking offense to a protest against the depth of denial in America - of how some people want to see America (through symbols espousing ideals that don't match reality) and how it actually is in America for people of color.
People can pretend, and they do, that they would be more willing to listen if only Kaepernick had done something else, but that's bullshit.
The same people taking offense now would have taken offense to anything Kaepernick said or did simply because he is challenging ingrained attitudes and beliefs (patriotism/nationalism is taught; affected), and using the symbols of that conditioning to expose the hypocrisy of it all.
Word.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)This board needs more of it.
Leopolds Ghost
(12,875 posts)As a sitting SC Justice? But it's not outside purview to opine on stuff "everybody" agrees with. Pauline Kael principle.
Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)I, being part of the "everybody", simply don't agree with her.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Leopolds Ghost
(12,875 posts)Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)I feel for them, though. I just can't reach them.
WestCoastLib
(442 posts)My issue with Kaep is that his chosen protest simply isn't very effective. I couldn't care less about standing for the flag. I've not stood for the anthem before, for no particular reason other than that I didn't feel like it. I've never been a flag worshiper in the least or given it a second thought.
However, immediately once he started doing it, this became about what the "proper" respect should be given about the flag. Absolutely everything about what he was protesting was lost.
His protest is not even the slightest bit offensive to me. It's extremely ineffective however.
Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)But it didn't have to go there, just safer to go there. Safer to wax patriotic than to talk about racism in America. Safer, and easier. For some people. Those who took offense are the only ones responsible for any diversion away from his protest - well, them and those who enable them by encouraging the diversion in any way.
Kaepernick did not cause the diversion - the offended did with their outrage. But that's to be expected from certain quarters. Easier to attack POC who protest racism and injustice than it is to address the concerns of the people protesting. Easier to make it about wrapping themselves in the flag than it is to deal with their denial.
Blaming him in any way is just another diversion. It goes from his method of protest to how it's not effective - because the offended refuse to address the reason behind the protest and would rather talk about the method. That's all on the offended - not on Kaepernick.
His protest, and the nature of the offense by the offended, has highlighted the hypocrisy behind those offended feelings. And given the widespread discourse, I'd say he was very effective in exposing that hypocrisy.
Whether or not anyone wants to hear the message is on them. You can lead a man to knowledge but you can't make him think. (to borrow a phrase)
WestCoastLib
(442 posts)Whether or not anyone wants to hear the message is on them. You can lead a man to knowledge but you can't make him think.
To borrow the phrase you borrowed, If I keep leading horses to water and they keep kicking me in the head, it's time to change my tactics.
Or to borrow another phrase, If a man protests in a forest and no one is there to hear it, is it an effective protest?
As I said. I don't care at all what Colin does. If it makes him feel better to protest the anthem, by all means he should do so. Personally, I think if he just doesn't feel like standing for the anthem he should go ahead and do so.
But, if his goal is to *truly* try and engage in a conversation about racism in America, he will need to adapt and try another tactic, because this isn't working.
Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)You're telling him he needs to change his ways so as to better appeal to racists. He's a black man - he will never appeal to racists.
And he will never appeal to those who would rather be offended by a black man protesting racism in America than to address the actual problem of racism.
If people shut their eyes, ears, and hearts to his message, it's because they never wanted to hear it to begin with.
POC being attacked for protesting injustices and racism in America, especially by the well meaning, is nothing new. People, with their good intentions, and always only wanting to help, have always criticized the method of protest calling it unproductive or not conducive to achieving change.
It was from a position of white privilege when MLK, Jr. was told to change his methods and it's still the same kind of thinking today.
"You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured."
WestCoastLib
(442 posts)I am acknowledging the reality that if he wants to effectively accomplish what he wants to, he would be better served by changing his strategy.
I'm not blaming him for anything. Only stating that what he's doing isn't effective. If he wants to continue an ineffective tactic, that's his right.
Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)WestCoastLib
(442 posts)Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)The fight for equality continues.
Don't fool yourself into thinking that just because Bull Connor is dead that racism is over. Jim Crow is alive and well in America. Just because black people aren't being hosed down in the road by police doesn't mean they aren't being gunned down in the streets by police.
Yes, black people can sit anywhere on the bus - but just try being a black man hailing a cab after nightfall.
Yes, black people can shop anywhere - as long as they don't mind being followed around like they're serial killers.
Job discrimination still exist. Housing discrimination still exist. The right to vote is still a fight. The right to exist is still a struggle.
Systemic racism still exist.
MLK, Jr. didn't win the war. He won some battles. The war continues.
Stop trying to tell a black man to tailor his protest so as to not offend the sensibilities of racists and nationalistic hypocrites. Because that's all you're doing.
"changing his strategy", you say - but what you're failing to understand is that it wouldn't matter how he protested - racists would find a reason to find fault. He could wrap himself in the flag while humming the "Battle Hymn of the Republic", and he would still be attacked for his methods because he was protesting against racism in America, and not just racism but police violence against black Americans in America.
All anyone has to do is look at the jingoistic, hyper-nationalistic response to his simple act of defiance against an institutional system of racism to know Kaepernick struck all the right nerves.
WestCoastLib
(442 posts)assuming he had a desired goal of engaging relevant discussion he has not struck the right nerves.
Solly Mack
(90,769 posts)uponit7771
(90,346 posts)WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)socialist_n_TN
(11,481 posts)have no problems with the blatantly racist and slavery supporting other verses to that anthem.
I guess it's good that a SC justice doesn't want to have him jailed for it, but what about those other verses?
Leopolds Ghost
(12,875 posts)Everyone see Bryant Gumbel's HBO Real Sports analysis of this issue, it is frightening.
Covers the history of the anthem (and racist lyrics about slavery within)
The recent spate of forced flag-standing during the 7th-inning stretch for God Bless America in MLB
(especially at Yankee Stadium) led by a coalition of military and "first responders" (read Giuliani NYC Cops)
(many of whom identify themselves as part of the military, and part of the fascist Trump coalition)
The literal giant-flag-waving and worship at ballparks by military men, and the fact that no other country on earth except Russia and China do this sort of thing;
The fact that the flag salute originated as the fascist salute, in the same period as Mussolini became popular, and was supplanted by the "hand over heart" in 1942
The supplanting of "America the Beautiful" (a much better song) with "God Bless America"
(a shitty and frankly blasphemous song) (and jingoistic)
The fact that the national anthem used to be a drinking song
whose tune I might add is very poorly reviewed among music critics, meaning it is objectively dissonant, covers too many octaves, and not a classically well-written choral tune.
Leopolds Ghost
(12,875 posts)Or whichever series they was robbed in (was it 2001?) in the wake of 9/11.
Maybe they've caved to jingoism since then.
bullwinkle428
(20,629 posts)about his own musical genius than it is about the song.
Lancero
(3,003 posts)...I suppose someone had to do it, since Scalia isn't here anymore.
You know whats dumb and disrespectful? Attacking the protesters, rather than what they're protesting. It shouldn't take that much sensitivity to see that they're protesting the systemic discrimination that minorities are victims to in this nation.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)It was a gesture of protest that obviously involved some amount of reflection and then boldness of action, and further, he must have known that he was going to piss off a number of his fans, maybe even most of them.
It was a deliberately disrespectful expression, and it's his 1st amendment right to do that.
bmstee01
(453 posts)BUT... He has the right to do it and it has brought a lot of attention to black lives matter and generated a dialogue. So maybe it wasn't so dumb. Idk. She's entitled to her opinion and he's entitled to his. I basically just said a lot of nothing.
heaven05
(18,124 posts)but as soon as she's not, I hope she' quietly retires to her 'ranch' and I never hear anything from her ever again. It's the reason for the protest!!!!!!!!! But AA's are supposed to ALWAYS figure out a way to demonstrate without upsetting white people, it seems. Fuck that.
ecstatic
(32,705 posts)citizens to be gunned down for no reason, with little or no recourse. Actually, it's reprehensible, disgusting, and horrifying.
Not sure why Ginsburg felt the need to get so nasty about someone who is trying (probably in vain) to bring about change.
The flag is an inanimate object. Why are people, especially Christians, demanding blind worship of a symbol? Ginsburg and others should save their outrage for humans who are violated, hurt, and killed!
Rex
(65,616 posts)She didn't say anything original.