White Male Privilege Is Why We Laugh At Lochte And Vilify Douglas

Here we go again. An ideological narrative that makes a ridiculous case that flies in the face of facts.

1) Lochte is being vilified. He is under indictment, he is being vilified in the press. The USOC has condemned his behavior.

2) This is the first I have heard of the Gabby Douglas slight.

3) These two cases are cherry picked to make this ideological narrative. It is ridiculous to take two random unrelated stories to make a tortured argument that doesn't have anything to do with either story.

There is real White Privilege, and there are real issues related to how racial injustice is built into our system. These ridiculous stories take away from the real movement for racial justice.

Bullshit, This crap happens every single day. I've benefited from it and so have you. I've never in my life felt I wouldn't get the job if the other candidate was a PoC. And I always got it. And so did you.

Blacks kids are criminal trespassers and white kids are just feeling their oats. Black fraternities are gangster rapists and white fraternities victimized by drunk women who regret last night's "consent".

You are a confused person.

You are missing the point Bobsal. There is a difference between making intelligent statement based on fact and making wild sensationalist assertions based on an ideological narrative.

I am fully aware of White Privilege. I have seen it in my own interracial family. I have this discussion often, and it isn't very difficult to come up with factual examples of it.

But you are going off on these wild one-sided rants that feed off of an ideological narrative rather than fact. Once you start making sensationalistic assertions that are either unsupported by fact, or even counter-factual, you stop being rational, and you stop being able to have a dialogue.

Let's take the Black fraternity claim you are making. Is this factual?

Can you give me a single link to a place where in the mainstream media a Black fraternity has been portrayed as "gangster rapists" in the past decade? Or were you just making this up to "prove" your ideological point?

Facts matter Bobsal.

I find that weird - I have actually heard more the opposite - people coming out in droves of support for Gabby after there was mention of what she did --- as a matter of fact I did not hear anything about what she actually got reamed about, but heard a boatload of support for her.

And after the news came out about Ryan - he is being reamed in the papers about just that - White male privilege - I heard no support for him at all. I honestly think this will destroy any future sponsorship for him.

And I agree that he ran like a coward rather than stand up and said what an a$$ he was.

And if you don't believe that Ryan is getting a lot of negative press just do a google search with his name - you get headings like:

Starring now in Brazil's theater of the absurd: Ryan Lochte's one-act play of stupidity
Ryan Lochte issues lame non-apology for Olympic 'robbery' fiasco
Chrissy Teigen Just Nailed the Worst Aspect of Ryan Lochte Drama
Is Ryan Lochte the Biggest Jerk of the Rio Games?
Ryan Lochte cost himself 'millions and millions' in scandal, Bob ...

I saw some more neutral ones - but not one that was the least bit positive

Now when you search for Gabby:
How social media outpouring lifted up Gabby Douglas during ...
Gabby Douglas doesn't deserve such hate
Black women are heroes in Rio, but they're not just fighting to win gold
Ode To Olympian Gabby Douglas
Leslie Jones launches #LOVE4GABBYUSA to show Gabby Douglas ...
Why Is Gabby Douglas the Target of So Much Unfair, Petty Criticism?

Not there is a lot about reference to her having an unfair target - which I would agree isn't right or fair- but there is not an actual article or link on the first page that is negative towards her

Thank you Linkat! I am glad someone else thinks that facts matter. And, your posts made me chuckle at the absurdity of this thread.

I think there is some value in the discussion.

Yes, Lochte is being vilified ... by the press. And the press was pretty meh about Douglas's "offenses" and sympathetic to her in general. It was pretty much a non-issue for the press until social media got so bad that it became a story. The opposite is true in social media. Lochte is pretty much getting a pass, while Douglas was completely hammered. I think that is the observation. It's not that the press is giving Lochte a pass, it's the perceived double standard with the public.

Lucky you. Specifically, Douglas has been hammered for 1) standing up straight "at attention" rather than putting her hand over her heart during the national anthem during the team event medal presentation, 2) not appearing sufficiently enthusiastic about supporting her two team mates in the all around competition (because a camera caught her not smiling) and being perceived as being a bad sport about being the third best gymnast in the world (only two per country move into the individual competition and Douglas was eliminated despite scoring higher than every other gymnast except her two teammates) and 3) not having the right hair, appearance, etc.

For some people, you can demonstrate things with data, for others anecdotes work. Just like the barrage of police shooting videos of African Americans brought some people around the way that reams of data and graphs could not, examples like this can have an impact where less visceral but more meaningful data would not. The attacks on Douglas, prolonged and hurtful, were ridiculous and brought out a lot of support for her, but the damage was done. Given that such insignificant events got Douglas branded as sullen and un-American, you would think the outrage would be 1000x worse for Lochte. He exhibited the worst extreme of the ugly American stereotype, but if the press dropped it today, the public would completely shrug it off. I think it is an example of a double standard. Whether you call it white male privilege or black female prejudice, it is worth talking about.

Quite honestly I do think that Lochte (and rightly so) is being reamed in the media - just read some of the headlines. Also they are noting how he is likely to lose any endorsements he has had. Did you read what I found on the first page of a google search?

Now granted I don't read much in social media - facebook and crap like that - because it is crap. So more than likely why I haven't read anything about Gabby (who I have adored since the prior Olympics) other than the outpouring of support she has received. I honestly didn't know what she did to offend anyone. I just tossed it up to crap again like the way she had styled her hair at the last Olympics and it does seem to be more crap. On the positive side - people are stepping up and supporting her.

Funny I just don't expect the difference (not that it is not true) in social media as that tends to be more prevalent in younger people. Those that I would expect to be more open and less likely to buy into stereotypes of color.

Even when I agree with the basic premise of an ideology, facts still matter.

Many Ideological Narratives have some factual merit to them. I believe in the narrative that White people have privilege. That doesn't mean that you can make every single story into an anecdote to support this narrative.



A quick google search easily comes up with some pretty nasty said about Lochte on social media. Did you do any checking before you made this claim, or is this just something that seems like it should be true?

Facts matter.

Gabby explained somewhere that she is from a military family and they were trained to stand in silence as children; sorry no link, but that made sense to me.

Facts matter. Why someone would give you a thumb's down is uncalled for.
I put it back up.

Don't you see how this is dangerous Engineer?

It seems reasonable in this case where you are sure that the ideology behind the anecdotes is righteous and true. But consider the many cases where these anecdotes are used to gain support for ideologies you don't agree with.

Take Donald Trump for example... persuading people to follow an ideology by "visceral" anecdotes instead of "meaningful data" is why Trump is now a major presidential candidate with a chance at winning the White House.

Facts are important. I don't like it when the political right puts ideology ahead of facts. I don't accept it from the political left either.

Well, if there are people willing to support a racial bigot, a person who demeans a soldier's family and the handicapped, they're welcome to their beliefs and opinions. There's no mistaking who they are.

I searched a bit to find what I remembered reading about Gabby and the hand over heart thing and what she learned about standing at attention but didn't find it, but this post is useful, if strident:

James Toby Tanis · Columbia University
Not only was she *not* being disrepectful, she was the only one doing the Right Thing. It was *very* clear, when we were taught in *elementary* school, that you stand to attention and face the flag when singing the National Anthem (men must remove hats and uniformed military must salute) and you place your hand over you heart for the *PLEDGE* -- because, you know, it's a *PLEDGE*. But Fox News, holier-than-thou "patriots" followed by idiots who never bothered to learn the diffence (a group, I think, which includes G. W. Bush) started to put their hands over their hearts for the National Anthem, thus diminishing the commitment of the Pledge, just so they could score cheap political points by impunging the patriotism of those who had actually taken the time to learn how to do things the Right Way.

I think that is on Huffpo but have to go back and check - ah, here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gabby-douglas-rio-olympics-us-anthem_us_57ab3e85e4b06e52746e87c0

Of course you found a few comments about Lochte. The point is that Douglas got a lot more and a lot more vitriolic and that is worth discussing. This should be a leaping off point for discussion, not a statistical analysis on the number of tweets breaking each one down based on a scale of 1 to 5 for viciousness and collecting demographic data on each poster. I suppose you could take that on if you like. The reality is that Douglas, someone who is out competing for her country in a red, white and blue leotard and has been what I consider to be an outstanding US representative abroad was taken to the woodshed in social media over pretty much nothing. Lochte, who has always pushed his own "individuality" over presenting a good public image for a US athlete, pulled the ultimate Ugly American (IMO) and social media basically said "meh". Why is that?

Engineer, I think you are displaying cognitive bias in support of a ideological narrative. Actually, I think this thread is a perfect example of such a cognitive bias. I think you are supporting this bias.

You are claiming that Douglas got a lot more than vitriolic posts than Lochte did. I question this assertion. I suspect that this will be fairly easy to check (since quantity of posts is an objective measure).

The more important question is whether you actually did any checking before making this assertion of fact, or did you just assume that it was true? You are right that a measure on whose tweets are "more vitriolic" would be a little more difficult to set up (you would need a metric). But it is still intellectually dishonest for you to make such as claim as if it is factual simply because it matches your cognitive bias.

Facts matter... especially when you are making an assertion as if it were fact.

You are claiming that Douglas that "a lot more" comments than Lochte. This is a factual claim you making that would be easy enough to check. Did you check this... or did you just make this assumption because it matches your cognitive bias?

If we check it, and it turns out to not be true... would it change your opinion?

Facts matter.

I am getting weary of the ideological word 'ideological'. Can it be banished, please?

Well Osso, what word would you prefer?

This thread is based on a biased political narrative that has some basis in fact. But, people here are taking stories out of context and twisting them to fit the narrative, and they are rejecting any information that calls the narrative into question. The result is a bunch of unsupported assertions that are accepted as fact (even though some of them are demonstrably untrue) simply because they fit the narrative.

I think that "ideological" is the right word for this. If you want to propose a better word, I am listening.

What I have heard on tv regarding white privilege also relates to the white student that has parents that can pay for his/her college, so there is no debt to pay upon graduation. And, the student of color does not have such well heeled parents to the same degree. Oh my God. Those white families, whether they are old line WASP families, or the more recently arrived white ethnic families, seem to have functioned in the existing system due to their whiteness it seems. Actually, I perceive that white families have become wealthier because the system did value their contribution more than the non-white families that were not allowed to function in the same manner. That is not white privilege. Let's call it the value placed on whiteness. Just like the value placed on Protestantism in small town America. Or, the value placed on reading beyond one's grade level in a society that values literacy. I say this since West Indian Blacks that come to NYC seem to function with greater job, career success than many Black American families. What privilege is that? I would think it is Black Self-Esteem Privilege, due to coming from a country that was their's, and also being in a school that was based on the British educational model.

Yes, whites have privilege, but the cop-out answer from Economics is that "market forces" value whites in this society from it inception. What to do? Well when that is figured out, it could also be applied to other less privileged groups. Surprisingly, Jews that were pariahs in Europe for two millenia seemed to never rail against Christian (aka, Gentile) privilege? It might just be an inbred quality of Jews to not scapegoat?