Shawon Dunston: Power Player in Cubs bankruptcy proceedings

So he writes a handwritten letter to the bankruptcy court to object to the Cubs bankruptcy plan.

You want to watch a mailman walk? Write a letter.

4 months ago Mayor of 311 53 comments 0 recs |

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Notice Shawon AND Bip in one photo there. Shudder.

Brian Sabean wants to kick tires. I want to kick Brian Sabean.
Adopted Giant: FREDEMPTION Lewis

by jcb9 on Sep 18, 2009 11:15 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Might I suggest to Shawon that college might not be a bad idea, even at this late age. “Getting on Base 101” should be the first course he looks into.

No Edgar, it's not your fault, it's the fault of the idiot that plays you

by rxmeister on Sep 18, 2009 11:45 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Bonds stands alone.

Neal before Zod!
Official Sponsor of the 1997 San Francisco Giants

by nostocksjustbonds on Sep 18, 2009 1:59 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs

Uhh...

mildly funny in a slightly racist way.

by hokysmksbw on Sep 18, 2009 3:30 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

there certainly wasn’t that intent.

Bonds stands alone.

Neal before Zod!
Official Sponsor of the 1997 San Francisco Giants

by nostocksjustbonds on Sep 18, 2009 3:38 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

look at me. I kant grammer wright either.

Bonds stands alone.

Neal before Zod!
Official Sponsor of the 1997 San Francisco Giants

by nostocksjustbonds on Sep 18, 2009 9:43 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Racist how? The bad spelling is demonstrating that he has the intelligence of a five-year-old, which is also being shown by the dinosaur paper and what is presumably a message scrawled in crayon. I don’t see it.

Context, people. More context is good. Less context is bad. If you're willing to be reductive, then you're willing to be wrong.

by howtheyscored on Sep 18, 2009 4:00 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

RACIST DOWN THE STRETCH NERDS

I know you nerds know NOTHING about the real game of baseball, or any other athletic endeavor requiring teamwork under physical stress.
Mr. F! | comics | art | Nattowear | Unofficial McImage Directory

by Natto on Sep 18, 2009 4:56 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Only the most ignorant of Honkies would deny that grammatical imprecision is a common negative Black stereotype going back to the era of the Minstrel shows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camptown_Races

by hokysmksbw on Sep 19, 2009 2:31 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's a common negative attribute assigned to most negatively-percieved groups or individuals.

It’s not nice, but it’s too broadly applied to be considered specifically anti-African American.

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Sep 20, 2009 2:14 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Fact: Dunston is Black

Fact: nostocksjustbonds chose “de” to represent “the” in his mockery of Dunston.
Fact: Minstrel shows derived its humor from the mockery of Blacks through stereotypical caricature.
Fact: Camptown Races was a song composed specifially for Minstrelsy.

Camptown ladies sing this song, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
Camptown race-track five miles long, Oh, doo-dah day!
I come down south with my hat caved in, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
I go back home with a pocket full of tin, Oh, doo-dah day!
Gonna to run all night!
Gonna to run all day!
I’ll bet my money on thee bob-tail nag,
Somebody bet on the grey.
the long tail filly and de big black horse, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
they fly de track and they cut across, Oh, doo-dah-day!
the blind horse sticken in a big mud hole, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
Can’t touch bottom with a ten foot pole, Oh, doo-dah-day!
Chorus
Old muley cow come on to de track, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
the bob-tail fling her over his back, Oh, doo-dah-day!
Den fly along like a rail-road car, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
Runnin’ a race with a shootin’ star, Oh, doo-dah-day!
Chorus
See dem flyin’ on a ten mile heat, Doo-dah doo-dah!
Round de race track, den repeat, Oh, doo-dah-day!
I win my money on de bob-tail nag, Doo-dah! doo-dah!
I keep my money in an old tow-bag, Oh, doo-dah-day!
Chorus

by hokysmksbw on Sep 20, 2009 4:19 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Fact: Camptown Races was a song composed ~~specifially~~ specifically for Minstrelsy.

by hokysmksbw on Sep 20, 2009 4:20 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Chill dude.

De was used instead of the before there was even an USA. Fact is that that usage persisted in the lower/less educated classes in the U.S. for quite some time. You are coming across as the type guy that protests against the word Niggardly. Perhaps I have fallen into the chasm here and this all tongue on your part. If that is the case I apologize.

That’s it! Katie bar the door for this 79 win team is star crossed! And I am loving it.

by daveinexile on Sep 20, 2009 5:20 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

You guess wrong.

I might, however, object to “Indian-Giver”.

by hokysmksbw on Sep 20, 2009 8:33 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Well played!

And thanks for hearing me out.

That’s it! Katie bar the door for this 79 win team is star crossed! And I am loving it.

by daveinexile on Sep 22, 2009 4:57 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Camptown races is an obscure 160 year old song

If nostocksjustbonds is really referencing a tune written in 1850 to make subtly racist jab at Duston, then he’s about the smartest, most well studied racist I’ve ever met, and I applaud his means even as I deplore his ends.

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Sep 20, 2009 6:51 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Camptown Races is one the most famous songs ever.

There are few obscure songs by Stephen Foster because his works are in public domain. If you are unfamiliar with “Camptown Races”, “Old Folks at Home” (aka “Swanee River”), “My Old Kentucky Home”, “Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair”, “Oh! Susanna”, or “Beautiful Dreamer” — YOU DID NOT GROW UP AN AMERICAN!

Take it Johnny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noYptXPHiAE&feature=related

Sang it Cowboys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H2W1lK7P-I&feature=related

Take it Al:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peZseIp3QGI

Ehh…What’s up, Doc? (7:00-7:30)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Uah9ZY9YOw

by hokysmksbw on Sep 20, 2009 8:54 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Please.

Camptown Races is 160 year old song with about as much current cultural currency as the Teapot Dome scandal. People know of it because it’s essentially become a children’s tune, and it’s racist context has been largely forgotten beyond the ivory towers of scholarly esoterica.

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Sep 20, 2009 10:12 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

First you say it's obscure, now you say it's a "children's tune"

Meaning that it must be a tune familiar and easily recognizable to anyone who has a child or has been a child — therefore, EVERYONE KNOWS IT.

Note that there are NO CHILDREN in those clips and each clip is from a different decade starting in the 1930’s ending with the 1970’s BLAZING SADDLES clip, a movie which is broadcast on cable television in the US every other month. Kids learn that song in school only because Foster’s songs are all within public domain — costing music teachers nothing.

Get your logic to be logical, Birther (or is it Bagger?).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dJa7svJZjs&feature=related

Wow, so obscure Japanese New Age bands recorded it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4NVg8i8i1Y&feature=related

Still a hit with Rednecks.

by hokysmksbw on Sep 21, 2009 1:30 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I wrote obscure because it is.

Until you brought it up, I haven’t sung it or thought about it since grade school (and, rally, I don’t think about it too deeply then). The idea that a (presumably) adult thought to reference the racist undertone of this tune in the same way that I might reference the Simpsons simply strains credulity. Just because you seem to have an encyclopedic of eighteenth century racist tropes doesn’t mean that the original author does. If anything, I would speculate that the use of “de” was not a nod to antebellum racists, but a conscience effort to avoid the more modern stereotypical use of “da” (such as “in da house” or “da bomb”) while maintaining the general point about Dunston’s level of intelligence.

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Sep 21, 2009 2:08 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

If you learned it in school -- it's NOT OBSCURE

As I originally posted, the mocking of Shawon Dunston was only “slightly racist”. The use of “de” as a misspelling of “the” is ALWAYS associated with Minstrel Show stereotyping of Afro-American vernacular in American culture.

To quote Joel Harris “quoting” Uncle Remus:

TIME GOES BY TURNS [excerpt]

One en all on us knows who’s a pullin’ at de bits
Like de lead-mule dat g’ides by de rein,
En yit, somehow or nudder, de bestest un us gits
Mighty sick er de tuggin’ at de chain.

Hump yo’se’f ter de load en fergit de distress,
En dem w’at stan’s by ter scoff,
For de harder de pullin’, de longer de res’,
En de bigger de feed in de troff.

by hokysmksbw on Sep 21, 2009 2:18 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I really, really think that you’re reading too much into this.

Context, people. More context is good. Less context is bad. If you're willing to be reductive, then you're willing to be wrong.

by howtheyscored on Sep 21, 2009 2:34 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

The use of "de" as a misspelling of "the" is ALWAYS associated with Minstrel Show stereotyping of Afro-American vernacular in American culture.

Except that it’s only associated with that by people who know enough about Minstrel Show stereotyping to make the connection, which is a small and likely shrinking sliver of the general population. What examples have persisted in any level in the general conciencousness have, like Camptown Races, lost the original context which gave meaning to their subtext. I suspect that there are more people around this site who can read the latin in my sig and recognize the reference than would read that letter and draw a connection to Camptown Races.

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Sep 21, 2009 6:52 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Preposterous Bullshit.

Next, you’ll be saying nobody in America remembers “Old Man River.”

Fuckin’ Foreign Poindexters.

by hokysmksbw on Sep 22, 2009 12:37 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Is that near the Mrs. Sippy?

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Sep 22, 2009 2:54 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Dr. Taitz, I presume?

“Dere’s an ol’ man called de Mississippi, Dat’s de ol’ man that I’d like to be…”

by hokysmksbw on Sep 22, 2009 6:03 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Are you challanging my overlordship in the Grammar Sin Bin based soully on my skin color?

That’s it! Katie bar the door for this 79 win team is star crossed! And I am loving it.

by daveinexile on Sep 20, 2009 11:41 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Good grief.

by Natto on Sep 20, 2009 8:21 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Sure, but there is a seriously compelling amount of context in the dinosaur paper / crayon scrawled letter to suggest that nostocksjustbonds was calling Dunston a four-year old.

Seriously, I’m as sensitive to maybe-racism / sexism / homophobia / etc. as anybody, and there is just no way that this is coming from that kind of a place.

Unless I’m missing all the stereotypes where black people love dinosaurs and hate pencils.

Context, people. More context is good. Less context is bad. If you're willing to be reductive, then you're willing to be wrong.

by howtheyscored on Sep 21, 2009 8:49 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

This mockery of Dunston reflects the attitude that Black Men are “boys”. Dismissing the “Negro” intellect as being no better than that of children. If you do not recognize that, you are a racist. Just not a cognizant one.

I dare you to show it to Blacks in Shawon’s age group and point out that a White guy made it. See how it plays.

by hokysmksbw on Sep 21, 2009 2:52 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

This is a fairly ridiculous overreaction, to my mind. The image is completely innocuous and nostocksjustbonds has expressed explicitly that there were no ill-intentions involved. Like I said, I’m hypersensitive to this stuff, myself, and right now you’re blowing my worst overreaction so far out of the water that it can’t even see the water anymore. The water is a dot to it.

Context, people. More context is good. Less context is bad. If you're willing to be reductive, then you're willing to be wrong.

by howtheyscored on Sep 21, 2009 3:00 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

The problem is that you are arguing with a non-White guy about racism.

I accepted that nostocksjustbonds did not conciously mean to be racist, nonetheless, he was…slightly.

You are not hypersensitive, you are neither educated nor experienced enough to be sensitive on the issue.

by hokysmksbw on Sep 21, 2009 3:17 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Clearly, you know me.

Context, people. More context is good. Less context is bad. If you're willing to be reductive, then you're willing to be wrong.

by howtheyscored on Sep 21, 2009 3:54 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

So I can never question the intelligence of a person of with difference ethnic background?

Gotcha.

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Sep 21, 2009 6:54 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

It’s basically the “you never played baseball” argument for racism.

Context, people. More context is good. Less context is bad. If you're willing to be reductive, then you're willing to be wrong.

by howtheyscored on Sep 21, 2009 7:35 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Story time.

You can question anything, you just can’t assume you already know the answers based upon ethnic generalizations.

My 10th Grade English teacher was a Black woman, she went to a school district picnic. Arriving, she sat at the table with the predominantly White faculty. One of the faculty wives approached my teacher to introduce herself then added, “We have watermelon.”

My teacher excused herself from the table and went home.

by hokysmksbw on Sep 22, 2009 3:43 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Our assumption that Dunston is stupid has nothing to do with ethnic background

It’s because he stubbornly repeats, and even attempts to propagate, his past mistakes.

VAE PVTO DEVS FIO

by Bhaakon on Sep 22, 2009 2:59 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm not white

and I didn’t think it was racist at all.

by Natto on Sep 21, 2009 11:25 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

You lack experience and education on the topic.

Are you under under the age of 42 and not openly homosexual? You can stiil enlist the Army.

Spending the first 5 years of your life in the 1970’s Fillmore might be good, too, if you can find a time machine.

by hokysmksbw on Sep 22, 2009 3:31 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah, you don’t know anything about either Natto’s experience or his education on the topic. You’re just openly dismissing anybody who doesn’t happen to be you right now. Poor form.

Context, people. More context is good. Less context is bad. If you're willing to be reductive, then you're willing to be wrong.

by howtheyscored on Sep 22, 2009 9:37 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

If he has ANY useful knowledge or experience he has yet to demonstrate it — not unlike yourself, Fakey Fakerson.

by hokysmksbw on Sep 22, 2009 12:10 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don’t feel any obligation to prove myself to you, nor do I feel like this is the proper forum for this. Feel free to continue falsely accusing people if you’d like.

by Natto on Sep 22, 2009 2:07 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs