ATLANTA — Announcements by the Washington NFL team and the Cleveland Indians that they will consider name changes have raised questions about whether the Atlanta Braves will do likewise.
The team’s top executive, Terry McGuirk, has an unambiguous answer.“We are so proud of our team’s name, and our expectation is that we will always be the Atlanta Braves,” said McGuirk, the Braves’ chairman.
“I would say unequivocally the Atlanta Braves’ name will stay the Atlanta Braves,” McGuirk added a few minutes later. “We come to that position as a result of … a lot of listening to our fans, to the Native A… Read the rest of this entry »
As police officers wrestled Gustavo Martinez Contreras to the ground while clearing out protesters in Asbury Park last month, newly released video shows he repeatedly tried to tell them “I’m a reporter” through his face mask.
Martinez Contreras, a reporter for the Asbury Park Press, was charged with failure to disperse — accusations that were later dropped.
But a report released Wednesday by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office found the officers who arrested him “had no knowledge they were apprehending a reporter,” clearing them of wrongdoing.Videos released Wednesday provide new details of … Read the rest of this entry »
The New York Times published a report yestersay that argues that the coronavirus is racist. The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirusis the headline.
The Times sued the CDC to get data that “is far from complete. Not only is race and ethnicity information missing from more than half the cases, but so are other epidemiologically important clues — such as how the person might have become infected.”
If we named sports teams after their owners, how long would be it before Joe Buck makes a crack about keeping up with the Joneses? Not until Dallas starts winning.
Popular New Jersey-based sub shop Jersey Mike’s found itself going viral on Twitter this week. And it didn’t even write the tweet that was trending.
Comedian Yassir Lester tweeted what appeared to be a statement from Jersey Mike’s on June 30 that claimed the company would be changing the name of its bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich to a bacon, lettuce and ‘mato sandwich — a BLM, an apparent tribute to Black Lives Matter.
Literally what is jersey Mike’s doing. pic.twitter.com/9XohWNOa4n— Yassir Lester (@Yassir_Lester)With more and more companies and corporations making statements in support of … Read the rest of this entry »
Congressman Chris Smith, House of Representative portrait
Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey’s 4th Congressional District is an original cosponsor of the JUSTICE Act, comprehensive legislation which was introduced in the House of Representatives on Thursday. The legislation would build safer communities by ensuring greater transparency and accountability in policing.
In signing an executive order on policing today—Safe Policing, For Safe Communities—President Trump said that “reducing crime and raising standards are not opposite goals.”
Jada Tulloch and Luke Farrell, Middletown High School North seniors. Photo courtesy of Luke Ferrell
By Luke Ferrell
Middletown, it’s time that we have a conversation about race. Merriam-Webster defines a conversation as “an oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas”. Let’s “exchange” ways to make our community a better place without “exchanging” hate or negativity. I’d like to explain why even the “fifth safest city in America to raise a child” (SafeWise, 2016) cannot be excluded from hearing stories of overcoming racial adversity.
Let me solve America’s current war on statues. Not just weigh in – solve it.
Whether or not to remove a statue should be governed by the “doctrine of subsidiarity.” What is subsidiarity? The doctrine holds, “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need.”
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” — Juliet of the House of Capulet
I’ve written columns for many outlets over the past 15 years, and one practice I’ve always maintained is to spell out the whole “N” word when it is being used in an historical context, as in, “Slave owners referred to blacks as “N.” I do the same when quoting another person, as in, “He called him a “N.” I’ve also reserved the right to spell it out in condemnation of the word itself, as in, “It’s wrong to call anyone a “N.”
My thinking was that the “N” word is an insult when intended that way. I owe my American brothers and sisters with superior protective pigment the courtesy of not using that word as an insult, because it is worse than other words on the insult scale.
However, I don’t owe anyone a distortion of history. I don’t owe anyone less than exactitude when it comes to a quote, lest I be distorting history myself.
Yet every single editor I’ve had changes the spelled out word to the abbreviated “N word” before my column is published (I’m using the abbreviated “N” word now instead of spelling out the word, in recognition of Ricochet’s past practice).
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t use the word casually. I don’t use it in my own conversations and have not done so in decades. I think the only time I ever really used it was during a fistfight on the playground. There are different rules when throwing down — I would get called a cracker, a honky, etc. and I would yell out as many reciprocal remarks as I could. None of the white or black kids watching considered it racist. Afterwards, even the combatants did not. When you are in a fight, the rules of decorum are suspended. You’retrying to insult the guy you’re punching in the face.
