Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 484204)

Absolutely. Especially when "not seeing" a characteristic can often mean removing a really important part of who someone is.

Originally Posted by dtb (Post 484264)

My attempts at self-censorship were not about pretending not to notice, but an attempt (ham-fisted, no doubt) to avoid reducing a person to one trait (being black, or gay, or whatever). Of course it's not "racist" to notice someone's race -- as I have heard kids grappling with issues of racism claim -- but I am hopeful that by taking note of when I feel the impulse to shorthand a description with "that Chinese guy" or similar, I think twice about whether I'm guilty of defining a person by his/her racial description.

Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller (Post 484254)

There is an explosion of commentary on Incognito and the Dolphins. The best I've seen is by Tom Boswell in the Washington Post. He scorches the entire NFL and its accumulated atrocities. Feel free to disagree with any one or two of his examples. (Did Ray Lewis get away with murder?) But the overall indictment holds. Here is Boswell's column:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports...769_story.html

Boswell also missed a point.

I have season tickets to the Redskins. The game day experience of tailgating is great. But once you get in FedEx field....and many other stadiums around the NFL, you face moronic louts in such great numbers that you wonder how these slathering drunkards walk upright, and indeed sometimes they can't. Don't get me wrong. I'm no teetotaler. I've been overserved by any number of unscrupulous innkeepers. But the puking obscenities by men, and it is mostly, but not exclusively men, are repulsive. The fans are taking cues from players, and vice-versa, in a widening circle offal.

The NFL is only a short bus ride from a breakdown. Teddy Roosevelt, (who, we later learn, had, shall we say, other issues) cleaned up college football from his bully pulpit. Time to do the same thing with the Gangster players and fans in the pro game.

Save football, and save ferrets.

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.) (Post 484256)

How do you even make it from your tailgate party to the stadium without encountering this behavior? Attending football games is miserable these days because it's an excuse men use to get totally loaded and behave like, well, Richie Incognito.

I think Ray Lewis got away with ordering a murder, FWIW. But it's okay, because he found god.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 484247)

Why do they use "bullying" here? Bullying is hazing people, kids picking on each other, etc. It's not a form of abuse like this. This stuff is bigoted harassment, hostile work environment, racist abuse, etc.

Calling this guy a bully is expanding that term way beyond what it is, and letting him off way too easy. The NFL should call him the simple thing he is: Racist. And then fire the asshole as any corporation would.

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 484252)

I think the "bullying crisis" is bullshit. It's a soft-headed fixation of bleeding hearts who need hobbies. Kids get picked on. Pledges, players, and employees get hazed and demeaned. It's part of life.

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower (Post 484253)

The general reaction is more along the lines of what GGG says. See:

http://espn.go.com/blog/miami-dolphi...oom-for-martin

At worst, they say, he is a "jokester" with "no filter." Here, he showed no filter while allegedly molesting a young black woman:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/99...012-no-charges

Here he is, shirtless and loaded, screaming racial epithets and profanities in a bar in some steroid-induced rage:

http://www.tmz.com/2013/11/04/richie...ar-rage-video/

I know I should be fretting about the societal implications of bullying in the NFL locker room, but like I said, I could not care less what these guys do, except for the entertainment value, and this is highly entertaining stuff. I think the NFL should have Incognito and Martin star in some sort of halftime show special.

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan (Post 484257)

I haven't really encountered much of this in the 12 years that I've had Texans tickets. There have been some issues up in the top levels, but by and large, it's always been a pretty decent place to watch football. Granted, the people around me are generally also PSL holders and we've known each other since the 2002 season. But opposing fans around us have always commented that it's a downright pleasant experience to come to our stadium.

I do think that the NFL is at a crossroads right now where it's suddenly asked to be part of the modern era, and it's kicking and screaming the whole way as it "evolves". Attitudes about the possibility of gay players. Concern about head injuries/CTE. (Tony Dorsett is the latest, though I was interested that he said in one article that he was told it could be reversed.) An awareness of a female audience. Now scrutiny over bullying and hazing and the bullshit tough guy attitudes that were addressed in the article Ty posted. Some of these issues (like the female audience, given the demographics I see at games every other week in the fall and winter) it has been fairly good addressing, but others have resulted in major missteps and all out fuckups.

My husband is pulling back from football and focusing his rooting interests in soccer instead. One of my regular companions at games declined an offer to go to the Sunday night game because she was so put off by the Frontline documentary. (I saw it too, and the comparison to Big Tobacco is apt.) Increasingly, I suspect that I'll not renew my season tickets eventually, which was unthinkable when I bought the PSL in 2001.

At times, I agree with a lot of people who think that the NFL is at its peak and will fall soon. But then I remember that it's not just the NFL, but thousands of high schools and colleges across the country. Getting the NFL to change because of economics is one thing. Getting emotionally invested booster clubs at square state universities? That's an entirely different story. It'd be a massive cultural shift that I'm not sure the country wants. OTOH, I'm probably one of those who wouldn't let her kid play football, knowing what I know currently about the head trauma issues.

Going back to the fan stuff, Real Sports with Bryant Gumble had a fairly decent piece on fan on fan violence last year.

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.) (Post 484263)

You should take the Brazenette to an Iggles game.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 484259)

this part is just not true. The players are locked in a protected cage and fed any number of drugs (at least they were. In the novel "North Dallas Forty" the protagonist complained about the o-line because they all took speed, but were so poorly trained on doing it they tended to peak a few hours after the games). Whether the behavior of players in the confines of the team relationship is objectionable strikes me as the same question Colonel Jessup posed in a Few Good men.

The fans otoh are out of control. I took my kids to a few Lions game and we sat in the Club Level. Even that was drunken ugly. Two games and I was out of ever doing that.

they sell beer and booze way too freely. In fact, there is little else to buy. What percentage of commercials are for beer during an average NFL game? The drunken fans are a result of the teams and the league wanting to ring that cash register.

Originally Posted by taxwonk (Post 484275)

I think the problem isn't with the square states as much as it is the South. Football is the primary belief system in many southern locales.

Originally Posted by Icky Thump (Post 484277)

I think the fans at Jets games seem pretty cool.

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 484279)

Queens is an oasis of sanity and security.

Originally Posted by Icky Thump (Post 484281)

They haven't played in Queens since 1984. Now they are in the far more pleasant state of NJ.