Jason Whitlock: The Explication 2.0

[Walt]

This. A lot of the stuff he said about the neo liberal journalists and the BLM movement was spot on.

people can get past their emotions and allegiances to concede anything about them tho. sure, they're all GREAT.

But he ain't really say shyt, man. All them fukkin words and he never said anything. We've abandoned God? Blacks are actually conservative? Black intellectuals have teamed up with white hipsters to hijack black social consciousness? Dude will sum up complex issues in half a fukking bar, provide no real facts or context or history, then selectively reference MLK or Malcolm X like that will give his paragraph credibility.

I often can't stand deadspin as a site. And if you gave me half an hour - an hour at the fukkin most - I'd write an incisive critique of that site that actually had some substance, cited specific examples, and put their function as a site in a larger context. This dude only has a problem with a site or an employer when they shyt on him. He has no interest outside of self-interest. He lacks the most basic integrity. Bomani might come off as a lot of things to people - a diva, a know-it-all, biased and selectively silent when it comes to people and teams he loves - but he does have basic intellectual integrity. And he's consistent when he takes a position about values and societal issues. Whitlock, when you gather all of his writing together, doesn't actually believe anything that isn't reactionary and designed specifically for self-promotion.

 

[mastermind]

This. A lot of the stuff he said about the neo liberal journalists and the BLM movement was spot on.

what does that word mean?

 

[PS5 Pro]

I'm looking at the thread title and I'm like "ummmmmm, ok"

 

[Greenstrings]

i watched coates unravel in his back and forth with chait and give a half-assed mea culpa when he attributed things to chait that chait did not say, like "oh, nah, fukk that...facts don't matter...what about this horrible ass history tho, WHITE MAN?" and chait bowed out, because he KNEW the deal right then and there.

I'm generally sympathetic to the anti-partisan/groupthink stance you're espousing but this is pure revisionism. Chait bowed out because he got washed. It's as simple as that.

 

[mastermind]

But he ain't really say shyt, man. All them fukkin words and he never said anything. We've abandoned God? Blacks are actually conservative? Black intellectuals have teamed up with white hipsters to hijack black social consciousness? Dude will sum up complex issues in half a fukking bar, provide no real facts or context or history, then selectively reference MLK or Malcolm X like that will give his paragraph credibility.

I often can't stand deadspin as a site. And if you gave me half an hour - an hour at the fukkin most - I'd write an incisive critique of that site that actually had some substance, cited specific examples, and put their function as a site in a larger context. This dude only has a problem with a site or an employer when they shyt on him. He has no interest outside of self-interest. He lacks the most basic integrity. Bomani might come off as a lot of things to people - a diva, a know-it-all, biased and selectively silent when it comes to people and teams he loves - but he does have basic intellectual integrity. And he's consistent when he takes a position about values and societal issues. Whitlock, when you gather all of his writing together, doesn't actually believe anything that isn't reactionary and designed specifically for self-promotion.

it was such a lazy point. I have no idea what athiesm has to do with this conversation and I am not sure anyone else does other than "well they dont believe in God." Its pointless.

 

[Basaglia]

I'm generally sympathetic to the anti-partisan/groupthink stance you're espousing but this is pure revisionism. Chait bowed out because he got washed. It's as simple as that.

it's not like anyone has to take my word for it. there's a record. chait didn't concede defeat. chait wasn't the one who apologized for distorting the other man's position either.

see, this is what i'm talking about. there wasn't a WINNER there. there was no reason to be ROOTING for anyong. that was just two intellectuals having a discussion and then it turned into twitter schoolyard garbage, and chait recognized this and dipped. coates glossed over the fact that he put words in chait's mouth and gave us a "history lesson", as if chait was debating these historical facts. that was not the argument, but it, SOMEHOW, became that.

again...there's a record.

 

[Greenstrings]

it was such a lazy point. I have no idea what athiesm has to do with this conversation and I am not sure anyone else does other than "well they dont believe in God." Its pointless.

Nah you kinda get what he was angling for and it's pretty central to his MO. Highlight an increasingly contentious divide and play it to your advantage.

Blacklivesmatter in many ways rests at the cusp of an ideological/generational break in the black community and he thinks he can get those that are uncomfortable with the movement onside by using religious disparity as a dog whistle.

 

[mastermind]

Nah you kinda get what he was angling for and it's pretty central to his MO. Highlight an increasingly contentious divide and play it to your advantage.

Blacklivesmatter in many ways rests at the cusp of an ideological/generational break in the black community and he thinks he can get those that are uncomfortable with the movement onside by using religious disparity as a dog whistle.

i know his MO. Its lazy is what Im saying.

 

[Greenstrings]

it's not like anyone has to take my word for it. there's a record. chait didn't concede defeat. chait wasn't the one who apologized for distorting the other man's position either.

see, this is what i'm talking about. there wasn't a WINNER there. there was no reason to be ROOTING for anyong. that was just two intellectuals having a discussion and then it turned into twitter schoolyard garbage, and chait recognized this and dipped. coates glossed over the fact that he put words in chait's mouth and gave us a "history lesson", as if chait was debating these historical facts. that was not the argument, but it, SOMEHOW, became that.

again...there's a record.

Oh for sure there's a record, happens that I revisited it quite recently (Coates v Chait, 2014) which is why I'm quite confident that you're mischaracterizing Coates here. At no point does he suggest that he distorted Chait's position but feel free to demonstrate otherwise.

And nope. From Disraeli and Gladstone, to Lincoln and Douglas, to Baldwin and Buckley, debates amongst intellectuals have always been a competitive affair. So much of what people blame on social media has always been a feature of public life and etiquette and you're making that same misattribution here.

This isn't about rooting for anything. The objective is to demonstrate why your opponent is wrong through the force and cogency of your argument. Coates in the run up to his piece on reparations was drawing from a vast pool of academic resources on the topic of black pathology and Chait simply didn't measure up.

If you really believe that historical facts are divisible from the lived reality they engender then we aren't going to agree about much. But i guess that would also explain why your impression of the debate differs from mine.

 

[NYC Rebel]

But he ain't really say shyt, man. All them fukkin words and he never said anything. We've abandoned God? Blacks are actually conservative? Black intellectuals have teamed up with white hipsters to hijack black social consciousness? Dude will sum up complex issues in half a fukking bar, provide no real facts or context or history, then selectively reference MLK or Malcolm X like that will give his paragraph credibility.

I often can't stand deadspin as a site. And if you gave me half an hour - an hour at the fukkin most - I'd write an incisive critique of that site that actually had some substance, cited specific examples, and put their function as a site in a larger context. This dude only has a problem with a site or an employer when they shyt on him. He has no interest outside of self-interest. He lacks the most basic integrity. Bomani might come off as a lot of things to people - a diva, a know-it-all, biased and selectively silent when it comes to people and teams he loves - but he does have basic intellectual integrity. And he's consistent when he takes a position about values and societal issues. Whitlock, when you gather all of his writing together, doesn't actually believe anything that isn't reactionary and designed specifically for self-promotion.

Whitlock and Annotations are mortal enemies.

 

[Basaglia]

But he ain't really say shyt, man. All them fukkin words and he never said anything. We've abandoned God? Blacks are actually conservative? Black intellectuals have teamed up with white hipsters to hijack black social consciousness? Dude will sum up complex issues in half a fukking bar, provide no real facts or context or history, then selectively reference MLK or Malcolm X like that will give his paragraph credibility.

I often can't stand deadspin as a site. And if you gave me half an hour - an hour at the fukkin most - I'd write an incisive critique of that site that actually had some substance, cited specific examples, and put their function as a site in a larger context. This dude only has a problem with a site or an employer when they shyt on him. He has no interest outside of self-interest. He lacks the most basic integrity. Bomani might come off as a lot of things to people - a diva, a know-it-all, biased and selectively silent when it comes to people and teams he loves - but he does have basic intellectual integrity. And he's consistent when he takes a position about values and societal issues. Whitlock, when you gather all of his writing together, doesn't actually believe anything that isn't reactionary and designed specifically for self-promotion.

i took this column to be an overview of the things he will be addressing in more detail in future blog entries and podcast discussions.

i'd have to review all of his columns for lack of consistency on specific issues because I flat out haven't read them all.

and i don't find it to be true that he never offers historical context or facts when tackling complex issues. his best column of the past several years did that and went largely unnoticed:

Whitlock -- Why black folks can't breathe


i believe it's one of the best columns of the past year. but, him being him, it wasn't "controversial" enough to spark any discussion, because nyggas only care when he says something they don't like. it's troublesome.

 

[Basaglia]

Oh for sure there's a record, happens that I revisited it quite recently (Coates v Chait, 2014) which is why I'm quite confident that you're mischaracterizing Coates here. At no point does he suggest that he distorted Chait's position but feel free to demonstrate otherwise.

And nope. From Disraeli and Gladstone, to Lincoln and Douglas, to Baldwin and Buckley, debates amongst intellectuals have always been a competitive affair. So much of what people blame on social media has always been a feature of public life and etiquette and you're making that same misattribution here.

This isn't about rooting for anything. The objective is to demonstrate why your opponent is wrong through the force and cogency of your argument. Coates in the run up to his piece on reparations was drawing from a vast pool of academic resources on the topic of black pathology and Chait simply didn't measure up.

If you really believe that historical facts are divisible from the lived reality they engender then we aren't going to agree about much. But i guess that would also explain why your impression of the debate differs from mine.

you're right. because we can't even agree that we AGREE on that and so did chait and coates.

it wasn't the point. and that's why chait dipped.

 

[NYC Rebel]

i took this column to be an overview of the things he will be addressing in more detail in future blog entries and podcast discussions.

i'd have to review all of his columns for lack of consistency on specific issues because I flat out haven't read them all.

and i don't find it to be true that he never offers historical context or facts when tackling complex issues. his best column of the past several years did that and went largely unnoticed:

Whitlock -- Why black folks can't breathe


i believe it's one of the best columns of the past year. but, him being him, it wasn't "controversial" enough to spark any discussion, because nyggas only care when he says something they don't like. it's troublesome.

Dog...since when has Whitlock gotten into details? Last time he spoke with another black intellectual that got into details, he pulled down the podcast in a matter of hours.

Whitlock every now and then falling upon ethical journalism, deciding to buttress his points with facts doesn't mean he consistently does it. The only fact here is that he consistently does the opposite.

 

[Greenstrings]

you're right. because we can't even agree that we AGREE on that and so did chait and coates.

it wasn't the point. and that's why chait dipped.

If its not divisible then it is always going to be the point. You can't tell me that we agree then go on to illustrate the point at which we don't.

 

[KatieGotAzzHairs]

I often can't stand deadspin as a site. And if you gave me half an hour - an hour at the fukkin most - I'd write an incisive critique of that site that actually had some substance, cited specific examples, and put their function as a site in a larger context.

I'd pay good money to read such a piece, sir. Uhhhh do you accept coli cash and daps?