alc
Harashima Masami
Posts: 10
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Post by alc on Nov 9, 2020 2:21:37 GMT -5
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alc
Harashima Masami
Posts: 10
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Post by alc on Sept 11, 2020 22:22:09 GMT -5
The Ninja community has been pretty damn amazing in these trying times. I normally hate the fluff pieces, but I was tearing up within the first few minutes of the preview for the first episode. And that was even before they started showing runs! I really like the obstacles we've seen so far. Creative, fun, and challenging in different ways for different body types.
I will say this, though. When doing anti-racism work, you can't choose your words carefully enough. And while it's obviously important for Ninjas for Black Lives to define themselves in a positive manner - what you are, not what you aren't - it's also important not to do so in a way that sets you up as a foil for those "other bad Black people." This plays straight into the racists' hands. They get to have the credibility and social standing of being able to say, "Look, I have Black friends! I'm not a racist!" while avoiding the touchy issue of police accountability. Because... those other guys. They're just rioters and looters. They weren't risking their lives to protest police brutality. Oh no. They were just out there to be violent. But you, you're the good Black guys, I'm happy to work with you.
Believe me, I'm aware of how important it is for Ninjas for Black Lives to avoid getting rebranded as some sort of violent movement. But if the very words "Black Lives" have already gotten rebranded that way, then the Fox News watchers have already won. They've shifted the conversation away from police accountability, away from Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin and George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and every single other name that Black Lives Matter is begging us to say because these are real Black lives that were taken and can never be brought back. My four-year old's first question when I tried to explain the protests was, "But why do just black lives matter? Why not all lives or white lives?" And the answer, is "because black lives are being killed by the police a lot more than white lives. And they shouldn't be."
A four-year old just accepts that as the answer. Adults, however, can come up with all sorts of deflection mechanisms. And sadly, one of the most common is to contort themselves into a worldview that dehumanizes the targets of police brutality. They were criminals. Looters. Rioters. Not people. And that way, these adults can have their cake and eat it too: they can pat themselves on the back for not being racist, while enjoying all the fruits of their racism.
So even though it's tough - I get it, I get it - please, Donovan, when you represent Ninjas for Black Lives, I hope you can find a way to choose your words to avoid playing into that mentality. You can't get trapped into being the "good" Black people as a foil to the "bad" Black people - because that just deflects the racism without addressing it.
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alc
Harashima Masami
Posts: 10
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Post by alc on Sept 11, 2020 13:53:12 GMT -5
I obviously think that Ninjas for Black Lives is great and I'm sorry I misunderstood the point you were trying to make, which is that anything with the words "Black Lives" in it is going to be controversial.
It's just a pain point to me because even in supposedly liberal Seattle, the police have routinely sided with violent, neo-fascist, white supremacist hate groups like the Proud Boys. It's apparently ok for them to stage a demonstration, because it's protected under the First Amendment. But the minute a Black-led group tries to exercise their exact same right to freedom of assembly, it's assumed that it will devolve into rioting and looting, and the police feel they need to attack first. Which they do, with military-grade weapons. That toddler that got tear gassed? That could have been my child. But it wasn't, because we stayed home.
I realize that NBC will not want to go into any of that. And that Ninjas For Black Lives will be presented in a positive, feelgood way. Which, I suppose, is an understandable first step given their target audience.
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alc
Harashima Masami
Posts: 10
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Post by alc on Sept 11, 2020 13:18:22 GMT -5
Ok, about me. I don't want to give out my first name because it's an uncommon one, but I'm a real person. I live in Seattle. I've been to the Women's March and a lot of other protests in this area. I know many of the organizers personally. I bring my young children with me and for that reason I am overcautious about safety and have admittedly avoided the ones that I fear might get ugly, especially towards persons of color. Black Lives Matter is a responsible organization and I have donated a sizable amount to their bail fund for protestors across the country who got arrested for exercising their Constitutional First Amendment right to freedom of assembly. (For the record, Black Lives Matter was not affiliated with the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone that got so much press outside of Seattle.)
Despite what Fox News Watchers might think (and again, I apologize for lumping you in with them), protesting is not synonymous with rioting, looting, or aggression toward police. The right to protest is baked into the Constitution and it's what schoolkids used to learn when they learned about the Founding Fathers. People cheer the Women's March, but fear a Black Lives Matter march for consciously and subconsciously racist reasons. People forget now how hated and feared Martin Luther King Jr. was during his lifetime. White people forget the "civil disobedience" part, and render "nonviolent" to be synonymous with "inoffensive." Martin Luther King Jr. was anything but inoffensive. He was deeply, profoundly offensive because he was fighting for justice, and justice doesn't come easily to those who blindly defend the status quo.
So yes, I do understand why you wanted to dissociate Ninjas for Black Lives from an image of violence and looting. But please don't do so at the expense of Black Lives Matters and other groups that have been on the ground championing racial justice and police accountability issues for far longer than most Ninja fans have been aware of the issues, and ***have never advocated for violence*** themselves. We can all do better than than that.
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alc
Harashima Masami
Posts: 10
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Post by alc on Sept 11, 2020 12:56:02 GMT -5
Fair enough. I'm not trying to be an a** either, and I apologize for the dig regarding Fox News. I'm sorry you're being attacked and that Ninjas for Black Lives is being associated with rioting, looting and violence towards officers. We are 100% on the same page here.
I'll type a longer response about Black Lives Matters momentarily. Just wanted to get that first part out there quickly.
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alc
Harashima Masami
Posts: 10
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Post by alc on Sept 11, 2020 11:33:15 GMT -5
No offense, but who the hell are you and who do you purport to speak for? Black Lives Matter was never about rioting or looting. Try turning off Fox News for a few minutes and follow some real news sources. This is going to be the most dividing episode that has been on American ninja warrior. Ninjas For Black Lives is not affiliated with Black Lives Matter. We know about the leaders of that group and we don’t agree with rioting, looting and police violence. NBC did their best to pick pictures and videos that’s best describe what our group is trying to accomplish.
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alc
Harashima Masami
Posts: 10
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Post by alc on Sept 1, 2017 15:46:23 GMT -5
I mean very few men can beat the Elevator Climb anyways, so it's an equal opportunity obstacle All the top women are capable of beating it. Well, all the top men are capable of beating it too - just not when they're gassed at the end of a grueling city finals course. I could be wrong, and it'll be interesting to see if I am, but I would expect to see women hit the buzzer of Vegas Stages 1 and 2 multiple times before a woman other than Kacy hits a City Finals buzzer. On a biceps beefgate like the Invisible Ladder or Elevator Climb (which I agree is a dangerous and inferior successor), there's just not much room for technique or efficiency or a creative approach. The top women nowadays are so strong, the first thing you notice is their strength, but they're still not going to ever have the biceps strength of the top male competitors. They make up for it with grip strength, core strength, flexibility, and body control, as well as efficiency and strategy in plotting out moves. Some obstacles lend themselves better to that than others. I am NOT saying that "women can't do it" - I look forward to Jessie continuing to break down barriers - but I am placing a bet out there that women will outsmart the Vegas obstacles well before they outmuscle the City Finals enders.
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alc
Harashima Masami
Posts: 10
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Post by alc on Sept 1, 2017 12:54:45 GMT -5
Is there anyone else who doesn't love the pure strength-based obstacles? Sure, the Invisible Ladder is visually impressive, but I actually think it's more biased against the women than obstacles that (sometimes deceptively) require strength plus technique. Rolling Thunder, Crank it Up, Rail Runner, and Circuit Board come to mind as obstacles that require a very high level of strength, but are not an absolute test of strength: they also require some combination of dynamic movement, body control, flexibility, finesse, and balance. I find it exciting to see women succeed at these obstacles, and it's a fair fight in large part because there's a heavy (and often hidden) technique component.
The closer an obstacle gets to becoming a straight-up weightlifting challenge, the less the women are going to be able to compete head-to-head against men. Women who can't outlift men in a gym can still blow them away on a rock climbing course via technique and savvy. To an outsider it might appear as if they won a strength showdown, but that's because the rock wall is the hidden equalizer to basic physiological differences.
To me, the Invisible Ladder and the Elevator Climb are more a straight-up strength test, and less the strength-and-technique combination that's produced the legitimately memorable runs by women (Jessie Graff and Jessie Labreck's legit Vegas-qualifying runs, not the 5th-place, reached-second-obstacle, new women's rule runs). NBC has boxed themselves in a corner here: it won't be easy for them to revert to a less upper-body-dependent final obstacle, so Kacy may hold the title of "only woman to hit a city finals buzzer" long after it becomes routine for women to clear Vegas stages.
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