Shapiro To Morgan: Calling Someone 'Brave' For 'Coming Out' Insults Americans
The geniuses at Breitbart.com are proud of Ben Shapiro for defending his lack of understanding of the undercurrent of fear and hatred of the Other in America in an interview with Piers Morgan the other day. They’re so proud they put it on their website with a transcript. Here’s the quote that really sums up the whole interview:
SHAPIRO: I understand, I wear a yarmulke on TV, right? There’s a lot of anti-Semitism, there are people who are killed and anti-Semitic attacks. You know, per capita, as many hate crimes against Jews as as against gays in this country. America is not an anti-Semitic country and I’m not a hero for wearing a yarmulke. Being who you are in 2013 America is what America is about. It is not heroic to be who you are publicly. I’m glad for Jason Collins if it makes him feel like he’s going to have a happier life now. But, it does not make him a hero to be who you are because America is not a homophobic country.
A shorter version of this quote looks like this: ”There’s a ton of dangerous anti-Semitism in America but that doesn’t make America an anti-Semitic country; there’s also a ton of dangerous homophobia in America but that doesn’t make America a homophobic country. So Jews and gays shouldn’t worry about anything. Why? Because I say so.”
An even shorter version looks like this: “I feel comfortable being myself in public; this means that everyone else feels the same way about themselves.”
It apparently doesn’t occur to Shapiro at any point during this interview that he wrote an entire book about how conservatives can’t freely express themselves in public; the subtitle of that book is “How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans.”
I wonder if Shapiro thinks conservatives who express their beliefs in public are heroes. Wait, we know he does.
And why does he think so? Probably because they aren’t afraid of being themselves in public despite the “Culture of Fear and Intimidation [that] Silences Americans.”
I wonder if hypocrisy is heroic for Shapiro?
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Kevin Arnovitz covers the NBA for ESPN. We welcome him to the Hero Report podcast this week to discuss Jason Collins becoming the first openly gay male professional athlete in a major team sport and whether or not Collins’ decision to come out constitutes heroism. Kevin provides some insight into the culture of the NBA and we talk a bit about next steps for gay athletes.
Tell us what you think about this episode, discuss these issues with us on Twitter (Matt Langdon / Ari Kohen), and join us every week on Google+ for our live broadcast (where you can chat with us while we’re on the air and contribute to the conversation).
Want to make the podcast portable? Subscribe via iTunes (audio-only).
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I don’t think the dictionary really matters that much to CBS Sports commentator Tim Brando. At least not based on anything he wrote during a Twitter tirade today that lasted a few hours and, as I type this, is still going on.
Now, when I think about heroism, as I happen to do as the author of a book and co-host of a podcast on the topic, here’s the sort of thing I have in mind:
People act heroically when they make a potentially life-altering sacrifice or put themselves at some serious risk and they need not have done so. Most often, today, heroes are those whose actions are seen to benefit others; in the classical sense, however, heroism included a broader range of martial actions or feats of endurance that were not necessarily other-regarding.
There’s more to say, obviously, but that’s a quick first pass at a definition. It’s interesting and potentially very fruitful to debate particular heroes and definitions of heroic actions — and, obviously, I’m counting on it for the success of my book — but it’s noteworthy that Brando seems not to have offered a definition at all, despite claiming that his Twitter tirade was all due to his deep care for definitions.
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Incidentally, here are the tweets surrounding Ben Shapiro’s heroism tweet.
He’s gearing up to defend himself against allegations of homophobia with the argument that no one’s sexual orientation should matter in our society, that we shouldn’t be paying extra attention to Jason Collins just because he decided to come out, and that telling people you’re gay is just as (un)important as telling people you’re straight … which is pretty much the equivalent of shouting “I’m privileged in every single way possible” from the rooftops.
I’m guessing it’s actually challenging to pretend that you don’t understand the many pressures our society places on black men, on homosexuals, on athletes, and on homosexual black male athletes … especially when you’re as much of a straight, white, well-educated, well-off, bootstrap-self-puller-upper as Shapiro.
Needless to say, he’ll be writing a piece for some right-wing website about how he’s the victim of the Left’s intimidation and silencing tactics — the subject of a whole book he wrote (amazingly, it’s called Bullies) — soon enough.
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Originally Posted By ccindecision
From Comedy Central’s Indecision Tumblr:
Countdown over! In the category of derpiest comment about NBA pro Jason Collins’ coming out, the winner is Breitbart.com’s Ben Shapiro:
So Jason Collins is a hero because he’s gay? Our standard for heroism has dropped quite a bit since Normandy.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro)Hmm, who DOES meet Shapiro’s awfully high Nazi-killing standard for heroism?
@adamcarolla is my hero: hotair.com/archives/2011/…
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro)Fact: Newt is a hero for speaking truth on the Palestinians. We need a president who is willing to do that, despite OPEC.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro)On the phenomenal @marklevinshow tonight to discuss ‘Bullies’! Very excited. Mark’s a hero. amazon.com/Bullies-Cultur…
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro)Ben Shapiro’s standard for heroism has risen quite a bit since three months ago.
By every conceivable metric, Jason Collins’ decision to become the first openly gay active athlete in a major professional sport meets the definition of a heroic action. By those same metrics — and so many others — Breitbart.com’s Ben Shapiro is a ridiculous gasbag.
There are, of course, going to be far, far worse responses to Collins. But the anticipation of those don’t make Shapiro’s comments any less foolish.
(via ilyagerner)
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The Midwest is almost certainly the toughest region: there is about a one-in-three chance that the eventual tournament champion will emerge from it, the highest of the four sub-brackets. Louisville, the top seed, began the season ranked No. 2 in the country, and closed it by winning the Big East tournament. Duke might be the best No. 2 seed in the tournament and is healthier than it has been for much of the season. Michigan State, the No. 3 seed, is one of a number of Big Ten teams that the computers are enamored of, and will get to play its first two games just down the road from East Lansing, Mich., in Auburn Hills. No. 7 seed Creighton, No. 9 Missouri and No. 12 Oregon all look a bit underseeded, and might have been good upset picks were the top of the region not so tough.
In other words, Nate Silver doesn’t think things look so good for my alma maters.
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I assume the first question for Rodman is about how he felt when he saw all of the concentration camps during his visit to North Korea.
And then the rest of the interview is terrible silence.
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An Unhelpful Taxonomy of Heroism
Not long ago, I happened upon the blog of Scott Allison, a professor of psychology at the University of Richmond. Allison has co-authored one book on heroism and he has another on the way.
This bit, from a blog post last month, is from a forthcoming journal article (as well as the forthcoming book):
Below is the taxonomy of heroes that we propose in Understanding Exceptional Leadership. We elaborate on these ten kinds of heroes in an article that will appear this summer in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Goethals & Allison, 2012).
Having thought quite a bit about heroism myself over the past few years, I’m incredibly curious about this taxonomy of heroism that Allison proposes … in no small part because it seems so clearly wrong to me in so many ways.
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On this week’s episode of The Hero Report, we sit down with Mike Trivella, a student at the University of Notre Dame and author of a piece in the NextGen Journal called “Making Heroes out of Athletes.”
We discuss the role that athletes can and should play in society, in addition to the role they play on the field or the court. And, as I do my best impression of Charles Barkley, we ask whether or not athletes should be thought of as role models.
Tell us what you think about this episode, discuss these issues with us on Twitter (Matt Langdon / Ari Kohen), and join us every Friday at 4pm Eastern on Google+ for our live broadcast (where you can chat with us while we’re on the air and contribute to the conversation).
Want to make the podcast portable? Subscribe via iTunes (video / audio-only).
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Vasectomies surge during March Madness
Like other reputable publications you can read on the internet, the Running Chicken blog is working tirelessly to bring you all the news that’s fit to print:
A Eugene Urology Clinic offers men a chance to “lower their seed” during their March Madness “Snip City” promotion.
Other clinics offer a pizza delivery following a vasectomy. It’s evidence of a trend urologists have noticed in recent years.
Many report March is one of their busiest months for vasectomies and they attribute it to the NCAA college basketball tournament.
Happy March Madness!
HT: AK.
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In between listening to an excellent lecture on gerrymandering and a series of meetings with students, I head back to my office to check on the tournament. Now I’m off to class,
I love my job.
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Live-Facebooking
Lots of people Live-Tweet and Live-Blog various events of moment … but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone Live-Facebook anything.
So, I’m currently Live-Facebooking the Michigan State / Ohio State Big Ten Tournament championship game. Feel free to follow along or chime in. The winner gets a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Go Green!
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Texas Association Criticized for Ordering Jewish School Out of Playoffs
The Beren Academy basketball team — an Orthodox Jewish day school that plays in a private and parochial school league in Texas — has been granted a temporary restraining order to play in the semi-final game that their association seemed hell-bent on prohibiting them from playing. This came after they applied for the TRO against the public school district that is making its facilities available to the private association that had been refusing to allow them to reschedule the game and after all sorts of criticism from various corners began to rain down on the association:
Mayor Annise D. Parker of Houston said she was “very disappointed” about the decision in a letter to the association’s director Tuesday.
“It is also my understanding that Tapps teams are not allowed to play any sports on Sundays,” Parker wrote. “Which I presume is out of respect for the Christian Sabbath.”
The organization posted a statement on its Web site on Wednesday that said it was adhering to its bylaws, which were written in the late 1970s, when “the member schools at that time all recognized Sunday as the day of worship.”
The fact of the matter is that the head of the association repeatedly said — and to members of the national media no less — that he didn’t much care about respecting the religious observance of association members who weren’t Christian. The association does not schedule games on Sundays for religious reasons, but saw no problem at all with prohibiting the Jewish school from playing as a result of their religious observance.
HT on the TRO: Marcus Sanborn, who thinks I’m wrong about this but who is — in fact — the one who’s wrong.
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“If the schools are just going to arrange their own schedule, why do we even set a tournament?”
Pluralism, Texas-style.
The boy’s basketball team from Beren Academy, an Orthodox Jewish day school, made it to the state semi-final game … but that game apparently must be played on a Friday evening, after sunset, which means that the Beren Academy team can’t play.
The school appealed, proposing “the team drive from Houston to Dallas on Thursday night, spend the night and play the semifinal game earlier on Friday, school officials said.”
The appeal was denied:
“When Beren’s joined years ago, we advised them that the Sabbath would present them with a problem with the finals,” Edd Burleson, the director of the association, said.
I wonder what would have happened if the semi-final game had been scheduled for Easter Sunday …
More here.
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In case you’re curious about how the flight deck of an aircraft carrier is converted into a college basketball venue, here’s a time-lapse video.
Go State!
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