Toni Reavis pens 1,500 word essay decrying NY Times "Jogging Has Always Excluded Black People" article as BULLSHIT

bullshit!

letsrun has become a mirror for this guys blog.

we desperately need racing back.

The nyt article may be flawed. However, I would like to present the previous thread about it, which had to be locked due to the massive amount of overt racism being posted to it, as an example to show that maybe the running community does gave a bit of a racism problem.

He didn't really address the black experience of suspicion and surveillance brought up by the NYT op-ed--sort of the point. I can understand for example why some black families in Georgia might not be jazzed if their kid takes up running, a sentiment that I don't feel is quite keeping with the 'organic evolution' of the sport, as he describes. For all those words, his argument really isn't that sophisticated, is it? 'Why don't more black people run? Because they don't want to!' Maybe some choose not to, but it's not so crazy to think that there isn't exactly a welcome mat out there for some groups. I don't think it's out of pocket to look at the running community and ask if we could do more. You might disagree with the op-ed, but to repeat another poster, merely suggesting that the running community is exclusionary produced that abomination of a thread that was locked down. It's also now a suggestion cavalierly dismissed as BS by the above author, cosigned by Letsrun apparently.

Every competitive distance runner knows they got there by being too small for football, too short for basketball and too slow for sprints.

Every hobby jogger in the local charity 5k knows they got there by having 20 bucks and the will to waste it.

Nobody's being excluded. Sure, you might run the risk of being targeted for running while black in some neighborhoods. But not most, and it's not the running scene doing that. Runners see someone out jogging and think nothing of it, except maybe to note how fast they seem to be.

White men over 50 years old need to STFU. Toni Reavis has been out of the loop of understanding for well over a decade. This is just another example.

in a race to keep those clicks, the admins of this site blow the dog whistle hard

seriously, if you just *listened* to the people affected maybe you'd have a bit of empathy. but this is just another notch in the letsrun = 4chan for runners log.

blacks to play baseball. blacks don't go into distance running. their choice. their culture. to turn this into anything beyond freedom of choice is just ridiculous.

Not worth going any further into it than that as we are not allowed to have honest conversations about race in this country. And when you try, you get the "white people need to shut up" comments.

& we wonder why LRC has a problem with race, promoting trash like this.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Every competitive distance runner knows they got there by being too small for football, too short for basketball and too slow for sprints.

Every hobby jogger in the local charity 5k knows they got there by having 20 bucks and the will to waste it.

Nobody's being excluded. Sure, you might run the risk of being targeted for running while black in some neighborhoods. But not most, and it's not the running scene doing that. Runners see someone out jogging and think nothing of it, except maybe to note how fast they seem to be.

This, although these days it’s usually 30 bucks.

I'll say it wrote:

Generally speaking, what are a disproportionate number of Blacks doing right now? NOT those things that lend themselves to 50 mile weeks, and a race on the weekend. You want disproportion? Blacks are disproportionately living off the system, disproportionately committing crimes, disproportionately not working, disproportionately not going to school, and disproportionately still blaming Whites for perceived wrongs against their ancestors - but that's another thread altogether. Maybe if more Blacks exhibited those behaviors that translate into a sport like running, there would be a larger number of Blacks in the running community. Running requires hard work and discipline, not something people in general are known for, and certainly not among the minority population.

This is ignorance paraded in a cringe-worthy way. Get some help with that.

Sprinting at a championship level requires hard work and discipline, and THAT sort of running is something that has huge buy-in within African American communities. Military service, too, requires hard work and discipline--and quite a bit of running--and African Americans are over-represented in the U.S. armed forces. Since you write "blacks," not "African Americans," it seems fair to point out that African-born runners are a significant cohort within collegiate and post-collegiate American running, and to my knowledge those runners, the Korirs and Kiruis, are just as hard-working and disciplined as their white peers.

I like Tony Reavis's essay.

Look at who wrote the NY time article.

Natalia Yael Mehlman Petrzela is my full name. I’m kind of indiscriminately ethnic looking, so, when people hear Natalia, they often assume it’s Italian, because of the Natale, which is Christmas, even though it has nothing to do with that. Then, they hear Yael, and it’s pretty clear. Mehlman, my dad is an Eastern European Jew, and Petrzela, my husband is an Eastern European non-Jew.

Once again the woke crowd offers nothing but anger and insults. At least make the argument that blacks are afraid to go for a run because racist whitey will think they’re up to no good. Which is really the only argument you can make.

Hmmm... well plenty of anger and insults in this post so must be a woke SJW behind that keyboard.

short life wrote:

White men over 50 years old need to STFU. Toni Reavis has been out of the loop of understanding for well over a decade. This is just another example.

People are neglecting to take into account a huge detail: the original article is racist.

On the surface, it says: jogging is racist, jogging has excluded black people. Now, jogging is an activity, a concept. So at first, that seems innocuous. However, in between the lines, the article is stating that the people doing that activity are racist. That they are excluding black people.

Why is no one emphasizing that point?! The original article is racist.

Then people wonder why people take offense to something they never did. The article stirs up controversy. The article is inciting arguments.

Its like the green goo in ghostbusters. Or the scepter in the avengers. Everyone starts getting irritable with each other. Because that thing has an evil force that sows discord.

The author's ideas are NASTY. The authors ideas are the green goo.

If the goal is to have people coexist and be reasonable, then picking an unpopular sport that does not harm anyone and calling the people who do it racist, the article is accomplishing the reverse.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Every competitive distance runner knows they got there by being too small for football, too short for basketball and too slow for sprints.

Every hobby jogger in the local charity 5k knows they got there by having 20 bucks and the will to waste it.

Nobody's being excluded. Sure, you might run the risk of being targeted for running while black in some neighborhoods. But not most, and it's not the running scene doing that. Runners see someone out jogging and think nothing of it, except maybe to note how fast they seem to be.

Doesn't sound like you know much amount distance runners. There is a circle of top guys that are from a few high schools in our area and we usually make fun of the sports that you mention.

Most of us wish we Zuck #2 or Bezos but in sports we love soccer, cycling, speed skating, hockey, xc skiing, alpine skiing, hiking/climbing,and mt biking. Personally love rowing the most but I know olympic rowers aren't making much. There is a lightweight division in rowing so I would be fine @155.

short life wrote:

White men over 50 years old need to STFU. Toni Reavis has been out of the loop of understanding for well over a decade. This is just another example.

Well...aren't you special....

I for one would love to hear you cite examples of what exactly Reavis does not understand. Which loop is he out of? Going for the personal attack is the best evidence that Reavis' response is closer to the truth.....just not (dare I say it?) your "truth".

Come on now, how can you be offended by the original article? There was no accusations it was just calmly explaining why running appeals to middle-class urban folks.

Can non-white people be bigoted? Yes. Can they be ignorant? Yes. But racist? No. The whole white and non-white dichotomy is a Eurocentric idea. Native Africans have no concept of being 'black' apart from an acknowledgement that people that have suffered after being labelled by outsiders.

The article was written by a half-Jewish women who is often mistaken for Italian and describes herself as having an 'ethnic' look. Some of you will consider her white, some won't - depends on where she is and when she is.

There's an excellent episode of Brooklyn99 where a black sergeant gets harassed by a uniformed cop for being black in the wrong neighborhood. The cop's response is that the sergeant should have identified himself as a police officer. The cop cannot understand how he did anything wrong by being suspicious of a black guy in the wrong neighborhood. Even though it's the one the sergeant lives in. He thinks it's up to the black guy to diffuse the situation that the white guy caused.

That cop is essentially Toni Reavis and half of LR. If you only look at an event based on your own experience, you're only going to see what you want to see. Reavis consistently analyzes everything form his own POV only and can't see how it impacts people who aren't him. And this thread is already full of posters whose attitude is basically "if I refuse to think about whether there's a problem, I can easily say there's no problem."

And that's why racism is still as big as problem in this country as it was 200 years ago. And forums like this are why it's not going to get better anytime soon.