Dwight Phillips to Lauren Fleshman "Just face it your tweets are racially charged" Screen Shots Attached

I say that's not really Dwight, I think someone hacked his account. Seriously, how many black dudes do you know of who'd accuse a white woman of something negative without using the word b1tch to begin that sentence?

I've now seen pretty much the full exchange here:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2016/04/usatf-athlete-advisory-committee-aac-chair-dwight-phillips-starts-twitter-war-lauren-fleshman-nick-symmonds/

Dwight Phillips is on a mad one! He wants to fight everyone who talks to him, what is wrong with the guy?! How did someone like that get to be Chair of the AAC?

He brings race into it from nowhere, but my bigger concern is the anger and attitude with which he deals with someone asking him a question. Sure, Lauren may have been having a public dig saying the AAC is taking too long with the emails or whatever, but that man does not have any public social skills and doesn't know how to speak diplomatically at all.

Really outrageous he should be forced to step down immediately. Clearly does not have the skills to Chair any sort of committee.

Metric Miler wrote:

Dwight Phillips is on a mad one! He wants to fight everyone who talks to him, what is wrong with the guy?! How did someone like that get to be Chair of the AAC?

He brings race into it from nowhere, but my bigger concern is the anger and attitude with which he deals with someone asking him a question. Sure, Lauren may have been having a public dig saying the AAC is taking too long with the emails or whatever, but that man does not have any public social skills and doesn't know how to speak diplomatically at all.

Really outrageous he should be forced to step down immediately. Clearly does not have the skills to Chair any sort of committee.

He got to be Chair because it was clear that JD was about to get banned by USADA and needed to step down. JD recommended Dwight. Dwight ran against Lauryn Williams and won easily.

I don't think he will face any pressure to step down over this. And overall I think he is much less prone to being combative than the previous two AAC Chairs, he's been fairly chill until now.

Mundus Vult Decipi wrote:

Clearly, racism in America isn't insurmountable but it is ridiculous to suggest that black Americans still don't face difficult odds especially when White Americans net worth is 13 times that of Black Americans (and widening).

"Clearly"? What does net worth have to do with racism????

ididi wrote:

Mundus Vult Decipi wrote:

Clearly, racism in America isn't insurmountable but it is ridiculous to suggest that black Americans still don't face difficult odds especially when White Americans net worth is 13 times that of Black Americans (and widening).

"Clearly"? What does net worth have to do with racism????

The "Clearly" referred to the insurmontability of racism. Wealth distribution in America has everything to do with racism.

This. In order to develop and be healthy, a person and a culture both need direct feedback from their actions in order to adjust, evolve, and grow. Using subsidies, entitlements and PC culture derails this process and leads to what we see today: stagnation, resentment, anger and further division.

teach a man to fish wrote:

Mundus Vult Decipi wrote:

it is ridiculous to suggest that black Americans still don't face difficult odds especially when White Americans net worth is 13 times that of Black Americans (and widening).

If the gap is widening it's obviously because the politics don't work. The only major differences between now and a few decades ago are the entitlement policies and the ubiquitous political correctness that stops real discussion of the problematic sides of black culture. There won't be any improvements until this low expectancy racism is eradicated.

I side with Dwight, especially against Symmonds and Rizzo. LF, meh.

Can someone please explain what this is all about?

I don't follow the internal politics of T&F. What is the AAC email she is referring to and how is her post racially charged?

Thanks for any info/perspective.

teach a man to fish wrote:

If the gap is widening it's obviously because the politics don't work. The only major differences between now and a few decades ago are the entitlement policies and the ubiquitous political correctness that stops real discussion of the problematic sides of black culture. There won't be any improvements until this low expectancy racism is eradicated.

I will readily admit that the current policies don't work. But, I will also say that it is pure sleight of hand to suggest that it is black dependencies on entitlements that are the problem. The system was--and still is--rigged against the poor which are, disproportionally, black in America.

What's this all about?

I'm not sure either but after reading the tweets, it seems to me:

Dwight Phillips is incompetent.

Lauren likes to use social media to leverage her valid complaints. (Effective, somewhat, but passive/ aggressive)

Phillips can't take criticism.

Phillips is conditioned by current events to believe any criticism by whites is racist and is not valid.

Phillips seems to believe that before he will go to bat for these athletes, they need to prove to him they are more engaged in social/racial equality.

Amongst all of these tweets, not one word pertaining to the T&F athletes is addressed.

Black or white, dude needs to go.

Not a Snob wrote:

Can someone please explain what this is all about?

I don't follow the internal politics of T&F. What is the AAC email she is referring to and how is her post racially charged?

Thanks for any info/perspective.

AAC sends emails to communicate with athletes. She is questioning whether or not any pro athletes have received any emails from them this year. My guess is she wants to know if she was left off the list or if AAC hadn't been communicating.

Dwight is black and she is white and he perceived her tweet as being racially charged.

Texts are misinterpreted often. The kids need to talk on the phone to straighten things out. It's as simple as that.

@dwightdagreat "Wow really. I guess black people are incompetent this days Lauren"

@laurenfleshman "Nope. Just you. You're incompetent."

I'm blame Lauren for not dropping the passive-aggressiveness and just go aggressive-aggressive. She knew no e-mail went out. Why not just say it.

jksparky wrote:

What's this all about?

I'm not sure either but after reading the tweets, it seems to me:

Dwight Phillips is incompetent.

Lauren likes to use social media to leverage her valid complaints. (Effective, somewhat, but passive/ aggressive)

Phillips can't take criticism.

Phillips is conditioned by current events to believe any criticism by whites is racist and is not valid.

Phillips seems to believe that before he will go to bat for these athletes, they need to prove to him they are more engaged in social/racial equality.

Amongst all of these tweets, not one word pertaining to the T&F athletes is addressed.

Black or white, dude needs to go.

You missed the most obvious one:

Dwight Phillips is a racist

What she should have said wrote:

@dwightdagreat "Wow really. I guess black people are incompetent this days Lauren"

@laurenfleshman "Nope. Just you. You're incompetent."

I'm blame Lauren for not dropping the passive-aggressiveness and just go aggressive-aggressive. She knew no e-mail went out. Why not just say it.

Then you'd have yet another thread piling on the hate for Ms. Fleshman and how Dwight was some kind of victim. That's a no-win.

Was there anything else to be done besides walking away from someone dropping the race card? Maybe, but, it's hard to fault her for disengaging and the likelihood of it coming out any better are slim.

The brosjo front page recap of the Twittersphere events appears above.

Not a Snob wrote:

Can someone please explain what this is all about?

I don't follow the internal politics of T&F. What is the AAC email she is referring to and how is her post racially charged?

Thanks for any info/perspective.

Phillips lack of character and leadership is quite evident when he rises back up, after the convo dies, to attack Oiselle/Lauren and Brooks/Nick. Nick played his cards right and let the unrelated attacks die.

Very odd that he's willing to handle a major part of his job (communicating with athletes) over Twitter and be so immature and unprofessional about it. It's one thing to call names and argue, it's another to leave it out in public.

People babble and exaggerate while emailing, texting. Fleishman and Philips appear to have done this. both are reasonable people in person. Just have them sit down and go over the longstanding historic problems with Nike's domination of USATF. Adults should be adults.

jkjkjkjkjk wrote:

When, for hte first tie in it's history, LRC sides with Lauren Fleshman against you in your dispute, you know you have really whiffed the ball.

True. But Lauren remains lacking in any substance. If she wants to have her voice heard she needs to take a position with an organization.