I don't think that anyone here is saying anything like that. It's just that the exploitation by activist groups of many of the recent situations that have received so much news coverage have done little to improve race relations and, in fact, have probably done the opposite. Some of these folks are still living in the 1950s and '60s, even if they weren't born until a later decade. Times have changed. Tactics should too. As one who lived through the Civil Rights Era and who has friends who were leaders in it, I can tell you that it's a much different "enemy" that's being faced today. I will admit that there are very small remnants of that old society that still exist today, but they are on the fringes and not in the mainstream as they were in the mid-20th Century. The battle today should be focused on the economic empowerment of the African American community. It should be on teaching job skills, self-dependency and responsibility. It should be on rebuilding the black family. It's ironic that back in the 1950s and early '60s the black family experienced less divorce and had more cohesiveness, statistically, than the white family. Today, the situation is horrible reversed. Something is very wrong with our national policies and priorities that is not being addressed. That's the real underlying issue.

Speaking on a tangent here I'll throw in a link to a philosophically connected topic:

A lengthy article ran in Fortune magazine in September about Bill Ackman's on-going siege of Herbalife. Bill is a hedge fund manager who has determined Herbalife must be destroyed.

The article centers around the question:

"Do short-sellers make good regulators?"

The article can be found here:

http://fortune.com/2015/09/09/the-siege-of-herbalife /

If I were to write an expansive piece about the Mizzu incident, my article would center around this question:

"Do athletes, celebrities, and minority activist groups make good regulators?"

Before doing any research my hypothesis is no, no they don't.

Whoa. Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwkwaaaaaaaaaaard.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/amazing-sports-ra... /

That radio host is a heavy hitter. I love it.

- The range has and will continue to be from firm action (Ali is obviously a classic example) to wearing a T-shirt. My prediction is we will see a migration to more stance and less statement - for that is the direction of our overall society - for better or worse. As the saying goes, talk is cheap, but money walks.

The protesters would argue it was due process that was not taking place. That said, I agree the demand for resignation was extreme vs. the University finally taking some steps to address what has been years of concern (not simply the highlighted last few incidence).

for better or worse this has always been a condition: "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." Sam Adams

What has changed is the immediacy of our communications and, therefore, our society. Everything is real-time. Everyone wants immediate justice - immediate action - regardless of what side you are on we grasp a few components of a situation, often not knowing (and for some, not caring) how true, complete, or contextual that information is.

This situation fully illustrates today's society - both in the immediacy of the action, the extent of the action, and the response/reaction/views of others.

As I have stated before, none of us have personal, specific insight into the situation on the campus - yet opinions and lines are drawn as evident by posts in this thread. And. like everywhere else in our society, inaction and lack of attention was applied to the situation (whatever it may be) on the campus until dollars and loss of dollars came into the equation. Dollars and cents was the leverage of the players. They could wear a wristband, but boycott of a game was the leverage.

Is it right to give so few the power? Is (as you state) "a small group of minority (I assume I correctly read that as a definition of a percentage, not a racial group) activists generating immediate and significant sweeping change that directly affects a much larger group of stakeholders good regulation? No - but the reality is we have almost always afforded that power to a few - Based on whoever has had the leverage (most often financially or politically driven).

Our society, for better or worse, has now raised athletics to the level of garnering power. Again, this situation illustrates our society. The faculty supports the protests and conduct walk outs. Big deal. No classes. - no action takes place. no media shows up. Players join in. No game? No money? Big deal.

Wrist bands and a raised gloved hand are last century. New leverage has been afforded to athletes and they will start to use it - even if it means the glove holding due process ransom is now on the other hand.

Anyway, unless there are alcoholic beverages involved I'm done pontificating. My interest in this thread is that college athletes now realize it does not matter if the NCAA says they can be paid or not - or whether they can wear a shirt in protest of a situation. They now realize they have significant power - as afforded by our society. And they will start to use that power. The next interesting point will be when those in current power (in this instance, the old guard, boosters, etc.) look to assure THEIR control. What happens when the players from Kentucky and Duke take the court for the Championship Game wearing shirts protesting a situation and refuse to remove them or, As someone mentioned above, Alabama and Clemson refuse to take the field at all. Interesting times ahead. Personally I'm surprised it took this long for the initial tipping point to be realized.

I was a student from 1965 to 1970 in Athens no "race riot"took place. There were various large and small protests and just plain closing court street for the heck of it. May of 1970 after Kent State was a very serious riot, pepper gas not tear gas was the gas of choice. The guns may not have been loaded, I certainly would not have bet on it at the time, but the fixed bayonets on the rifles the next morning certainly were real .

A must read article on the recent events in Missouri:

Among the highlights are Missouri's gay black student body president using social media to spread false rumors and the black hunger striker who asked the University President to check his white privilege in spite of his father's $8mm salary. This of course after he spent 8 years on campus in fear for his life.

http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-cov...

Payton Head was the Homecoming "King" just a month ago and seemed to be happy to be at Missouri.

http://www.themaneater.com/stories/2015/10/20/homecoming-... /

One of the original complaints that Jonathan Butler had was losing his medical insurance as a graduate student. Maybe if he did some research he would have known that the University was only following the rules of the Affordable Care Act.

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/249531-...

Maybe the next time that Payton Head meets with POTUS he can state his concerns on behalf of Jonathan Butler about the Affordable Care Act directly to him?

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/11/missou... /

Meanwhile, Missouri will play their "White Out" game against BYU.

http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/missouri-...

I am 99% sure that an ex-professor (secondary posting) of journalism at Missouri, as well as countless others (likely including 1 or 2 on this board) would like nothing more than to figuratively (lol, I actually mean literally) immolate you for pointing that out.

What I want to know is how many people who read your post had to look up the meaning of "immolate".

Always thought I had a pretty good vocabulary,but I'll be the first to say I did.

Will tackling of the Miz"Zoo"ers be allowed tomorrow or will they declare themselves to be in their "safe-zone" and therefore untouchable?

I think that's absolutely right, but I think the issues you underline--job skills, the strengthening of the black family, etc.--are so systemic that I think all of these various issues address those things. Your assertion that activist groups are exploiting this issue just doesn't feel right to me; that blacks in America are far less likely to graduate from college and that the culture on college campuses is not always as welcoming to black students as it could be is not unrelated to issues like the job skills, imprisonment rates, etc.

There's a conversation to be had here, and when an oppressed group speaks up and says so, I don't think it's healthy that a large swath of our country looks for reasons to discredit them. That a leader in this movement has a wealthy father, or that individuals and certain demands are misguided, are simply excuses being used to avoid acknowledging the core of the issue.

I see very little empathy, and no effort to try and understand viewpoints that differ on this issue, and refusal to even have a conversation about the issues at hand because of the individuals involved is mere petulance.