Westbrook threatens female fan and her husband

[Roy H.]

There's an UNQUESTIONABLY racist tweet the fan randomly sent in October telling Westbrook to "go back to where he came from"... that being L.A. Oh, and don't forget the dogwhistle #MAGA hashtag at the end

Is the “that being LA” part yours, or his?

If he’s referring to LA, I’m not sure that’s racist. If the tweet to a black guy was “go back to where you came from” followed by #MAGA, I would assume the “where” is Africa. And yes, that’s extremely racist.

I do have to say, I am still shocked when people make overtly racist comments and public. I expect it in private, within closed groups, etc. In general though I thought racists where a little better at covering their tracks.

 But, racist or not, it doesn’t excuse the violent statements directed toward women. Excusing that just plays into the power and control/toxic masculinity that these abusers thrive on.

Or maybe a woman shouldn't be treated any differently if they make offensive statements.  Why take the misogynistic viewpoint that women are treated differently and need to be protected?  According to Russ she said the same abusive racist things, why should she be protected from her comments when a man doesn't need to be?  Seems to be an ideal from a past generation that has no place in modern society.

Yeah, there’s totally nothing wrong with men threatening physical violence against women. Leave that chivalry stuff in the Dark Ages.

And, to date, there’s been no independent evidence that she said anything wrong. The Jazz’ investigation didn’t result in discipline, she’s not making racist comments on social media, etc.

[KGs Knee]

Sure, mister dopey racist guy deserves to be told don't show your face around here, you ain't wanted.  People like that need to go crawl in their hole.

But it's pretty [dang] disgraceful Russ gets what amounts to a $10 fine to the average person.  So threatening a fan with physical violence is pretty much accepted as far as the NBA is concerned?  How many times is Russ going to be allowed to be confrontational with fans? This is becoming a pattern with him.

Yep, completely agree. Russ seems to do this every couple of months. You just know when playoffs roll around some team is going to try and incite him to come into the crowd and get suspended

Yeah, the people giving Russ a pass on this and acting like it's no big deal he threatened a fan with physical violence just because that fan said some mean things to him should be ashamed of themselves.

And the NBA really is setting a bad precedent here that essentially shows they have again reverted to not taking player interactions with fans seriously. Giving Russ nothing more than a slap on the wrist is just going to embolden other players to get in the faces of fans any time they hear someone shouting something at them they don't like. That can't be allowed, as it most assuredly will eventually escalate past just an exchange of words, if the NBA doesn't get control of this better.

[Monkhouse]

25k fan for Westbrook. In other words, exactly what I felt was appropriate: fine for the player, ban for the jackass fan.

I don't think it's appropriate.  Kobe got $100k for a gay slur.  I thought that was appropriate to send a message that anti-gay slurs weren't appropriate.

What message is sent when a star threatens to beat up a female fan and gets a slap on the wrist?

The message it sends is “don’t come to a game to be racist jackasses to athletes with your wife and then feign ignorance and play the victim when said athlete responds.”

If you’re asking which side I’m more interested in dissuading, the racist hecklers or the athlete threatening them in response, I’m picking the former every day and twice on Sunday. As I would in [dang] near every incident involving a provocateur and the provoked.

By all means, if somebody disrespects you threaten to beat up the nearest woman. 

But, in the world of social justice I guess abusive speech toward a person of color is worse than threatening violence against women?  I get confused by the hierarchy.

Watching the video again, I don't really see how that could really be accepted as a credible threat to do violence.  RW's body language seems completely non-threatening as he finishes a water bottle and seems more concerned about where to drop it than anything else.   It looks and sounds like just gum flapping on his part.   Folks can surely disagree but I think the NBA's view (probably filtered through the eyes of their attorneys) is that all they have on Westbrook is some cussing.   So they've fined him for using the foul language and that's the end of that.

No, there was more than cussing. There was a threat to do harm.

I mean, if Mike Pence was caught on a hot mic saying the same thing about a heckler in the crowd, are you defending him the same way? The only difference is that Pence doesn’t have a history of going after fans.

The only difference is that Mike Pence is a disgusting piece of !@#$, and way WORSE individual than Westbrook could ever be..

[Roy H.]

ftp://

25k fan for Westbrook. In other words, exactly what I felt was appropriate: fine for the player, ban for the jackass fan.

I don't think it's appropriate.  Kobe got $100k for a gay slur.  I thought that was appropriate to send a message that anti-gay slurs weren't appropriate.

What message is sent when a star threatens to beat up a female fan and gets a slap on the wrist?

The message it sends is “don’t come to a game to be racist jackasses to athletes with your wife and then feign ignorance and play the victim when said athlete responds.”

If you’re asking which side I’m more interested in dissuading, the racist hecklers or the athlete threatening them in response, I’m picking the former every day and twice on Sunday. As I would in [dang] near every incident involving a provocateur and the provoked.

By all means, if somebody disrespects you threaten to beat up the nearest woman. 

But, in the world of social justice I guess abusive speech toward a person of color is worse than threatening violence against women?  I get confused by the hierarchy.

Watching the video again, I don't really see how that could really be accepted as a credible threat to do violence.  RW's body language seems completely non-threatening as he finishes a water bottle and seems more concerned about where to drop it than anything else.   It looks and sounds like just gum flapping on his part.   Folks can surely disagree but I think the NBA's view (probably filtered through the eyes of their attorneys) is that all they have on Westbrook is some cussing.   So they've fined him for using the foul language and that's the end of that.

No, there was more than cussing. There was a threat to do harm.

I mean, if Mike Pence was caught on a hot mic saying the same thing about a heckler in the crowd, are you defending him the same way? The only difference is that Pence doesn’t have a history of going after fans.

The only difference is that Mike Pence is a disgusting piece of !@#$, and way WORSE individual than Westbrook could ever be..

Right. So arguments aren’t based on facts or any consistent view of morality, but rather on how much we admire / despise the individual.

If it’s wrong to threaten to beat down a woman, it’s wrong whether it’s done by a star basketball player or an unpopular politician.

[Roy H.]

Sure, mister dopey racist guy deserves to be told don't show your face around here, you ain't wanted.  People like that need to go crawl in their hole.

But it's pretty [dang] disgraceful Russ gets what amounts to a $10 fine to the average person.  So threatening a fan with physical violence is pretty much accepted as far as the NBA is concerned?  How many times is Russ going to be allowed to be confrontational with fans? This is becoming a pattern with him.

Yep, completely agree. Russ seems to do this every couple of months. You just know when playoffs roll around some team is going to try and incite him to come into the crowd and get suspended

Yeah, the people giving Russ a pass on this and acting like it's no big deal he threatened a fan with physical violence just because that fan said some mean things to him should be ashamed of themselves.

And the NBA really is setting a bad precedent here that essentially shows they have again reverted to not taking player interactions with fans seriously. Giving Russ nothing more than a slap on the wrist is just going to embolden other players to get in the faces of fans any time they hear someone shouting something at them they don't like. That can't be allowed, as it most assuredly will eventually escalate past just an exchange of words, if the NBA doesn't get control of this better.

Yeah, you can’t let provocation be a shield. After all, a thrown beer that connected with a player is what started the Malice at the Palace.

[fairweatherfan]

Don't know if anyone's seen this but here's video of a Utah fan in last year's playoffs calling Westbrook "boy" twice from about 4 rows away while he warms up. I still think a suspension was warranted but I can see why he's on edge in that arena.

https://twitter.com/E_Woodyard/status/1105661865038893057


On a lighter note, remember that same game when things got so intense Mitt Romney was talking trash at him? There's definitely no love lost there.

[wiley]

1.  I don't understand why people want to protect scummy fans with the reasoning that things will escalate if players are allowed to talk back to fans.  Are you kidding me?  Do you know how controlled these guys (NBA players) lives are? Let's wait until a player goes into the stands and snaps someone's neck before we get carried away with protecting the precious fandom.  BTW, I put the chances of that happening at zero. 

2.  Westrbrook explained that his words were the culmination of taking a lot of crap over a long period of time in Utah.  I completely support his right to talk back.  And that's all it was...talk.  The man and his girfriend were under no real threat from this NBA player.  The worst that could have happened was the guy (not woman) getting punched in the face by Westbrook, and he would have deserved it.

3.  The argument that you have to curtail Westbrook's reaction with bigger fine/suspension is wrong.  In sports arenas fans are the instigators.  They think it's fine to hurl abuse, including racist abuse (see above post...Westbrook being called "boy".)  fine in Europe, but not in the US.  If you hand out big suspensions to players guess what will happen.  Joe racist will have a beer and then ruin the ears of all the women and children sitting next to him with racist taunts, because the player can't respond and then no on will know about it, and then the behavior will increase.  That's what is truly dangerous for society, not the silly idea that NBA players are any real threat to fans in the controlled environment of a sports arena.

[Moranis]

ftp://

25k fan for Westbrook. In other words, exactly what I felt was appropriate: fine for the player, ban for the jackass fan.

I don't think it's appropriate.  Kobe got $100k for a gay slur.  I thought that was appropriate to send a message that anti-gay slurs weren't appropriate.

What message is sent when a star threatens to beat up a female fan and gets a slap on the wrist?

The message it sends is “don’t come to a game to be racist jackasses to athletes with your wife and then feign ignorance and play the victim when said athlete responds.”

If you’re asking which side I’m more interested in dissuading, the racist hecklers or the athlete threatening them in response, I’m picking the former every day and twice on Sunday. As I would in [dang] near every incident involving a provocateur and the provoked.

By all means, if somebody disrespects you threaten to beat up the nearest woman. 

But, in the world of social justice I guess abusive speech toward a person of color is worse than threatening violence against women?  I get confused by the hierarchy.

Watching the video again, I don't really see how that could really be accepted as a credible threat to do violence.  RW's body language seems completely non-threatening as he finishes a water bottle and seems more concerned about where to drop it than anything else.   It looks and sounds like just gum flapping on his part.   Folks can surely disagree but I think the NBA's view (probably filtered through the eyes of their attorneys) is that all they have on Westbrook is some cussing.   So they've fined him for using the foul language and that's the end of that.

No, there was more than cussing. There was a threat to do harm.

I mean, if Mike Pence was caught on a hot mic saying the same thing about a heckler in the crowd, are you defending him the same way? The only difference is that Pence doesn’t have a history of going after fans.

The only difference is that Mike Pence is a disgusting piece of !@#$, and way WORSE individual than Westbrook could ever be..

Right. So arguments aren’t based on facts or any consistent view of morality, but rather on how much we admire / despise the individual.

If it’s wrong to threaten to beat down a woman, it’s wrong whether it’s done by a star basketball player or an unpopular politician.

why is a woman different than a man?  That is the problem I've had with your position in this thread, you are treating a whole class of people differently based on an uncontrollable factor.

[Silky]

1.  I don't understand why people want to protect scummy fans with the reasoning that things will escalate if players are allowed to talk back to fans.  Are you kidding me?  Do you know how controlled these guys (NBA players) lives are? Let's wait until a player goes into the stands and snaps someone's neck before we get carried away with protecting the precious fandom.  BTW, I put the chances of that happening at zero. 

2.  Westrbrook explained that his words were the culmination of taking a lot of crap over a long period of time in Utah.  I completely support his right to talk back.  And that's all it was...talk.  The man and his girfriend were under no real threat from this NBA player.  The worst that could have happened was the guy (not woman) getting punched in the face by Westbrook, and he would have deserved it.

3.  The argument that you have to curtail Westbrook's reaction with bigger fine/suspension is wrong.  In sports arenas fans are the instigators.  They think it's fine to hurl abuse, including racist abuse (see above post...Westbrook being called "boy".)  fine in Europe, but not in the US.  If you hand out big suspensions to players guess what will happen.  Joe racist will have a beer and then ruin the ears of all the women and children sitting next to him with racist taunts, because the player can't respond and then no on will know about it, and then the behavior will increase.  That's what is truly dangerous for society, not the silly idea that NBA players are any real threat to fans in the controlled environment of a sports arena.

On the bolded part, shouldn't that be up to security and other fans to put an end to that sort of behavior and not up to the player?

I mean, If I had my daughter at a game and was hearing racist comments I would say something and/or report them to security.

[TheSundanceKid]

Sure, mister dopey racist guy deserves to be told don't show your face around here, you ain't wanted.  People like that need to go crawl in their hole.

But it's pretty [dang] disgraceful Russ gets what amounts to a $10 fine to the average person.  So threatening a fan with physical violence is pretty much accepted as far as the NBA is concerned?  How many times is Russ going to be allowed to be confrontational with fans? This is becoming a pattern with him.

Yep, completely agree. Russ seems to do this every couple of months. You just know when playoffs roll around some team is going to try and incite him to come into the crowd and get suspended

Yeah, the people giving Russ a pass on this and acting like it's no big deal he threatened a fan with physical violence just because that fan said some mean things to him should be ashamed of themselves.

And the NBA really is setting a bad precedent here that essentially shows they have again reverted to not taking player interactions with fans seriously. Giving Russ nothing more than a slap on the wrist is just going to embolden other players to get in the faces of fans any time they hear someone shouting something at them they don't like. That can't be allowed, as it most assuredly will eventually escalate past just an exchange of words, if the NBA doesn't get control of this better.

Yeah, you can’t let provocation be a shield. After all, a thrown beer that connected with a player is what started the Malice at the Palace.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Let's not pretend that it was all hunky dorey and the the rails blew off when the fan threw beer...

Provocation wasn't a shield here, he got fined. The NBA acknowledged the wrong that he did. We can argue til the cows come home about the proportionality of the punishment but then we can open that up to most things, particularly in sport. Most fines handed out are not at all proportionate, think back to the fines over tampering. The fact is that the NBA isn't going to hand down large fines to players, and match bans are probably too much for an incident like this.

[wiley]

1.  I don't understand why people want to protect scummy fans with the reasoning that things will escalate if players are allowed to talk back to fans.  Are you kidding me?  Do you know how controlled these guys (NBA players) lives are? Let's wait until a player goes into the stands and snaps someone's neck before we get carried away with protecting the precious fandom.  BTW, I put the chances of that happening at zero. 

2.  Westrbrook explained that his words were the culmination of taking a lot of crap over a long period of time in Utah.  I completely support his right to talk back.  And that's all it was...talk.  The man and his girfriend were under no real threat from this NBA player.  The worst that could have happened was the guy (not woman) getting punched in the face by Westbrook, and he would have deserved it.

3.  The argument that you have to curtail Westbrook's reaction with bigger fine/suspension is wrong.  In sports arenas fans are the instigators.  They think it's fine to hurl abuse, including racist abuse (see above post...Westbrook being called "boy".)  fine in Europe, but not in the US.  If you hand out big suspensions to players guess what will happen.  Joe racist will have a beer and then ruin the ears of all the women and children sitting next to him with racist taunts, because the player can't respond and then no on will know about it, and then the behavior will increase.  That's what is truly dangerous for society, not the silly idea that NBA players are any real threat to fans in the controlled environment of a sports arena.

On the bolded part, shouldn't that be up to security and other fans to put an end to that sort of behavior and not up to the player?

I mean, If I had my daughter at a game and was hearing racist comments I would say something and/or report them to security.

Of course ideally it should.  But that is not the reality that plays out, at least not often enough to curtail this kind of behavior, which is rampant apparently in Utah.  When there is a chronic issue that is not being fixed, it's very helpful that the player has brought attention to it, and doing it politely is a lot to ask of a guy in the heat of a game who has had this crap hurled at him over an extended period of time. 


Did you see the linked article in one of my posts above about the hockey player in Quebec?  Do you think security and fellow fans were helpful in that instance? 

As a society we have to decide our level of tolerance for this behavior.  Mine is zero. 

[fairweatherfan]

3.  The argument that you have to curtail Westbrook's reaction with bigger fine/suspension is wrong.  In sports arenas fans are the instigators.  They think it's fine to hurl abuse, including racist abuse (see above post...Westbrook being called "boy".)  fine in Europe, but not in the US.  If you hand out big suspensions to players guess what will happen.  Joe racist will have a beer and then ruin the ears of all the women and children sitting next to him with racist taunts, because the player can't respond and then no on will know about it, and then the behavior will increase.  That's what is truly dangerous for society, not the silly idea that NBA players are any real threat to fans in the controlled environment of a sports arena.

The only way I'd agree with this is if flipping out like Westbrook did was the only way for abusive fans to be punished. Which I don't think is the case - I'm not naive enough to think all the attention might not have increased the speed and public nature of the Jazz's response, but he didn't have to berate the fan who called him "boy" to take action on it with an usher/security person.

I also don't want a big suspension, just a short one, and specifically for threatening violence, not for being upset or reacting. I don't blame him for being upset, but there are plenty of ways to respond that don't involve personal threats.

I think this absolutism doesn't serve anything but simplification - either the player can say whatever he wants or it's open season on racist taunts forever? C'mon. It's possible for both people to cross a line even if one is much more understandable than the other; in fact it happens all the time.

[Roy H.]

ftp://

25k fan for Westbrook. In other words, exactly what I felt was appropriate: fine for the player, ban for the jackass fan.

I don't think it's appropriate.  Kobe got $100k for a gay slur.  I thought that was appropriate to send a message that anti-gay slurs weren't appropriate.

What message is sent when a star threatens to beat up a female fan and gets a slap on the wrist?

The message it sends is “don’t come to a game to be racist jackasses to athletes with your wife and then feign ignorance and play the victim when said athlete responds.”

If you’re asking which side I’m more interested in dissuading, the racist hecklers or the athlete threatening them in response, I’m picking the former every day and twice on Sunday. As I would in [dang] near every incident involving a provocateur and the provoked.

By all means, if somebody disrespects you threaten to beat up the nearest woman. 

But, in the world of social justice I guess abusive speech toward a person of color is worse than threatening violence against women?  I get confused by the hierarchy.

Watching the video again, I don't really see how that could really be accepted as a credible threat to do violence.  RW's body language seems completely non-threatening as he finishes a water bottle and seems more concerned about where to drop it than anything else.   It looks and sounds like just gum flapping on his part.   Folks can surely disagree but I think the NBA's view (probably filtered through the eyes of their attorneys) is that all they have on Westbrook is some cussing.   So they've fined him for using the foul language and that's the end of that.

No, there was more than cussing. There was a threat to do harm.

I mean, if Mike Pence was caught on a hot mic saying the same thing about a heckler in the crowd, are you defending him the same way? The only difference is that Pence doesn’t have a history of going after fans.

The only difference is that Mike Pence is a disgusting piece of !@#$, and way WORSE individual than Westbrook could ever be..

Right. So arguments aren’t based on facts or any consistent view of morality, but rather on how much we admire / despise the individual.

If it’s wrong to threaten to beat down a woman, it’s wrong whether it’s done by a star basketball player or an unpopular politician.

why is a woman different than a man?  That is the problem I've had with your position in this thread, you are treating a whole class of people differently based on an uncontrollable factor.

1. There’s no independent indicia that the woman behaved badly, unlike the man;

2. Our society does indeed treat victims differently based upon a number of factors, one of which is gender.

[RPGenerate]

I'm of the opinion that any sort of hostile interaction between fans and a player should be dealt with harshly on both sides. I'm glad that loser fan got banned, so he got his due, but I feel like Westbrook should have been suspended a game or two. You can't have players like him threatening fans like that, regardless of what they're saying. It sets a bad precedent.

[wiley]

3.  The argument that you have to curtail Westbrook's reaction with bigger fine/suspension is wrong.  In sports arenas fans are the instigators.  They think it's fine to hurl abuse, including racist abuse (see above post...Westbrook being called "boy".)  fine in Europe, but not in the US.  If you hand out big suspensions to players guess what will happen.  Joe racist will have a beer and then ruin the ears of all the women and children sitting next to him with racist taunts, because the player can't respond and then no on will know about it, and then the behavior will increase.  That's what is truly dangerous for society, not the silly idea that NBA players are any real threat to fans in the controlled environment of a sports arena.

The only way I'd agree with this is if flipping out like Westbrook did was the only way for abusive fans to be punished. Which I don't think is the case - I'm not naive enough to think all the attention might not have increased the speed and public nature of the Jazz's response, but he didn't have to berate the fan who called him "boy" to take action on it with an usher/security person.

I also don't want a big suspension, just a short one, and specifically for threatening violence, not for being upset or reacting. I don't blame him for being upset, but there are plenty of ways to respond that don't involve personal threats.

I think this absolutism doesn't serve anything but simplification - either the player can say whatever he wants or it's open season on racist taunts forever? C'mon. It's possible for both people to cross a line even if one is much more understandable than the other; in fact it happens all the time.

I agree with Russ receiving a fine, and if a short suspension I’m fine with that too.  He went too far, but I’m glad he did something.  As he clearly stated, and players around the league and in Utah have confirmed, this is chronic in Utah, perhaps more than usual alongside the spike in race crimes in America.  So when you hear him going off on the guy let’s keep in mind he’s going off on a lot of cumulative crap.  .