Kobe Bryant Dies in Helicopter Crash

[LMU]

18 minutes ago, Digby said:

I don't think it is worthwhile to re-litigate the case, but I also don't think it's fair to assume anyone who brings it up at this point is doing so in bad faith and has their story wrong. That's all.

 

6 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

 

No, of course everyone isn't doing so in bad faith. But I do think some who have never said anything about Kobe Bryant, never said anything about basketball, and never noticed the strides Kobe's made as a person since 2003 are likely acting in bad faith. Is the assault case part of Kobe's legacy? Yes, absolutely. Can you fairly reduce him to just that? No, you can't though people are trying.

 

None of that excuses death threats or whatever. Everyone likely needs to chill (me included). But it's also helpful to call some of this latest battle in the culture war what it is.

 

Also, some of my anti-Kap extended family members are posting "what about the Altobellis?" memes on Facebook. So that's out there too.

You can also separate out legitimate, hard looks into legacy that bother to research nuance from all of the "why are you idiots worshiping a rapist?" trolls.

[Ridleylash]

Also, bringing it up the day everybody found out the man had died is a little problematic, don't you think? It shouldn't be ignored, no, but there's a thing called "tact", and saying it so soon after his death is pretty much asking to start a kerfuffle (and honestly, it's also a little disrespectful). I'm sure Kobe's family would be thrilled with the idea of people bringing up allegations that, from everything we've seen, the man had long since moved past and become better from as a means to discredit his legacy as a basketball player the day he and his daughter die in a helicopter crash.

 

You can acknowledge it happened, but I don't necessarily think the day of his death is the right time to be analyzing how that effects his legacy. Let people mourn and come to terms with the loss first.

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, Digby said:

It's insane that the Post suspended a reporter over daring to tweet.

 

Didn't she do the old blue-check move of tweeting out people's email addresses so she could sic an army on them with plausible deniability? Think of it more as being suspended for acting like a bratty teenager.

[MJWalker45]

14 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

Also, some of my anti-Kap extended family members are posting "what about the Altobellis?" memes on Facebook. So that's out there too.

Still not as bad as the idjits posting about a Marine helicopter crash from 15 years ago and not doing the research. If I plan to share something I will read it to see the date and if it's still pertinent, usually that involves missing persons. I still work with the military so I normally know about stuff like that as soon as it happens. 

[Digby]

11 minutes ago, LMU said:

 

You can also separate out legitimate, hard looks into legacy that bother to research nuance from all of the "why are you idiots worshiping a rapist?" trolls.

 

In what @DG_Now linked to, the writer did link to a deeply reported piece, not trollbait, and she was met with doxxing and suspension anyway.

 

We've talked a lot about how Kobe transcended basketball to the wider culture in a way that only 3 or 4 other basketball players have ever really done -- part of that is the fact that a lot of people know his name aren't NBA heads, and when they saw the news alert from a non-ESPN source, they remembered him for that other thing and not for his 81 point game or for being a Cool Dad meme on the NBA internet.

 

(Also, this is neither here nor there and I probably shouldn't, but I think Aziz Ansari looked worse because his arc was more like a Reverse Kobe, having staked so much of his career on being an enlightened male in the world of modern dating, but then turned out he's just another horny guy who can't read signals.)

 

 

2 minutes ago, the admiral said:

 

Didn't she do the old blue-check move of tweeting out people's email addresses so she could sic an army on them with plausible deniability? Think of it more as being suspended for acting like a bratty teenager.

 

The blog post said she screenshotted names but not addresses. The culture war is almost never symmetrical!

[OnWis97]

I also see the frustration that someone is supposed to get universal praise because he's good at basketball.  And I think that's why some people are bringing it up...I mean, it's not like men have been given passes on sexual assault forever.  

 

Rape is almost impossible to prove.  Statistically, very few accusations are false.  That said, one case is not a statistic, so you have to tread carefully.  It's the difficult part of this; I have my thoughts but I can't really shine any light that hasn't been shone.  To this point...

 

7 hours ago, LMU said:

To flat out call him a rapist is disingenuous since:

*All charges were dropped

*The settlement/apology statement was not the smoking gun confession that everyone is insinuating. The statement was that he was sorry that there was a miscommunication of what was perceived on both ends as consent. It’s very similar to the Aziz Ansari situation in that regard but is not at all a confession, and writing a check to make a burdensome trial go away is commonplace.

 

And you also have the issues that arose with the case itself, mainly that she reportedly bragged to her friends that she slept with him and that she reportedly bragged at a party that she was using his money to buy a koala. The other issue at the time was that the DA, Mark Hurlbert, was facing a tough re-election and overreached with this case as campaign material. Then you also have Kobe defending himself in the media and in the legal system against an anonymous accuser who was only revealed after she was named on the Tom Leykis Show.

 

Was I in the room? Was anyone else in the room? No. But, this black and white posthumous public trial is far more complex than what is being brought up, and he certainly did a great, great deal to atone, reinvent himself, and make a positive impact.

Rape charges being dropped mean very little in terms of "proof of innocence" (which I know is not any sort of legal requirement)...it simply means that something that's almost impossible to prove wasn't going to be proven.  Now, I did NOT go over this case with a fine-toothed comb.  I've read from some that did things that don't go along with this (though I agree; let's not litigate it)...so I don't know.  

 

7 hours ago, DG_Now said:

 

No, of course everyone isn't doing so in bad faith. But I do think some who have never said anything about Kobe Bryant, never said anything about basketball, and never noticed the strides Kobe's made as a person since 2003 are likely acting in bad faith. Is the assault case part of Kobe's legacy? Yes, absolutely. Can you fairly reduce him to just that? No, you can't though people are trying.

 

None of that excuses death threats or whatever. Everyone likely needs to chill (me included). But it's also helpful to call some of this latest battle in the culture war what it is.

 

Also, some of my anti-Kap extended family members are posting "what about the Altobellis?" memes on Facebook. So that's out there too.

I don't think you have to know a thing about basketball to have opinions on off-court things a basketball player does...this rings dangerously close to "he's a great athlete, which is all that matters" (someone said this about M. Vick; but I don't remember who).  

 

7 hours ago, Red Comet said:

I don't think it would kill anyone to wait a week to let people mourn Kobe Bryant and then talk about his entire life, warts and all. But less than 24 hours after it? Just sounds like a vampire looking for attention.

Waiting until Kobe's no longer a hot topic...it's kinda like how we're supposed to wait until after we've moved on from the shooting spree to talk about guns.  If someone's going to write some kinda reminder that this happened in, say, a week there are only two possibilities: 1) They get treated the same as they are today and 2) it goes un-noticed. There really is no way to say "do we have to praise this athlete despite this?"  

 

For my part, on my more public personas (i.e., Twitter and Facebook).  I chose to say nothing.  I didn't feel comfortable even giving an "RIP" with that cloud hanging over this.  I chose not to re-hash an accusation I'm not quite equipped to make...since I really don't know.  I just stayed away.

 

That said, rape culture is real.  My first memory of it is Mike Tyson. I was in middle school and you would be, at the time, hard pressed to find a male peer of mine not saying "what did they think she was going to do in that hotel room, play a board game?"  Some said that about the Kobe case, too. It's toxic, and I see the frustration that we're supposed to lionize this guy because he's the best basketball player since Jordan.  

 

Remember Brock Turner?  Six months for raping a passed-out woman. No he said/she said?  Maybe that "punishment" becomes more substantial if we're not trained to give athletes a pass.

 

EDIT: I say all this as someone that's learned a bit about him over the last couple of days.  I certainly don't think he's a predator; I think he was....well whatever.  But I think he grew from that experience quite a bit.  There's a ton of nuance to his life; but that doesn't mean he didn't get away with something; something that men almost always get away with.

 

[Digby]

9 hours ago, GDAWG said:

 

 

 

Not to be mean to old or sick people here, but a big reason this hit so hard is because Kobe was like, right there, yesterday. Between that cute meme with his kid and LeBron passing him on the scoring list, Kobe was kinda having a moment in the culture again at the start of this year. Like that long, nice monologue LeBron gave that very night after passing him! It's actually eerie in hindsight. For him to be yanked from the middle of it just like that was just brutal, in a way I can't remember any other celebrity death.

[SFGiants58]

7 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

 

 

That said, rape culture is real.  My first memory of it is Mike Tyson. I was in middle school and you would be, at the time, hard pressed to find a male peer of mine not saying "what did they think she was going to do in that hotel room, play a board game?"  Some said that about the Kobe case, too. It's toxic, and I see the frustration that we're supposed to lionize this guy because he's the best basketball player since Jordan.  

 

Remember Brock Turner?  Six months for raping a passed-out woman. No he said/she said?  Maybe that "punishment" becomes more substantial if we're not trained to give athletes a pass.

 

Well, that’s less an athlete and a more a “rich white kid getting a favorable judge, a judge who later received punishment for it.”

 

I’m a bit of a “guilty until proven innocent/guilty until proven there’s insufficient data” person when it comes to rape and sexual abuse allegations. I’ve seen too many people get away with it, too many people get light sentences, and too many people try to victim blame. Maybe it’s an overreaction, but it’s one we may need.

[GDAWG]

2 hours ago, Digby said:

 

I hate to say this because it's unfair, but it's also true that I'd hoped that maybe seeing a handful of our generation's daughters in the WNBA might elevate the profile of the women's game and function as a fun generational sequel. Still might happen but so far it seemed like Gianna might be the torchbearer for that.

 

Yeah. With Gianna's passing I think we may have to wait a while because her estimated time of arrival in the WNBA was going to be 2030 by which should was to have been 23.  She would have most likely led the charge, although I have no idea how many NBA players have daughters Gianna's age or if they even play basketball. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

1 hour ago, SFGiants58 said:

I’m a bit of a “guilty until proven innocent/guilty until proven there’s insufficient data” person when it comes to rape and sexual abuse allegations. I’ve seen too many people get away with it, too many people get light sentences, and too many people try to victim blame. Maybe it’s an overreaction, but it’s one we may need.

 

This impulse may come from a good place, namely, the desire to support people who have often been abandoned or even abused by the authorities, and left with no recourse.  Still, a position of "guilty until proven innocent" is not one to embrace.

 

 

2 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

Statistically, very few accusations are false. 

 

While this is true, each case is unique.  The uncomfortable fact is that false rape accustations, while rare, do happen sometimes.  And there have unfortunately been several high-profile cases in which the accusations are now known to be false: the Duke lacrosse case, the University of Virginia case presented in a Rolling Stone article that was later retracted, the Tawana Brawley case.  Speaking as someone who has worked for more than thirty years in criminal defence, I can attest that these well-known instances are not the only such examples.  To confront this feels terrible, especially because we can be sure that the highly-publicised stories have encouraged people (honestly: society's worst people) to doubt the veracity of claims that are legitimate, as the overwhelming majority are. 

But the way forward absolutely cannot involve discarding or even diminishing the presumption of innocence.  Of course, neither would it be right to maintain the status quo, wherein the toxic assumptions of rape culture go unchallenged in the environment of the courtroom, and the people who decide guilt at trials (whether judges or jurors) are steeped in that culture and so bring their ugly biases to bear on their decisions.

 

The main part of the answer is to have a lot more women as judges, in prosecution and defence offices, and on police forces, so that the lived experience that is common to women becomes part of the institutional cultures surrounding law and jurisprudence.  It is also necessary to remove from their positions those men who refuse to accept that their previously-held assumptions on the realities of rape and sexual assault are dangerously wrong, and to make sure that these sorts of men never make it to juries.

The history of rape trials is a shameful one, full of appeals to backward traditional norms of sex roles and sexual propriety, a phenomenon that is now known as "slut-shaming".  The unwillingness to endure that traumatic experience has dissuaded many women from even pressing charges; and this has resulted in countless sexual predators and rapists getting away with their crimes, and often repeating them. The remedy here is the establishment of better rules of conduct for attorneys.  A defence attorney's ethical duty to zealously protect the interests of the defendant usually includes undermining the credibility of the complaining witness.  This is legitimate; but it now has to be done under guidelines that prohibit cross-examination about a complainant's sexual history or clothing.  So we can have good rules that attack the longstanding flaws that have been baked into the system, while taking care not to damage the presumption of innocence or a lawyer's ability to present a strong defence.

And we as citizens in a society have a moral duty to internalise the concept of "believe women" as a corrective to traditional enculturation into rape culture, while at the same time acknowledging the importance of the principle that punishment must be based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

[SFGiants58]

Yeah, my position is fairly problematic. Maybe it was my experiences in college, hearing about the Brock Turner, Steubenville, or the Columbia Mattress case that established my thought process as such. Seeing people go “those poor rapists” or the accused trying to describe how “they” suffered as a result really messed with me. This piece from The Onion really summed up my feelings on the matter.
 

It’s something that I’ve been trying to work my way past, seeing how harmful it is in cases of false accusations and realizing the psychological damages it can cause. Look at the Patrick Kane case, for instance. Even non-sports examples, like Johnny Depp or Aziz Ansari, show these problems. I don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable supporting an accused sex offender, but I want to work past the idea of “guilty until proven innocent.”

 

You’re right, @Ferdinand Cesarano. There are better ways to dismantle rape culture than disposing of the presumption of innocence.

[kimball]

 

I like this way of "retiring" Kobe's numbers instead of a league wide thing ... or even by the Mavericks. 

[IceCap]

5 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

Rape charges being dropped mean very little in terms of "proof of innocence"

Ok. Slow your roll. 

Kobe Bryant wasn't a rapist. Know why he wasn't a rapist? Because he was never found guilty of rape. 

 

Is that harsh? Yes. Is that uncomfortable, given the hoops victims of sexual assault often need to jump through? Yes. 

At the end of the day though? Our civilization values the rule of law. Innocent until proven guilty. And Kobe Bryant was not found guilty of rape.

So to say "Kobe Bryant is a rapist" is, at best, woefully disingenuous. At worst it's a flat out lie that's being used to smear a dead man less than a week after he's passed. 

 

I was not in that hotel room. I don't know what happened, I don't know what was consented to and what wasn't. 

What I do know is that Kobe Bryant, in 2003, was unfaithful to his wife. He was, in all likelihood, aggressive with another woman. That's all I'm comfortable saying because, again, he was never found guilty of rape. 

 

 Now none of the above speaks well to 2003 Kobe's character. He worked to improve himself though, and that's worth something. Far more than some here and elsewhere are willing to admit. 

 

What happened in 2003 will always be part of his life and legacy but to call the man a rapist not even three days after he died is, to me, disgusting. 

[SFGiants58]

I see where he is coming from, but I don’t think I can agree. Once the charges have been dropped and the story falls apart, it’s easier to assume innocence. After seeing how Kobe turned himself around following it, should that not be rehabilitation (you don’t necessarily need prison for that)? I firmly believe people can rehabilitate themselves, with Kobe being a key case. 
 

He’s basically saying that the case makes his entire career invalid. It speaks to a disbelief in rehabilitation, something I find disgusting.

[OnWis97]

Well, I acknowledged the complexities and even his growth and have been called "disgusting" by two people who either misinterpreted me or focused on part of what I've said..  You guys have fun on the rest of this thread.

But on the outside, I'm still not going to engage in the worship.

[KittSmith_95]

This is a nice, subtle thing done by the Sixers. Kudos to them. 

[IceCap]

50 minutes ago, OnWis97 said:

Well, I acknowledged the complexities and even his growth and have been called "disgusting" by two people who either misinterpreted me or focused on part of what I've said.. 

I said calling Kobe Bryant a rapist is disgusting. There's a difference between calling the act disgusting and calling the person disgusting. I can find fault with your argument but not hold it against you as a person. 

 

It's not my fault if you can't, or won't, see the distinction. 

[SFGiants58]

My reading was less charitable. I apologize, but still stand by what I said about rehabilitation.

[OnWis97]

4 minutes ago, IceCap said:

I said calling Kobe Bryant a rapist is disgusting. There's a difference between calling the act disgusting and calling the person disgusting. I can find fault with your argument but not hold it against you as a person. 

 

It's not my fault if you can't, or won't, see the distinction. 

I’ll probably regret pointing this out, but I didn’t.

[BBTV]

8 hours ago, LMU said:

. The statement was that he was sorry that there was a miscommunication of what was perceived on both ends as consent. It’s very similar to the Aziz Ansari situation in that regard but is not at all a confession, and writing a check to make a burdensome trial go away is commonplace.

 

How the hell is there miscommunication of what is perceived as consent?  That's where it becomes as close to a confession - without actually being one - as it can get.

 

 

1 hour ago, IceCap said:

What I do know is that Kobe Bryant, in 2003, was unfaithful to his wife. He was, in all likelihood, aggressive with another woman. That's all I'm comfortable saying because, again, he was never found guilty of rape. 

 

Right.  He humiliated his wife and risked even having the family that's now part of his legacy.  People grow - of course.  And he's far from the first athlete that's had their way with other women while humiliating his spouse in the process.  But all of this "he did everything for women", "he was working so hard to promote women's sports", etc. - let's not forget the lack of respect he showed - not only for women in general, but for his own wife.  When I hear her name, the first thing that comes to mind is the ridiculously-oversized ring he bought her off with.

 

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that it was a long time ago and the system (in this case the financial and social ramifications, not the literal penal system) worked and he learned his lesson - but there's plenty of situations in which the good doesn't / can't erase the bad.