Is there a racial component to the reaction to the Adrian Peterson situation?

[oberliner]

Last edited Sat Sep 13, 2014, 11:14 PM - Edit history (1)

At least among the NFL players who have expressed an opinion via Twitter or elsewhere, it seems that a lot of the tweets in support of AP - saying things like "I was beaten as a kid and I turned out OK" and similar sentiments are coming from African-American players whereas the more critical comments about AP are coming from those who are white.

Is there anything to this? That is to say, is there a cultural divide (in very general terms) with respect to corporal punishment among families of different races? Or is this a meaningless observation based on limited anecdotal evidence?

[Marr]

1. If there is such a divide, I suspect it's class based more than anything.

I can only cite my own personal experience here, but I grew up quite poor (and white). Corporal punishment was the norm in my house and those of my local friends. I had friends from across town as well, however, who were from a more affluent area. In their houses, such punishments were taboo, with parents choosing instead to remove privileges or give 'time outs'. It seemed incredibly weird to me at the time.

[OneGrassRoot]

2. I agree with Marr. n/t

[oberliner]

3. That is very interesting

Thanks for sharing that insight.

[hifiguy]

11. I think you have hit the nail

squarely on the head.

[Kalidurga]

4. For some people it's always about race/gender/class

I don't see this through the lens of proving a point though. I see it as a very large and stronger than average adult nearly beating a very young child to death. We could talk about a culture of violence with this story as a back drop. We could talk about how the NFL runs defense for it's criminal players. We could talk about race in the context that the treatment of minorities is going to raise frustration levels etc. But, this is not a race issue in the slightest.

[jwirr]

5. I think this case is seen more about child abuse than race by most. For one thing most of us

understand that child abuse crosses all the lines - race, gender and class. No group can claim to be free of this stigma.

[Kalidurga]

7. That is how it should be

the focus is definitely on the wrong place if it's not on how to prevent child abuse and how to punish (wish I could say reform, but that is too advanced a concept for our current system) the perp.

[Iggo]

6. "I was beaten as a kid and I turned out OK"

Well, Adrian Peterson was beaten as a kid and he turned out to be a man who beats on kids.

[AngryAmish]

8. AAs generally support corporal punishment

White folks not so much.

[LittleBlue]

9. I read a black woman who wrote that she thought

the frequent use of corporal punishment in the black community came from the punishments during slavery.

[AverageJoe90]

21. And there does appear to be some truth to that, sadly.

Here's an interesting thing I found on Jordan Riak's site a few years ago:

http://nospank.net/slave.pdf

(Okay, well, TBH, I don't agree with absolutely everything he posts, but I honestly feel this particular piece of info is pretty good.)

[kwassa]

12. It is more Southern culture than anything else. The schools still have corporal punishment there.

and black kids are beaten more than anyone else, of course.

The map of these states consists pretty much of the Confederate States of America.


Here are the numbers:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934191.html
unformated info on numbers

State Number of
students hit Percent of
total students
Alabama 33,716 4.5%
Arizona 16 (1)
Arkansas 22,314 4.7
Colorado 8 (1)
Florida 7,185 0.3
Georgia 18,249 1.1
Idaho 111 0.4
Indiana 577 0.5
Kansas 50 .01
Kentucky 2,209 0.3
Louisiana 11,080 1.7
Mississippi 38,131 7.5
Missouri 5,159 0.6
New Mexico 705 0.2
North Carolina 2,705 0.2
Ohio 672 0.04
Oklahoma 14,828 2.3
South Carolina 1,409 0.2
Tennessee 14,868 1.5
Texas 49,197 1.1
U.S. total 223,190 0.46

Read more: Corporal Punishment in Public Schools, by State | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934191.html#ixzz3DE62QyY1


Here is the map:
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/features/corporal_punishment/us/index.html?keepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=550&width=1000

[XemaSab]

10. Hitting your kid on the scrotum with a tree branch

shouldn't be acceptable by people of any race, and no offense, but if you're trying to defend that you're a fucked up asshole.

[noiretextatique]

13. i am #4

On Sat Sep 13, 2014, 10:16 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

Hitting your kid on the scrotum with a tree branch
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5530898

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

Calling the poster a "fucked up asshole" is rude.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sat Sep 13, 2014, 10:23 AM, and the Jury voted 3-4 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Hard to think of any other way to describe somebody who defends this kind of child abuse. The poster did not call anybody a fucked up asshole. He/she made a conditional statement e.g. "If (you excuse this) then (well you know the rest)"
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: This post says IF you believe something, THEN you are something. It does not say "you are a fucked up asshole".
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: iif the shoe fits...
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #7 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: true tho the post may be, i know xema can do better than that.

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

[XemaSab]

14. Thanks!

[noiretextatique]

22. i agree with your post

welcome.

[oberliner]

15. It is unclear what prompted your profane response.

My question was - is there any racial component to this situation? This stemmed from the various tweets that I have read from African-American football players who seemed to express that being hit in this manner as a child by one's parents was a part of their childhood as well - and not one that they object to as adults looking back.

I found that interesting - I wondered if others did as well.

[kwassa]

23. I think you are way off base on this ...

I think it is cultural, not racial, and based in the Southern culture, which still has a strong tradition of corporal punishment. As I pointed out in another post.

[oberliner]

27. I think that is a reasonable point

And, again, I was just asking a question based on what I had observed via NFL players on twitter and the like. I am not informed enough on the subject myself which is why I put the question to the forum.

[NaturalHigh]

16. Oh crap, this is the first I've heard of this.

I've always been a big fan of Adrian Peterson going back to his days at Oklahoma, but this really bothers me.

Personally, I think that corporal punishment is wrong (and almost never produces the desired results), and I don't think very highly of anybody who defends this kind of beating of a child.

[Boom Sound 416]

17. Isn't this child deceased?

While in the care in the mother's boyfriend?

On topic though,
I fail to see a racial component here. It seems like another mystwittery.

[LeftyMom]

19. Different son. nt

[Boom Sound 416]

20. Wow.

I didn't think it could be more tragic.

[AverageJoe90]

18. I can say that a lot of *conservative* white people seem to have come out in support of AP......

But, to be honest, in THAT particular case, it seems like a lot of that does indeed have a racial component, i.e., because he beat his child, in their view, they think he's one of the "good" blacks, because they have been taught to believe (by RWNJ talk radio, amongst many other things) that kids, and especially minorities, to many minds, are all totally out of control these days for lack of a good "whippin'" as it were.....

I mean, don't get me wrong, this kind of thing's always been a problem, but it seems like it's become more virulent in some of these most recent years, with the election of our first African-American president, and the continued success of LGBT rights advocates, and what have you.....

[pnwmom]

24. Oprah Winfrey has said she thinks there is, that for black people it's a vestige of slavery.

When I googled I found this.

http://thegrio.com/2009/11/18/precious-the-new-movie-by/

Recently, a study found that spanking has a negative effect on toddlers, particularly those from low-income households. Precious, the new movie by Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey, is the story of a black teen mother who survives physical and sexual abuse from her parents. While the movie strikes a chord with those who were victims of abuse in their childhood, it also reminds us of the prevalence of beatings as a child-rearing tool in the African-American community, a practice which hearkens back to the days of slavery.

As Dr. William H. Grier and Dr. Price M. Cobbs remind us in their book, Black Rage, black folks learned to beat their children from slavery. The book cautions:

“Beating in child-rearing actually has its psychological roots in slavery and even yet black parents will feel that, just as they have suffered beatings as children, so it is right that their children be so treated. This kind of physical subjugation of the weak forges early in the mind of the child a link with the past and, as he learns the details of history, with slavery per se.”

SNIP

[oberliner]

26. That is the point I was wondering about

Others have been making similar points.

[kwassa]

29. Not a vestige of slavery, only, but of general violence in the South.

There is a lot of material out there about the Southern culture of violence. Here is one example, but if you search for it, you will find many more. This violence, most notably, is by whites as well as blacks, something that seems to be missing from your concept.

Randolph Roth, in his American Homicide (2009), states that the idea of a culture of honor is oversimplified.[9] He argues that the violence often committed by Southerners resulted from social tensions. He hypothesizes that when people feel that they are denied social success or the means to attain it, they will be more prone to commit violent acts. His argument is that Southerners were in tension, possibly due to poor Whites being marginalized by rich Whites, free and enslaved Blacks being denied basic rights, and rich and politically empowered Whites having their power threatened by Northern politicians pushing for more federal control of the South, especially over abolition. He argues that issues over honor just triggered the already present hostility, and that people took their frustration out through violent acts often on the surface over issues of honor. He draws historical records of violence across the U.S. and Europe to show that violence largely accompanies perceptions of political weakness and the inability to advance oneself in society. Roth also shows that although the South was "obsessed with honor" in the mid-18th century, there was relatively little homicide. Barring under-reported crime against some groups, low homicide may simply have been gentlemanly self-restraint at a time when social order was stable, a trend that reverses in the 19th century and later.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_honor_%28Southern_United_States%29

Here is a fascinating article on the subject:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/July-2012/American-Violence-and-Southern-Culture/

and there are many more on this subject.

[KinMd]

25. "I was beaten as a kid and I turned out OK"

..I'd love a second or third opinion on that

[oberliner]

28. Not saying those who express that sentiment are right

Just saying that it is a sentiment I have seem expressed by some other NFL players tweeting in apparent support of AP.

[KinMd]

30. I understand, I've seen that sentiment all over