Archive through July 09, 2003
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TV ClubHouse: Archive: Road Rules - South Pacific (ARCHIVES): Archive through July 09, 2003

Squaredsc

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 02:23 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
thx max. i didn't think he had already been convicted of a crime but thought he might have had his trial already because of some of the earlier posts.

Puttergirl

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 02:28 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Tishala, do you plan to watch and post on BB4? I'll have to watch for your posts!! I haven't seen your name that much- what else do you watch?

Kappy

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 02:32 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I agree Puter. Donnell is just as racist in personality as Abe was and has been all along. He just reflects it in a different (and apparently excusable to some) way, such as taunting and harrassing. I can't wait until he is gone. But I honestly have doubts as to wether the rest of the group is intelligent enough to see it.

Puttergirl

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 02:36 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Hi, Kappy. Thanks for the validation. I noticed that you're a "cross stitch designer". That's interesting. In my spare time, I draw needlepoint canvases and my mother/father paints them for a little company called Rosalee Needlepoints (specializes in hand painted needlepoint).

Tishala

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 02:45 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Putter, I'm a troublemaker all over! LOL. I've been around since BB1, but I have been posting in News and Views mostly since before the war....

I hope to see more of you, too!

Puttergirl

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 02:55 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I see you've posted in AR4. You should have played my game\POLL!! We had 73 contestants play.

Tishala

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 03:01 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Oh I know Putter! It's a great poll! I'm just too darned lazy for it! LOL. Oh and I liked your fame poll too, but I'm sad that show has gone downhill....

Brenda1966

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 03:44 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I agree too Putergirl -- calling someone a Redneck is disparaging.

This cast needs to realize that verbally taunting someone is not acceptable.

Pantageas

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 04:06 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Hi Putter! I'm not excusing Donell at all, but to me the difference is clear. Ask me if I prefer for someone to call me an ignoramus from a sorry part of the USA....or ask me if I prefer someone to knock me upside the head...! What's worse, the guy who makes a sexist comment to my wife on her way to work, or the guy that tries to cop a feel...?

Believe me, I don't excuse Donell's words, but to paraphrase the old cliche :"Abe's actions speak much louder."

P.S. - As someone who lived in the deep South for a few years, let me say to all that "redneck" isn't about race, it's about mindset. Ask Jeff Foxworthy. Same thing with the term "coonass".

Ewww. Fame? I'm not THAT hard up to replace AI!!

Puttergirl

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 04:20 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Pantageas, I was born and raised in the deep south myself. I have to disagree with Jeff Foxworthy. Calling someone a redneck can mean many things, depending on who its coming from and the context they are using it in. Its no different than using "cornbread" as a racist remark. Cornbread normally doesn't hold any inherent racist meaning, but when used in the context Abram used it in, it does. By the same token, Redneck doesn't always have a racist undertone to it, but when spoken by Donnel it did!!!!

Max

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 04:22 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Personally, I'd rather someone hit me or cop a feel. The next step is REALLY clean cut, then and no one would fault me for taking it.

However, when someone disparages you verbally, there is no clear-cut next step that you get universal support for taking, even though the words can do a LOT of damage.

This thread is ample proof of that, IMHO.

Both behaved badly. Abe, egregiously so. He took the physical violence route and everyone agrees that the punishment is clear-cut -- he's gone (he's lucky that expulsion is the only penalty, actually). Donnell took the more "socially acceptable" route using verbal abuse and there is no clear-cut solution that everyone agrees to.

Pantageas

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 05:05 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Max, I'd think you'd get universal support after someone verbally disparages you if you considered yourself a better person - and did nothing.

Putter, if you said redneck was DISPARAGING, I'd agree. Racist, I disagree. When he said "redneck" I think Donell was calling Abe a ignorant backwoods hick from Montana(obviously meant as an insult). Had nothing to do with commenting on him being white.

Funny how I find our discussion more compelling than this season's show... :)

Tishala

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 05:19 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
me too

Puttergirl

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 05:52 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Funny, I don't remember the last time I heard someone call a person of color a "redneck". And I don't think that Donnel meant it in any other way than racist!! Nobody likes to talk about it, but racism can go both ways!!!

Tishala

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 06:31 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Putter, I think that if Abe had thought of "redneck" as racist, he would have said so when Donnell said "do I ever talk about you being a white cracker?" etc. It would have been an opportune time, but he didn't indicate he felt that way at all.

Max

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 07:37 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I'm not saying that Abe wasn't wrong. He absolutely was. He got angry--furious--and lost it completely. He needs to do some serious work on that. Yes, he would have come off as the good guy if he'd done nothing except perhaps verbally fight back. He'll definitely have to work on that skill if he's going to be a lawyer - or at least a lawyer who ever has to appear before a judge.

As for your philosophy of doing nothing when being vebally disparaged, I disagree. I spent seven years doing nothing except trying to deal with it and, believe me, doing SOMETHING felt a lot better. Granted, the something I did was to finally walk away, not to lash out physically, but it was something. And, although I got a lot of support from my friends, I sure didn't get universal public support as would be given if the assaults I endured for those years had been physical ones. Anyway, that's my point. Verbal violence is still violent, it just makes bruises on the inside.

Again, I'm not defending Abe in any way, shape, or form here. I'm simply saying that Donnell's actions are just as abhorent to me.

As far as using a term like 'redneck' in a racial context, here's the test. If a black person calls another black person the N word, that's considered quite okay. However, if that word is used by a white person, it's a whole other story. I think the same can be said for other words. A white person could call another white person a honky and probably be okay. But if a person of color called a white person that, it's not cool. I think the same could be said of the term redneck in this case. The fact that Abe was SO furious and out of control that he could hardly speak in any coherent way about anything doesn't mean he didn't feel the comment was racist.

As Dennis Miller says, "Of course, that's just MY opinion. I could be wrong!"

Puttergirl

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 07:46 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Max, you stated exactly what I was thinking but didn't express as well (your next to last paragraph). In the context Donnel used the word redneck in, it was racist. He did not mean it in the cute, "I really love you anyway" context of Jeff Foxworthy!!!

Tishala

Tuesday, July 08, 2003 - 08:04 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Well, of course it wasn't meant to be cute., but to suggest his ignorance..but as I said above, if Abe had objected to the redneck term as racist, he hasd the opportunity to say so when he admitted that the cornbread comment was intended to be racist.

BTW, it's good that people now seem to be willing to admit that the "cornbread" comment was, indeed, racist, even though many denied it initially. I'm just amazed at the shifts in discourse: before, Donnell's homophobia was a problem; now taht his violence has largely been deemed inexcusable, Donnell was as racist as Abe. Hmmmmmmm.

Pantageas

Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 09:09 am EditMoveDeleteIP
The reason I(and many) don't see "redneck" as a racist term, is because of how and when "redneck" is used. You don't disparage a person from Boston, New York or Chicago as "redneck" or "coonass" or "hillbilly" - regardless of their race. Those terms have a specific derogatory meaning, and it is not "white person"...

It doesn't make Donell any less of an ass for denegrating Abe with that label - I just want both him and Abe to be seen as asses for what they actually DID, not for what meanings/labels we WANT to put on them.

Max, it's inexcusable for someone to have verbally assaulted you for so long. I'm also glad you found the personal strength to walk away. And if Abe had done the same thing, I'd have logged him higher on my "Respect-o-Meter" than Donell. As it is, had to rescale that thing to accept fractions for the two of them anyway...

Seamonkey

Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 12:47 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
But of course the only way Abe could "walk away" was to leave the show. This verbal assault and the mind games started immediately and continued until he cracked and performed the act (egged on by Donnell to NOT walk away and "be a man").. the act that he KNEW would put him off the show. This way he didn't walk away but had to walk away.

I'm not saying this makes sense from the outside looking in, but what makes sense from inside is often different.

AND let's not forget that in order to really be free of the situation, Abe had to give up the competition, the "prize" at the end. He knew he was a strong link for the competitions. Donnell also knew this and Donnell brought that up after he'd succeeded in having Abe sent home.

Tishala, I think Donnell, if not racist, was being elitist as well as USING HOMOPHOBIA ..

When someone uses gay taunts to put someone down (whether that person is gay or not, homophobic or not) THAT IS homophobic. My opinion.

As far as saying that if Abe thought Donnell was being racist, he could have said so.. true but Donnell wasn't excatly listening or letting Abe talk without being loudly talked-over. Abe DID talk often about how he had been belittled and Donnell wouldn't even acknowledge that.

As I've already said, I don't respect either one of them, or the others much either.

Seamonkey

Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 12:55 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
By the way, the question of Donnell's legal status has been raised. This is what had happened BEFORE he went on the show.


Quote:

Donnell Langham, 21, was arrested last July for assault and battery after allegedly striking his teenage girlfriend and throwing her to the ground and dragging her several feet.

According to a police report, cops saw "significant bruising" on 5' 3" Erin Soper's "arms, back, and legs." As a result of the incident, a District Court judge signed a restraining order barring Langham, 5' 6", 200+ pounds, from contacting or going near the girl.





So there was no conviction, but a restraining order.

Only after he returned home from the season did the second alleged assault occur and he is awating trial for that and violation of the protective order.


Quote:

Langham is scheduled to face trial this summer on both misdemeanor cases and could face a maximum of two-and-a-half years in jail if convicted


Tishala

Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 01:32 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Right. So he doesn't have a conviction, as I said earlier. As I also said, I have enough faith in the constitution that I can wait until he is convicted (or not) to condemn him.

That said, he is not a nice guy.

Laura11103

Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 01:33 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
I find it sickening that MTV would allow a known abuser to be cast on this show. I wonder if Donnell mentioned this incident to his new found friends in the RV. Probably not. So Donnell isn't above resorting to violence, he just didn't physically fight Abe cuz he knows he'd lose, aganst a girl is another story though.

Maybe if the girls hadn't jumped on board with Donnell's verbal abuse (besides Christina), Abe might not have cracked. I thought Abe was taking a lot before he cracked. But something inside Abe just threw in the towel, he chose to leave the show by hitting Donnell and he knew it. Very sad situation. Out of all the people to cast, I can't believe this is what they came up with, truly unbelievable. I'm glad to hear that Abe is returning for the challenge show, maybe then we can really see who Abe is.

Seamonkey

Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 01:58 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Tishala.. yeah, that's why I went back to find the facts :)

Laura, Abe will have to show me a much different Abe for me to want to see who Abe really is. I hope he
does much thinking (counselling would be good) before the challenge, but that's in the future.

Puttergirl

Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 02:01 pm EditMoveDeleteIP
Tishala, I don't think any of us have changed our opinions a bit. We're just responding to Pantageas and your posts as they arise. I still feel exactly the same way I did when I watched it the first time. My empathy is with Abe and I despise Donnel. I supported Abe leaving ONLY because he resorted to violence at the end and I felt then and now that Donnel should have been send aaapacking too!!!!!!