Serena Williams cries "discrimination" over drug testing

[Madmick]

I think there's quite a few elements to all of this and understand that what bothers me isn't necessarily what your thread's about. I've spoken out in many threads over the years here against going after people's jobs and boycotting chains just because some pimply-faced 16 year old writes something stupid (and sometimes funny) on a receipt. In the end all I care about is equal rights and a government that's colorblind.

Yes, I know this well, but I felt the need to clarify my position.

This nuance is precisely what can solve everything, but is getting lost in the cracks. It isn't understood, I think.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Yes, I know this well, but I felt the need to clarify my position.

This nuance is precisely what can solve everything, but is getting lost in the cracks. It isn't understood, I think.

I'm reminded of an age old tale.

 

[scoopj]

Randomly tested 5x already in 2018? That seems excessive and not at all random.

 

[Liquid Smoke]

What exactly would you like me to do Madmick?

Morally grand stand in the war room. It's the only way...

 

[PubliusVentidius]

I'm a tennis fan and the drug testing in tennis is already a joke. Nobody ever gets busted for doping in tennis. There are some clean tennis players who actually are pushing for more testings because they find the system way too lax.

 

[chardog]

Test bolt while you're at it, no way clean

 

[AFewDollarsMore]

venus tested 2x
madison 2x
sloane 1x
john isner 5x

noticed in earlier years isner, serena and robert bryan seem to get more tested
https://www.usada.org/testing/results/athlete-test-history/

 

[Madmick]

Morally grand stand in the war room. It's the only way...

If the strongest objection to my arguments is that they're morally virtuous, in a forum devoted to debate of political ideas with the intention of arriving at the most virtuous ones, I'd opine that it's a humble start.

 

[Madmick]

Randomly tested 5x already in 2018? That seems excessive and not at all random.

venus tested 2x
madison 2x
sloane 1x
john isner 5x

noticed in earlier years isner, serena and robert bryan seem to get more tested
https://www.usada.org/testing/results/athlete-test-history/

I know it's a deep thread, but you guys are not keeping up with it:

she has no point, the USADA figures are totally horseshit as far as testing goes.

The only numbers that appear on the USADA website, are tests conducted by USADA out of competition on athletes in the olympic testing pool.

it does not include:

Any testing on Non-US nationals
Any testing in competition at ITF Events
Any testing requested by the ITF


The only people on the USADA database will be american athletes in the testing pool, and even then it wont include any of the tests conducted by the ITF

Luke thomas was tweeting earlier that the various grand slam winners have not been tested at all this year which is complete and utter bollocks..

Why would a Dane, A Romanian and A Russian appear on USADA's test lists???? Why would testing at Wimbledon or the French or Australian opens appear on USADA's testing lists? Why would testing conducted by the ITF appear on USADA's lists?>

they dont..

 

[dim_]

venus tested 2x
madison 2x
sloane 1x
john isner 5x

noticed in earlier years isner, serena and robert bryan seem to get more tested
https://www.usada.org/testing/results/athlete-test-history/

And how many times have each been tested during tournaments or by the itf?

We don't know

Usada numbers are like 10% of the overall picture, if that

 

[dim_]

Randomly tested 5x already in 2018? That seems excessive and not at all random.

There is no such thing as random testing

Doesn't exist

It's called strategic unannounced testing

 

[Fawlty]

The pretense used to be, "Companies are free to protect their economic interests."

This here has thrown us into political turmoil. In broad terms, right and left trading off between support and disfavor for the corporation, based on what the issue of the day is. Not only is that not tenable philosophically, it creates an environment where any corporation put to any of these choices is guaranteed to be under siege by somebody.

Like you asked though, where are the market consequences? We don't wait for them, so we don't know. Avoiding a boycott at all costs gives us nonsense like the Starbucks overreaction. But we don't really remember Starbucks because we've moved on to the next cause. I think if corporations just ignored all of this, we'd be fine. But corporations aren't grown-ups about this, they're hyper short-term oriented. Groovy, smashing, yay capitalism.

The right has caught the worst disease the left had though. I don't think we're coming back from this one for a while- your team is moving all in, it's the worst of populism now. Should our team start trying to long-term-rig the electoral process when the 2020 census drops? Probably, game theory is fun.

It's no longer going to be Democrats filling one dirty role and Republicans filling another, not at this rate. It's the identity politics MAD plan and we're headed for the brink. The edge is a ways off yet...

 

[Madmick]

This here has thrown us into political turmoil. In broad terms, right and left trading off between support and disfavor for the corporation, based on what the issue of the day is. Not only is that not tenable philosophically, it creates an environment where any corporation put to any of these choices is guaranteed to be under siege by somebody.

Like you asked though, where are the market consequences? We don't wait for them, so we don't know. Avoiding a boycott at all costs gives us nonsense like the Starbucks overreaction. But we don't really remember Starbucks because we've moved on to the next cause. I think if corporations just ignored all of this, we'd be fine. But corporations aren't grown-ups about this, they're hyper short-term oriented. Groovy, smashing, yay capitalism.

The right has caught the worst disease the left had though. I don't think we're coming back from this one for a while- your team is moving all in, it's the worst of populism now. Should our team start trying to long-term-rig the electoral process when the 2020 census drops? Probably, game theory is fun.

It's no longer going to be Democrats filling one dirty role and Republicans filling another, not at this rate. It's the identity politics MAD plan and we're headed for the brink. The edge is a ways off yet...

We don't care even when we do wait. My example of Sterling is no better example. While his own players protested him, their playoff attendance and viewership was at an all-time high. Business was better than ever. The next season's season ticket prices were higher than ever from demand.

I don't understand how the Starbucks fiasco was created by anything other than terrible, corporate caving to insane liberal political demands to pander to the #BLM crowd. We conservatives warned that the proposed policies intended to assuage were catastrophic capitulations that would cause massive damage to Starbucks, and its future profitability, by driving away customers. Conservatives alone hold the high ground concerning Starbucks. I'm not sure why you would bring that up.

 

[Fawlty]

We don't care even when we do wait. My example of Sterling is no better example. While his own players protested him, their playoff attendance and viewership was at an all-time high. Business was better than ever. The next season's season ticket prices were higher than ever from demand.

I don't understand how the Starbucks fiasco was created by anything other than terrible, corporate caving to insane liberal political demands to pander to the #BLM crowd. We conservatives warned that the proposed policies intended to assuage were catastrophic capitulations that would cause massive damage to Starbucks, and its future profitability, by driving away customers. Conservatives alone hold the high ground concerning Starbucks. I'm not sure why you would bring that up.

I bring up Starbucks simply because it was a ridiculous example of caving instead of waiting it out. I was trying to be nonpartisan there, and just acknowledge what is happening. It's tricky to do that now. That isn't necessarily part of my narrative about how the right is starting to adopt leftist tactics, and appear to be doomed for it.

 

[livingdeadmoose]

Randomly tested 5x already in 2018? That seems excessive and not at all random.

No it’s not, but it has nothing to do with race. She exhibits the sign of a potential juicer. It happens in my sport (powerlifting) as well. If you are a heavyweight with less than 10% body and are blowing the competition out of the water meet after meet, you can bet your ass you’re going to get more “random” tests. It’s not that big a deal. The fact that she’s fighting it so much and hiding from the testers leads me think that she probably is juicing.

 

[Gandhi]

Sure, here's a simple other possibility. She thinks they are discriminating against her relative to all other female tennis players because of her success.

Yours is the weakest reading possible, especially given your examples of Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson actually involved overt statements of racial discrimination and overt responses to it. When most black athletes allege racial discrimination they state the race component. For example when Kaepernick took his formal position against the anthem he specified that it was about police treatment of black people, not generic police treatment. When LBJ's house was vandalized, he specified his belief that race played a role. Here, Serena makes no reference to race at all.

Your example is even weaker given that her sister doesn't get tested very much. You think that Serena Williams is alleging racial discrimination while probably knowing how little her own sister gets tested? You think it's an allusion to racial discrimination when she references that she gets tested more than other tennis players. Yet she would have to know that there are other black tennis players in the group of people who are getting tested less than she is?

Your reading is weak. She says discrimination. References herself vs. all tennis players. The obvious read is that they are discriminating against her compared to all tennis players, not just white ones. Not black ones vs. white ones. You have to make a special leap of illogic to read in that it's specifically about race.

Then she should have said "justified discrimination" and not complained. At its essence all choices are discrimination, its the groundless ones (and more specially based on things like race, sex, etc.) that draw fire. Testing the most successful is like well no duh........

 

[SmilinDesperado]

She's always played the race card at any sign of adversity. Her and her sister intentionally fixed a match years back. There were rumors swirling before that the fix was in and when it happened the crowd booed the fuck out of them. The sisters spun it as racially motivated .

I don't know much about the Williams sisters, but is it really that hard to believe that they faced some racial issues at points in their career while playing TENNIS? It isn't a sport you harldy ever see blacks play.
They throw banana peels and say racist shit to black players in soccer in Europe. It's not hard to imagine there are some hoity toighty cunts in a sport like tennis that have some "old fashioned" views

 

[Madmick]

I don't know much about the Williams sisters, but is it really that hard to believe that they faced some racial issues at points in their career while playing TENNIS? It isn't a sport you harldy ever see blacks play.

They throw banana peels and say racist shit to black players in soccer in Europe. It's not hard to imagine there are some hoity toighty cunts in a sport like tennis that have some "old fashioned" views

This way of thinking and arguing has to end. It contributes to the problem. You're racially profiling an entire race without a scrap of material evidence that a crime has even been committed alluding to the wide world of American sports history, all of it, I guess, and the actions of uncouth soccer fans in Europe.

I mean, sheesh. The cops who are on the lookout for a stolen Ferrari who stop a black guy driving a Ferrari in a sketchy part of town actually have a crime, a target, and typically local, immediate statistics about perpetrators on their hands.

 

[woodguyatl]

She's always played the race card at any sign of adversity. Her and her sister intentionally fixed a match years back. There were rumors swirling before that the fix was in and when it happened the crowd booed the fuck out of them. The sisters spun it as racially motivated .

Actually, another player made a joke about fix. She later said it was a joke.

In 2001, Venus Williams and her younger sister Serena (who was still a teenager) were set to play in a semifinal at the revered California tournament. One day before the match, fellow player Elena Dementieva accused the sisters’ father, Richard, of deciding matches between his daughters (she later said it was a joke), a statement that had long been whispered but never been said by a top player in public or proven at all.

 

[Gregolian]

No it’s not, but it has nothing to do with race. She exhibits the sign of a potential juicer. It happens in my sport (powerlifting) as well. If you are a heavyweight with less than 10% body and are blowing the competition out of the water meet after meet, you can bet your ass you’re going to get more “random” tests. It’s not that big a deal. The fact that she’s fighting it so much and hiding from the testers leads me think that she probably is juicing.

It's like in football and the punter McAfee. Every fucking time he kicks the ball over a certain distance he has to piss in a cup on Monday.