Boners

Boner of the Day for June 22nd, 2020

ROUND ONE

Boner Candidate #1: IT WILL NOT BREAK ME. I WILL NOT BREAK DOWN

A noose was found in the garage stall used by NASCAR’s Bubba Wallace, less than two weeks after the racing body banned the display of the Confederate flag at all its events and properties. Wallace, the only Black driver in the sport’s top level, had called for the flag — a symbol long linked to America’s history of racism — to be prohibited earlier this month as protests over police brutality and systemic inequality raged across the country. But the decision sparked controversy among the sport’s mostly white, Southern fan base who argued the flag isn’t a racist symbol but a part of their heritage. The noose was found in the garage stall for the No. 43 car racing team, which is owned by Richard Petty Motorsports. It’s unclear who has access to the stalls. Nooses are one of the most powerful symbols of hate directed toward Black Americans and tied to the history of lynchings in the South, according to the Anti-Defamation League. “Today’s despicable act of racism and hatred leaves me incredibly saddened and serves as a painful reminder of how much further we have to go as a society and how persistent we must be in the fight against racism,” Wallace said in a statement on Twitter.

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Boner Candidate #2: YOUR NAME IS AN OFFENSIVE SOUND IN MY LANGUAGE

A community college professor in Oakland, Calif., is on administrative leave after asking a Vietnamese-American student to “Anglicize” her name because he felt it sounded “offensive” in English. In a Wednesday night email exchange that was quickly shared to tens of thousands on social media, Matthew Hubbard, a professor in the Laney College mathematics department, repeatedly asked the student, Phuc Bui Diem Nguyen, to “Anglicize” her name because it “sounds like an insult in English.” In response, Ms. Nguyen told the professor that his request “feels discriminatory” and that she would file a complaint with the school’s Title IX office if he could not call her by her given name. “I understand you are offended, but you need to understand your name is an offensive sound in my language,” Professor Hubbard replied. “I repeat my request.” Tammeil Gilkerson, president of Laney College, addressed the situation in a statement on Thursday, calling the incident “disturbing.” Without naming the professor, she said the faculty member involved had been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

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Boner Candidate #3: RACISM IS ALIVE AND WELL IN SLC

A mural depicting a portrait of George Floyd was defaced early Sunday with tar. This is the second time it has happened, one of its artists said, and Salt Lake City police are investigating, according to police spokesman Greg Wilking. The mural — which features Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police; Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal, who was fatally shot by Salt Lake City police on May 23; and four other people killed by police in Utah — was painted on a building at 300 West and 800 South in Salt Lake City. Black goo was splattered on the painting, concealing one of Floyd’s eyes and dripping down the length of his face. Floyd’s portrait was also the target last Sunday, the first time the mural was vandalized, one of the artists said. The location is where Salt Lake City stores its fleet of vehicles, including the police and fire departments’ Mobile Command Center. When the artists learned on Sunday that the Floyd mural had been vandalized again, they returned to the site to fix it. The artists, who wanted to remain anonymous to deflect attention from themselves and onto the artwork, chose the location on purpose, said Derek Dyer, executive director of the Utah Arts Alliance and a booster of Salt Lake City’s street-art scene, in a recent Salt Lake Tribune article.

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ROUND TWO

Boner Candidate #1: YOU MAKE TOO MUCH MONEY TO BE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST.

SALT LAKE CITY — On Friday afternoon, thousands gathered in Salt Lake City to celebrate Juneteenth, the date commemorating the emancipation of slaves, while continuing to protest racial injustice. It was a scene that played out in cities across the United States and the globe on June 19. In solidarity of celebrating Juneteenth, Black culture and continuing a conversation about racial equality, Utah Jazz guard Donovan Mitchell posted to Instagram a photo that showed a black background and the word “free-ish” in white font on top of “Since 1865” bookended by chain links. The image, which was widely shared throughout social media on Friday and is often seen on the fronts of T-shirts and hoodies in many variances, references the the Juneteenth emancipation date of 1865 while the ‘ish’ points to the fact that even though legally declared free, Black people have continued to experience inequality and injustice. Both Mitchell and Oklahoma City Thunder guard Chris Paul posted the image to social media on Friday, and Mitchell ‘liked’ Paul’s post of it on Twitter. While most of the fans who saw Mitchell’s post commented with messages of support and love, there was a large number of commenters who responded with hostility and anger.

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Boner Candidate #2: THANKS FOR THE BRICKS MR. SOROS

George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist who has long been a target of conspiracy theories, is now being falsely accused of orchestrating and funding the protests over police killings of Black people that have roiled the United States. Amplified by a growing number of people on the far right, including some Republican leaders, online posts about Soros have skyrocketed in recent weeks. They have been accompanied by online ads bought by conservative groups that call on authorities to “investigate George Soros for funding domestic terrorism and his decades-long corruption.” Soros, 89, has donated billions of dollars of his personal wealth to liberal and anti-authoritarian causes around the world, making him a favored target among many on the right. The Hungarian-American, who is Jewish, has also been the subject of anti-Semitic attacks and conspiracy theories for decades.

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Boner Candidate #3: WE NEVER LOOK AT THE CONTENT OF THOSE DARNED THINGS

The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville is investigating how it came to publish a full-page ad on Sunday by a biblical prophecy group claiming “Islam” would detonate a bomb in the city. The ad, which included a photo collage of President Trump, Pope Francis and burning American flags, urged readers to visit a website offering more details. The ad was credited to the group Ministry of Future for America, which says its mission is to “proclaim the final warning message” from the Bible. Addressed to “Dear Citizen of Nashville,” the eight-paragraph ad spanned the full length of the newspaper page, and discussed Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Democratic Party and Sept. 11. It claimed Trump’s presidency was part of a prophecy, warned of “another civil war,” and said that “Islam is going to detonate a nuclear device” in Nashville. “Clearly there was a breakdown in the normal processes, which call for careful scrutiny of our advertising content,” Michael A. Anastasi, the newspaper’s vice president and editor, said in the paper’s news coverage of the ad. “The ad is horrific and is utterly indefensible in all circumstances. It is wrong, period, and should have never been published.”

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