It’s still just an allegation, but if Robert Kraft did patronize the Orchids of Asia day spa he was acting on one of the most offensive tropes out there– submissive Asian women there for his pleasure.
Please share widely!
Reality-based commentary on politics.
It looks like it’s now expanded to include several other high-profile extremely wealthy men.
It certainly is ugly and racist.
As of yesterday it sounded like there wasn’t anyone else as high-profile as Kraft.
Once again I find myself annoyed how much play the story got. It certainly is a story, but I’m not sure it was cause for an expanded noon news on channel 5 at the expense of Who Wants to be a Millionaire.
A second billionaire Bostonian, John Childs, is wanted on a charge of solicitation of prostitution according to various various media reports. John Havens, former CEO of Citigroup, was also arrested according to published reports.
Both men, like Mr. Kraft, deny any involvement.
I think the story is that it appears that a huge international sex trafficking ring has been busted. In my view, that’s a bigger story than the fact that Robert Kraft was one of the johns.
It’s big news. I think it’s also long past time to focus a criminal investigation on the johns more than the women, who are often victims rather than perpetrators.
It clearly would not have gotten the local media play that it did without Kraft’s alleged involvement.
Understood.
I’m reminded of the many stories in the US media along the lines of “The vacation of three Americans was cut short in the aftermath of an Indonesian tidal wave that killed hundreds of local residents and injured thousands.”
The story is getting national even international attention. I find it unfortunate that even at the national level, the public seems to find Mr. Kraft’s personal celebrity more important than the reprehensible and sordid nature of the sex trafficking ring itself.
…and young black men are there for his pleasure and profit. Welcome to professional football.
Though I think the most powerful player in terms of revenue generation for the Pats is the very white Tom Brady.
… and professional basketball, perhaps even more so.
I’m reminded of Donald Trump’s purchase of “Miss Universe” in order to invade the dressing rooms of teenage girls.
True enough, but college football and basketball are worse. That’s where you find the real plantation economy.
You’re going to have a very difficult time getting me to sympathize with the “plight” of the poor, pampered, full boat scholarship college athletes. Nobody’s forcing them to be there.
Someone donate a pair of defective sneakers to Christopher so he can feel pampered.
What’s that supposed to mean? I got a measly $3000 per semester “merit” scholarship for academic achievement – you know, what college is actually for, while these guys get scouted, recruited, and fully covered for very non-academic reasons.
Oh, I assure you that the motivation for those scholarships is VERY “academic” — as in this-is-the-only-way-we-can-fund-this-college academic.
I encourage you to learn more about who is helped and who is harmed by the full-boat athletic scholarships. They do a great deal more harm than good, especially in urban communities.
Can you elaborate a bit? Seems to me this is a transaction between the college and the student-athlete. I suppose some argue that there are those who would not have the opportunity to attend college at all without these scholarships. Where my imagination is failing me is what this does to the community at large one way or the other, urban or otherwise.
I encourage you to do some research on that topic. For example, too many minority young men neglect academics in favor of sports in the expectation that they’ll get an athletic scholarship.
They don’t realize (because we don’t tell them) what a small percentage of applicants actually receive scholarships. Or how how disproportionately white the pool of recipients is, because poor urban blacks can’t afford the coaching and everything else that their white counterparts get.
In an ironic way, white college graduates with large student debts are being hit by a similar lie — an implied promise of payback that actually isn’t there.
Like so many other things, we ignore the issue so long as it’s “just” minorities who feel the brunt. When white kids start to suffer, then it becomes a major issue.
Sounds like all the more argument to make much more money available for actual academic achievement, and of course even before we get to college make excellent K-12 public education available to all regardless of zip code.
“Seems to me this is a transaction between the college and the student-athlete.”
Nope. It’s a transaction between a student-athlete and a cartel, whose members collude with each other to prevent the student from bargaining. The cartel sets the price of labor below what many student athletes could earn if they had the power to shop for the best deal.
I’m not interested in student athletes being able to negotiate a deal. As far as I’m concerned, whatever they get is a gift. Sports IMO should be no different from other extracurricular activities. I did not get paid, nor expect to be paid, for getting involved with College Democrats, the International Affairs Society, or honors fraternities. I certainly wasn’t offered a full boat scholarship for being in the band or on the debate team. To see this as at all a labor issue is the completely wrong framing. Anybody who is doing this for the money should skip college altogether and go pro (at which point, yes, I will gripe about the obnoxious salaries professional athletes command).
The difference is this, Christopher. Nobody paid you because what you did in college had no value. Any of your extracurricular activities could have been done just as well by any of a million students.
Nobody pays college athletes for an entirely different reason. The few athletes who get scholarships have a marketable skill. Colleges got together and made a agreement which robs those athletes of the ability to make a living off those skills. Because they want the money for themselves.
If you don’t care, fine. You’re entitled to your opinion. But that doesn’t change the facts.
You should get involved outside of the classroom for fun, not for money. I don’t mind some scholarships for athletic skill, but other skills should be rewarded too, especially if they more directly relate to the academic mission of the college.
How about we skip the scholarships and let athletes play whomever wants to pay them the most? Nobody has any problem paying the coaches, commentators, publicists, etc., or the gamblers who set the point spreads.
Why not just get all the schools, sports networks and casinos together, have them make an agreement that from now on none of the above people will be paid, but instead will be able to take classes, as long they can keep up academically?
Maybe throw in free sneakers. Everyone gets pampered!
@ skip the scholarships:
I’m inclined to agree. This explicitly destroys even the pretension that colleges offer amateur sports.
I wonder — I actually don’t know — are there other fields where professionals attend college or university? It’s quite common for companies to pay employees to pursue graduate degrees, so I guess that’s the answer to my question.
I think today’s college sports teams should be turned into franchises of some professional league in that scenario, though. I also think the restriction that a player be a student should also be removed.
There really just isn’t a connection between sports and academics, and this approach acknowledges that reality.
Coaches, etc. are employees of the university. They aren’t there for their own education. The athletes are students. I completely fail to see why this distinction isn’t obvious. Universities are NOT sports franchises!
This is a thread about a wealthy old white man who, if reports are accurate, seems to have exploited a young Asian woman who was likely being coerced into whatever services she provided.
This exchange about sports and scholarships surely belongs somewhere else.
I find this entire thread rather disgusting.
The thread ought to be about a months long, and ultimately successful, police effort against human trafficking. I care very little for the fate or substance of whatever rich white guy stumbled into the middle of it, frankly, The police did not follow or investigate or in any way care about Robert Kraft: his involvement is comprehensively incidental.
The fact that his involvement has proven to have so much gravity that everybody else has to talk only of it, and not the actual facts of the case, is simply just further racism.
You are right, and I am as guilty as anyone for letting this thread drift away from my original point.
Donald Sterling was forced out of the NBA because he expressed racist tropes. Even though he committed no crime, his punishment seems appropriate.
My point was that what Kraft is alleged to have done also expresses a racist trope, and if the allegation is true he should face something similar to what Sterling faced.
Sorry, the whole thing about student athletes being treated so well just really sticks in my craw and I took the bait.
Indeed, me too. My own hot-button is different from yours, but makes me take the bait in the same way.
Sports teaches discipline. The same discipline will carry over into their adult lives. Even in high school kids who love to play can’t join in if they don’t maintain academic standards.
In college you get up to hit the weight room at 4 am (Div 1a), go to class, have practice, film room, homework then sleep. Do that for four years and you learn a good life lesson. Even summer workouts are mandatory. I know recent graduates who paid for their college through their time and effort. Some came from fatherless families and their coaches took extra time to look out for them and they will be lifelong friends. I do wish they would get a small allowance but there shouldn’t be a bidding war for their performances.
We see the small percent of screw-ups on the news and people don’t appreciate all the good results. After kiddie soccer you don’t get participation trophies in sports and you don’t get one in life either.
“. . . but there shouldn’t be a bidding war for their performances..”
Why not?
@college weight rooms:
You forgot to talk about what happens during high school years. The time when affluent whites hit the weight rooms provided by their affluent families, while poor blacks make do with whatever they can find.
There are LOTS of ways to learn discipline. Sports teaches a boatload of other lessons that are perhaps better left untaught — such as “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing”.
Our pretense that there is anything “amateur” about this criminal racket is a major factor in perpetuating it. It was not so long ago that Russian Olympic teams were condemned because they were allegedly professional in all the important ways, while finding a way to stay within the literal definition of “amateur” as it pertained to carefully negotiated Olympic qualifications.
That travesty is just part of what makes the Olympics so unsavory.
I think these big-time sports (I’m not talking about intramural football and baseball) are a scourge upon us.
As Christopher notes above, we would be FAR better off if we eliminated big-money collegiate “sports” and replaced the income they provide colleges and universities with public funds.
Sports has been at the forefront of the integration and elevation of minorities in this country and around the world. Jackie Robinson, Jim Thorpe, Jessie Owens, the list goes on forever. I find it hard to believe someone would call sports a negative influence.
If two people turn in an application to college, or for a job and everything else is equal, the person who played sports will be a better choice almost every time.
Maybe the NFL could hold an annual Masseuse Draft. That would build character.
Professional baseball was a completely different entity in 1947, when Jackie Robinson played his rookie year. Similarly, Jim Thorpe died in 1953.
Jesse Owens was, in fact, a case study in the rampant racism of America of his day. His achievements in the 1936 Olympics were not recognized by FDR, and it was not until 1976 that Gerald Ford award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Professional sports today is a racket that, in my opinion, causes far more harm than good.
“the person who played sports will be a better choice almost every time.”
Yet they shouldn’t be allowed to control their own livelihood.?
The exclusive Nike sponsorship deal with Duke isn’t public (big surprise), so there’s no formal disclosure of just how lucrative the deal is for Duke. Various sources, though, report that Nike’s similar deal with the University of Kentucky is worth $30.6M over 8 years. Nike did a 12-year deal with Duke in 2015.
I suspect that $50M is not far off.