Played Poker With A White Supremacist Last Night

[Poshua]

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He's entitled to display whatever he wants... One of the beauties of the society we live in, is that people are entitled to speak their mind, regardless of whether it may offend someone else.

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He's not entitled to jack. He's on somebody else's private property, and the owner of that property gets to determine what he may display. The First Amendment protects him from government interference and does not extend to private actors.

I'm not saying I'm entitled to have him removed, either. It's also not my property. What I'm saying is that I won't patronize a casino that lets him stay uncovered.

[JackInDaCrak]

Well, yeah, that's why I said it was management's choice whether or not to remove him, just as it's your choice to refuse to sit with him.

[JackInDaCrak]

Don't get me wrong here, I don't condone what this guy stands for, or the display of a swastika, in the least. But I do believe that actions speak louder than words. If the guy's a regular and has no track record of causing problems beyond his hate speech, well, it's management's prerogative to let him play and pay rake.

[RR]

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If he were seated across from me, I would ask the floor to have him removed. If he balked, I would complain to the room manager. If they gave me the answer that you did-- that they would wait for him to actually cause trouble, that just showing those tattoos is no violation-- I would leave the room and not come back, even if it had been my favorite poker room.

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Now he has caused a problem and this is different than if he is just sitting there.

[*TT*]

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If he were seated across from me, I would ask the floor to have him removed. If he balked, I would complain to the room manager. If they gave me the answer that you did-- that they would wait for him to actually cause trouble, that just showing those tattoos is no violation-- I would leave the room and not come back, even if it had been my favorite poker room.

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Now he has caused a problem and this is different than if he is just sitting there.

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only problem is most rooms don't care if a player leaves, they fail to see that the loss of a customer because of another customer's actions is a problem as well.

[Rottersod]

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Mr WT -
People grow up, they change, they realize they made mistakes in the past. Getting a tattoo that is offensive is a mistake that is not easy to change, its a red flag that there might be a problem but until there is an issue I generally just ignore it because it might just be a mistake from his past.


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I'm going to assume that if someone I meet is covered in swastikas and other neo-nazi tattoos that they are what they are representing themselves to be. Choosing to ignore it and hope that he has "changed his evil ways" is no better than putting your head in the sand. I can state categorically that if someone of his description sat down at my table I'd rack up and leave, even if he was the biggest donator in the room. I fought against punks like these years ago when I was with the JDL and I have no interest in being in the same room.

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wtf u were a member of a terrorist organization? This thread is quickly becoming epic.

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The JDL was not a terrorist organization.

[*TT*]

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I fought against punks like these years ago when I was with the JDL and I have no interest in being in the same room.

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then leave. But dont ask the floor to make the other player leave because of your pre-judgments.

WOW. Meir Kahane was a terrorist, plain and simple. Juts because they put a statement on their website that says "The Jewish Defense League unconditionally condemns terrorism of all forms." doesn't mean that the JDL is any better than Hammas which also makes the same claim yet is an obvious terrorist organization.

In a 1986 study of domestic terrorism, the Department of Energy concluded: "For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States....Since 1968, JDL operations have killed 7 persons and wounded at least 22. Thirty-nine percent of the targets were connected with the Soviet Union; 9 percent were Palestinian; 8 percent were Lebanese; 6 percent, Egyptian; 4 percent, French, Iranian, and Iraqi; 1 percent, Polish and German; and 23 percent were not connected with any states. Sixty-two percent of all JDL actions are directed against property; 30 percent against businesses; 4 percent against academics and academic institutions; and 2 percent against religious targets." (Department of Energy, Terrorism in the United States and the Potential Threat to Nuclear Facilities, R-3351-DOE, January 1986, pp. 11-16)"

By your own theory you wouldn't sit a a poker table with yourself even though you are no longer a member of the JDL. Thats hypocrisy in its finest.

A fair man judges a man for his actions as well as his redemptions from his past actions.

PS: I am Jewish. Oddly enough I was held at gunpoint by a member of the JDL when I was 18 because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, he later apologized. I don't judge the JDL based on the actions of this one individual.

[crashjr]

Serious question, and this is the way I've always approached Tiny:

Why does it matter what tattoos he has, or what shirt he may be wearing, to the other players? I understand from a management perspective why they might not want him in the room, and I have seen him 86'ed for fighting (a rather long time ago), but he is just another player, just another revenue source for me. I don't see much past another player's chipstack after making making my initial general impression based upon appearance. I can pretty safely assume that a guy like this is not very smart. Whether he is passively following the herd or is aggressive is a determination I will make in pretty short order since I already have an insight into his psychological makeup and know that there are really two types of gang members - followers and leaders.

So the question: Why does it matter? Is this guy able to put you on tilt? Putting you at a disadvantage, throwing you off of your game? Or is his appearance so offensive that it just simply cannot be tolerated anywhere, be it McDonald's or Fremont Street? If so, what should be done about it?

Again this is from the individual player's perspective. I totally understand the management's perspective here and cannot at all fault them for not wanting this guy in the room, or taking the wait-and see approach.

[Rottersod]

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I fought against punks like these years ago when I was with the JDL and I have no interest in being in the same room.

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then leave. But dont ask the floor to make the other player leave because of your pre-judgments.

WOW. Meir Kahane was a terrorist, plain and simple. Juts because they put a statement on their website that says "The Jewish Defense League unconditionally condemns terrorism of all forms." doesn't mean that the JDL is any better than Hammas which also makes the same claim yet is an obvious terrorist organization.

In a 1986 study of domestic terrorism, the Department of Energy concluded: "For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States....Since 1968, JDL operations have killed 7 persons and wounded at least 22. Thirty-nine percent of the targets were connected with the Soviet Union; 9 percent were Palestinian; 8 percent were Lebanese; 6 percent, Egyptian; 4 percent, French, Iranian, and Iraqi; 1 percent, Polish and German; and 23 percent were not connected with any states. Sixty-two percent of all JDL actions are directed against property; 30 percent against businesses; 4 percent against academics and academic institutions; and 2 percent against religious targets." (Department of Energy, Terrorism in the United States and the Potential Threat to Nuclear Facilities, R-3351-DOE, January 1986, pp. 11-16)"

By your own theory you wouldn't sit a a poker table with yourself even though you are no longer a member of the JDL. Thats hypocrisy in its finest.

A fair man judges a man for his actions as well as his redemptions from his past actions.

PS: I am Jewish. Oddly enough I was held at gunpoint by a member of the JDL when I was 18 because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, he later apologized. I don't judge the JDL based on the actions of this one individual.

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I was part of the JDL here in LA and we worked with Irv Rubin. I joined the group in the early 80's after finding swastikas painted on my doors in college and being harassed by a few white supremacists\college punks who were students and members of the ROTC. Through the work of the JDL we found out who was responsible and had them expelled from college and the ROTC. A few weeks later I was out with friends and we were attacked by a group of skinheads - the real kind. 30 minutes later police and paramedics were picking up the pieces on both sides but I was never threatened again. Sometimes you just have to fight for your right to exist because no one else will do it for you. The police never filed a report and when I tried to meet with the city attorneys office and then with an ADA I got nowheres.

Meir Kahane was the head of the larger JDL operating out of Israel and new York and we had very little contact with him and his people. I'm not sure how I feel about all that but I do know that things that were reported tended to be shown on the most negative light. Unfortunately, he and his close allies were more in tune with the ultra orthodox jews in Israel and I see those people as doing more to destroy peace than helping it along.

Irv was more of the "heavy" kind of guy. I'm sure he was involved in some serious stuff (and we all know how he ended up and for what) but being on that periphery I never saw any of that. I saw a nice guy who just wanted to make sure that Jews didn't have to feel afraid when they were attacked by people of hate. His policy in the time that I knew him was that we only responded to what are now called hate crimes. We never initiated anything.

[Poshua]

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Or is his appearance so offensive that it just simply cannot be tolerated anywhere, be it McDonald's or Fremont Street? If so, what should be done about it?

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This is it, in my view. At the risk of being pedantic, the swastika was the symbol of the Nazis. It stood for both the tyrannical domination of Europe and the extermination of ten million people who were Jewish or in other targeted groups. This was one of the two greatest tragedies of the modern era.

Regardless of Tiny's or any other player's specific intent, display of the swastika (again, outside a historical context) is a demonstration of identification with Nazi philosophies, and of endorsement or denial of the Holocaust. While the First Amendment protects this speech from legal restriction (and I think that's a very good thing), people who show support for Nazi or neo-Nazi ideas are deserving of social opporobrium, including being 86ed from card rooms.

As for what should be done about it, well, for one thing, people who want to be accepted in situations that involve interacting with members of the general public-- such as card rooms-- should not get swastika or white power tattoos. I don't think that's too difficult an instruction. People who have already made the mistake of getting them should realize what a bad idea that was, and take best efforts to cover them.