Rysheed Jordan

[firestorm]

Rot you low life, and dont give me that bs oh he had a rough life. Everything in life you have a choice, he choose to do that, now he suffers the consequences.

One of the criminals who was hanged railed at him, saying, 'Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!'

But the other rebuked him saying, 'Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.' And he said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.'

And Jesus said to him, 'Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. As opposed to say Rysheed Jordan, that POS, him. he's going to burn in Hell."

Ah fun...clearly you have not lost a step over the summer and returned in mid-season form.

 

[beast of the east]

Somewhere missing in this characterization is personal responsibility.

No doubt he had an incredibly rough upbringing, but he also refused to be a student, integrate into the college experience, and stay away from Philly thugs. Based on what others have said, he reportedly wasn't going home to Philly during the week at SJU to make chicken soup for his mom or to see his siblings off to school, but to hang out with his friends.

I read some startling statistics a couple of months ago about how to break free of the chains of poverty, based on a study by the Brookings Institute:

"Brookings whittled down a lot of analysis into three simple rules. You can avoid poverty by:

1. Graduating from high school.

2. Waiting to get married until after 21 and do not have children till after being married.

3. Having a full-time job.

If you do all those three things, your chance of falling into poverty is just 2 percent. Meanwhile, you’ll have a 74 percent chance of being in the middle class.

Applies to everyone
These rules apply to all races and ethnic groups. Breaking these rules is becoming more commonplace, unfortunately, for all racial groups.

By contrast, young adults who violated all three norms — dropped out, got married before 21 and had children out of wedlock and didn’t have a full-time job — had a 76 percent chance of winding up in poverty and a 7 percent chance of winding up in the middle class.

Ron Haskins, co-author of the Brookings study, looked at census information.

He called the results “astounding,” noting that it’s time to emphasize the role that personal decisions have on staying out of the poorhouse."

Jordan is incredibly gifted athletically. He was a lock just about to make money playing basketball somewhere in the world, maybe even the NBA. Maybe he wasn't equipped to make good decisions, but at SJU he was surrounded by a staff that tried to help him, but he chose to go his own way.

kind of self-fulfilling to say that you can avoid poverty by having a full time job, no? Doesn't seem very astounding to me. In any event there is also context. You are a 5 star kids destined to make millions surrounded by people telling you how great you are. You have examples like Conor McGregor who got ridiculously wealthy by going on welfare and training for MMA.

Yes personal choice is always key. But when you are in poverty it is not just about a lack of funds. You are oppressed in every way and it is a mentality where you don't see with some omniscient clarity. You can't just power through everything in your life like some sort of formula and you may have so many pressures and anxieties -even just walking down the street, that you are not in that mode to focus on being a model citizen. You may even feel like being a model citizen could put your life in jeopardy. People always have their own context to deal with.

I'm not absolving him of anything, just saying that I read some comments in that article and on twitter talking about what a POS he was and how his mom should have closed her legs. That kind of stuff. There is some middle area where all of the stuff about personal choice is true but so is the reality of living in poverty and how truly difficult and even impossible it is for some people to get out from under it. The people that do are not just exceptional because of choices but often because of fate, luck and grace in my experience.

And sometimes its just a personal commitment to break free from the things that bind you from poverty.

Notice that the study cited doesn't quantify a salary for a ft job. 98% of the adults you encounter working in supermarkets, as security guards, in deoartment stores belong in the group avoiding poverty.

The problem with college basketball "stars" is that many of them believe everything that they hear about themselves. They play in packed arenas, on tv, have hundreds of news articles where they are mentioned. Yet few of these stars will ever see an nba dollar. The smart ones get degrees, so that after their playing days end whether it be at graduation or overseas pkaying careers, there is something left.

Jordan believed he was an NBA player. Many here proclaimed him one during his soph season. The reality is that he possessed nba level ability, his game was nowhere even close to 1st or 2nd round draft status. To a small extent we participated in his demise, at least watched it unravel. To be honest no matter what we say we are more concerned about whether he could put up 20 pts and lead sju to a tourney bid.

A lecture on how tough poverty is makes us appear sympathetic, but all the dympathy in the world won't change Jordan's reality. He shot a man with intent to kill, and in process murdered his career aspirations. His future basketball opportunities, if any will be directly proportional to his talent as compared as a ratio to his crime.

Most of us here haven't known real poverty. My grandparents and patents did. Refusal to cave in, even to accept unemployment or "relief" as it was called helped them crawl out. An uncle sold apples and newspapers on the street as an 8 year old and brought a handful of change home to his parents. He was too careful with money his entire life, and i disliked him.for that. It was only after he died that i learned how he helped his family as a small child.

Jails are loaded with men and women who have a story of why they landed there. Penal systems track recidivism. It will be up to Jordan once he serves his time as to what he does with it. I hope he makes it. Maybe one of us will remember his exploits on the court and hire him or help him.in some way.

 

[Roamer]

Man this makes the Lenny Cooke story seem like a big win.

This is a sad story, Jordan on the court worked and played hard for SJU and in his prime I could have seen him making a career out of ball somewhere.

Blame can be laid all over the place; his family for allowing him to come home during school time and not permitting him to focus on himself to coach Lavin for not having a tighter leash around his kids but at the end of the day you have a dead man with Jordan being the alleged trigger person.

I am a first generation American and also grew up in severe poverty and raised a much younger sibling but too many excuses are made or illogical lines of reasoning created for this type of behavior. We all are to an extent a product of our environment but that shouldn't excuse a murder charge of a total stranger, especially from a person that had the choice to be surrounded by educated people at SJU.

Jordan is young, and I do not think he is an inherently evil person, just very very stupid! I hope he can somehow move passed this and find a way to make a living once he is a free man again (which will never be in basketball in the States).



I also hope SJU bball stops ending up in these types of articles! Any way you look at this, it is a blemish on our program.

 

[Knight]

I also hope SJU bball stops ending up in these types of articles! Any way you look at this, it is a blemish on our program.

I don't think this reflects poorly on SJU. We gave the kid a chance. He did not take advantage of what was afforded him.

 

[fun]

but at the end of the day you have a dead man with Jordan being the alleged trigger person.

"The men managed to get into the car and drive away, but one of them was hit in the arm."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/2...r_charged_with_robbery__attempted_murder.html

So nobody died. Was it attempted murder in fact? Probably not, it was an armed robbery gone wrong, which in PA is probably aggravated assault, which pleaded down reasonably is assault.

Politically I'm to the right of Caligula but sending 20 year olds to prison for 20 years for a first offense no matter what it is is barbaric.

 

[monte]

but at the end of the day you have a dead man with Jordan being the alleged trigger person.

"The men managed to get into the car and drive away, but one of them was hit in the arm."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/2...r_charged_with_robbery__attempted_murder.html

So nobody died. Was it attempted murder in fact? Probably not, it was an armed robbery gone wrong, which in PA is probably aggravated assault, which pleaded down reasonably is assault.

Politically I'm to the right of Caligula but sending 20 year olds to prison for 20 years for a first offense no matter what it is is barbaric.

....no matter what it is?????

 

[fun]

but at the end of the day you have a dead man with Jordan being the alleged trigger person.

"The men managed to get into the car and drive away, but one of them was hit in the arm."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/2...r_charged_with_robbery__attempted_murder.html

So nobody died. Was it attempted murder in fact? Probably not, it was an armed robbery gone wrong, which in PA is probably aggravated assault, which pleaded down reasonably is assault.

Politically I'm to the right of Caligula but sending 20 year olds to prison for 20 years for a first offense no matter what it is is barbaric.

....no matter what it is?????

Did I stutter????? In c-c-c-c-case I d-d-d-d-d-did, yes, no matter what it is. Some violent criminals should be put down, some should be flogged, and some should be incarcerated for the short term while their psychology is corrected. Few people should be in prison and the fewer the better. The correctional system is an abomination and long term incarceration benefits no one and nothing.

 

[redken]

but at the end of the day you have a dead man with Jordan being the alleged trigger person.

"The men managed to get into the car and drive away, but one of them was hit in the arm."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/2...r_charged_with_robbery__attempted_murder.html

So nobody died. Was it attempted murder in fact? Probably not, it was an armed robbery gone wrong, which in PA is probably aggravated assault, which pleaded down reasonably is assault.

Politically I'm to the right of Caligula but sending 20 year olds to prison for 20 years for a first offense no matter what it is is barbaric.

Doesn't sound like the Caligula I know.

 

[fuchsia]

but at the end of the day you have a dead man with Jordan being the alleged trigger person.

"The men managed to get into the car and drive away, but one of them was hit in the arm."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/2...r_charged_with_robbery__attempted_murder.html

So nobody died. Was it attempted murder in fact? Probably not, it was an armed robbery gone wrong, which in PA is probably aggravated assault, which pleaded down reasonably is assault.

Politically I'm to the right of Caligula but sending 20 year olds to prison for 20 years for a first offense no matter what it is is barbaric.

And we do not yet know how to tell which of those 20 year old offenders will re-offend more severely in the near future and which will turn away from criminality. Makes for tough decisions and the personal biases of some of the folks making the decisions can make some of the decisions heinous acts.

 

[fun]

but at the end of the day you have a dead man with Jordan being the alleged trigger person.

"The men managed to get into the car and drive away, but one of them was hit in the arm."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/2...r_charged_with_robbery__attempted_murder.html

So nobody died. Was it attempted murder in fact? Probably not, it was an armed robbery gone wrong, which in PA is probably aggravated assault, which pleaded down reasonably is assault.

Politically I'm to the right of Caligula but sending 20 year olds to prison for 20 years for a first offense no matter what it is is barbaric.

And we do not yet know how to tell which of those 20 year old offenders will re-offend more severely in the near future and which will turn away from criminality. Makes for tough decisions and the personal biases of some of the folks making the decisions can make some of the decisions heinous acts.

Except we do kind of know. Leaving aside sex offenders - who are mis-wired and should be chemically castrated - recidivism generally decreases with age. Which is why I picked a 20 year old - whose brain is not yet fully formed - getting a 20 year sentence as my example. Because by age 40 you're too tired to murder anyone else, you just want to lay on the couch and watch television.

 

[fun]

but at the end of the day you have a dead man with Jordan being the alleged trigger person.

"The men managed to get into the car and drive away, but one of them was hit in the arm."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/2...r_charged_with_robbery__attempted_murder.html

So nobody died. Was it attempted murder in fact? Probably not, it was an armed robbery gone wrong, which in PA is probably aggravated assault, which pleaded down reasonably is assault.

Politically I'm to the right of Caligula but sending 20 year olds to prison for 20 years for a first offense no matter what it is is barbaric.

Doesn't sound like the Caligula I know.

I don't trust the government. I don't trust it to pick up my garbage or decide what sort of toilet I use or what sort of light bulbs. I certainly don't trust it when it comes to depriving people of their rights and liberties. One person in 30 in the US is under some form of correctional control. Either there's too many criminals or too many crimes. I suspect it's the latter.