She was so exhausted she slumped to the ground after finishing the race which is inspired by a famous prison escape.
The course, at Frozen Head State Park, changes every year but covers 100 miles involving 60,000ft of climb and descent - about twice the height of the Mount Everest.
Only 20 people have ever made it to the end of the race within the allotted 60 hours since it was extended to 100 miles in 1989.
The idea for the race came when they heard about the 1977 escape of James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr, from nearby Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary.
Prospective runners must write a “Why I should be allowed to run in the Barkley” essay along with a $1.60 (£1.27) entrance fee and if successful get a letter of condolence.
Competitors must find between nine and 14 books along the course (the exact number varies each year) before removing the page corresponding to their race number from each book as proof of completion.
Okay, reading the article itself and not just the summary:
So it’s just that the summary leaves out this information, which if they’re going to mention the origins of the race is a pretty crucial detail to omit.
I have to say though, when you say they “make no comment on the motivation or the reason for imprisonment of the person” it really does create the impression they’re being neutral in the matter, which they obviously aren’t. I’m glad you explained more.
Well they don’t describe the crime, or emit a stance on it, which makes sense, it’s a trail race not a political or social justice platform.
Look, the issue here is clearly that the race appeared crypto-racist on that summary, and instead of clearly explaining the issue, you stated exactly the things that the race organisers are neutral on, which seems to almost surgically sidestep the clearly anti-racist motivations. You weren’t technically wrong, but you can walk up to literally anyone on the street and say “you’re going to die” and you’re not wrong, but they’d want know why you were saying it.
This is about framing. There are infinite details in the universe, the trick with communication is to filter down to the important, salient details.
Most folks would just say “my bad, I didn’t read the article”
Cool talk, thanks, glad you took on board what I was saying.
You can see from my comments how easy it is to clarify this issue in a straightforward way once you have read the article, but if you don’t know how to do that I understand.
Oh I do, I just hope you take this instance to mind the next time you decide whether to comment based on the article or the auto generated summary.
I was commenting based on the comment I was replying to, which on reflection seemed to be intentionally avoiding answering the question. I can’t think of another reason why someone who knew anything about this would have been as circumspect as they were.
Look, man, if you didn’t read the article and were misled by the auto generated summary, do not blame someone else for not spelling it out for you.
Maaaybe, step 2 of that miscommunication might’ve been them not explicitly spelling everything out for you, but what was step 1?
It was you commenting without having read the article at hand.
Guess which one of these two is within YOUR control to prevent future misunderstandings?
Things might be different if this comment thread wasn’t centered around a single article, but it is, so the reasonable assumption is that participants in the conversation have read the article.
EDIT: Don’t get me wrong, you get props for going back in the article and recognizing that it provides a very different context from the auto generated summary, but I just don’t think chastising someone else without acknowledging that you messed up by not reading the article is the play.
Okay, I didn’t read it and should have. Usually I would, but I was commenting on a conversation. It’s been dealt with now so we can drop it, right?
But on that issue, are you putting the other person on blast for not sharing the info? Because the moment I had it I clarified the issue very easily. I wonder what they were doing saying shit like:
Because that’s so wrong that if they did know the actual story then it amounts to a lie of omission. It’s so weirdly worded to avoid the truth it almost has to be deliberate. Any thoughts on that or is this like a team sport sort of situation?
Read the article, self serve a little bit before branding a whole situation racist
Edit In this case they filtered down the important details…right in the article…the core vehicle of communication.
And the fact you couldn’t just say that in your comment is either because you don’t know how to just say what you mean, or you hadn’t read the article yourself at that point. Which is it?
And I didn’t brand the whole situation racist, that was conditional on the information you were giving me. If you wanted to say it wasn’t racist, you could have done that if you had the information.
Lmgtfy