Eske wrote:
Joph is pretty close to what I was trying to get at. I didn't take:
"so try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks..."
...to mean that "they aren't great athletes because they're not black", but rather that "they're not representative of the full athletic world because so few blacks are present." This makes his comment seem more dumb than racist in my eyes. I think he should be called on the stupidity of his comments by other sportswriters and those involved with the winter olympics.
Great. I agree (and I think most people agree).
But that's part of the point. No one's seriously saying that Gumble is a racist for making that remark. What people are pointing to is that it *is* racist that when a black man says that about racial parity in sports, it's just a kinda dumb statement, but when a white man says the exact same thing it *is* taken to be a racist comment.
The racism is not in the comment or the commentor, but the reaction from society/media at large. Clearly, if we react differently to the same event based solely on whether or not the person involved is white or black then we are being racist. And that fact is no more clearly displayed then the difference between the reaction to Gumble's statement and that of Bird's.
Quote:
But though I hate the way that they pounced on Larry Bird, I don't want to go eye-for-an-eye, because I'd hate to see society get even more entrenched by these ridiculous PC reactionaries.
That's the point though. One would hope that eventually people will see the hypocrisy of their actions and change them. But that's not likely to happen unless we make a point of showing them that they are in fact reacting unfairly to these events. I don't think anyone is suggesting that Gumble be fired or blasted for what he said. All they're asking is that *everyone* be treated the same in situations like this. And maybe if we keep pointing this out, then the next time someone like Larry Bird makes a comment like that, it'll be just as much of a non-event as Gumble's comment was...
Probably not though.
