Thursday, August 26, 2004
The Race Card is Wild
Hey Jason,
I must’ve missed the memo – the memo that went out to the red-blooded American sports public and explains exactly when it became OK to cry “racism!” whenever the ball of criticism happens to fall at the feet of an African-American. Your column on ESPN.com’s Page 2 was the most ignorant and inciting manipulation of words I’ve read in some time. While your view is half-dimensionally naïve, I think what’s more alarming is how while trying to draw the curtains to reveal a racist America, the only racist found standing there is you. If that was your intention, I congratulate you on your rousing success. However, if your goal was to write a fair and interesting assessment of a national phenomenon, I’m sorry, but you just fell flat on your journalistic face. Either way, I admire you for having the guts to include your e-mail address; I am sure your inbox will be flooded with responses far more intelligent than mine.
First of all, if you think Americans rooting against a team of mercenary basketball players is unpatriotic just because the front of their jersey reads “USA,” then you don’t know the first damn thing about this country. The United States of America is the most free nation in the history of the world, allowing its citizens the right to say whatever they want and to root for whomever they want, be it in the Presidential Election or the Olympic Games. Americans exercising their right to root against a team whose play does not represent their own integrity, even if that team bears the name of their country, is the very definition of American Patriotism. Your brand of patriotism, based entirely on loyalty to flags and colors, sounds more in line with a fascist nation than a free one.
Secondly, it doesn’t surprise me that you root for this USA Basketball team given the low expectations you had for them going in. You said we shouldn’t expect this team of NBA players to “care” about the Olympics as much as, for example, Michael Phelps because NBA players spend their childhood dreaming of only the NBA. One thing should have nothing to do with the other, Jason. If this team has a shred of the patriotism you expect from its fans, it should care enough about representing its country to play their heart and souls out for every second of every game in every round of Olympic competition. Regardless of whether they’ve achieved their dreams of having an NBA career back home, if these players are going to be a part of any team, be it Olympic or a YMCA Summer League, they should be giving 100%. That’s the pure spirit of sports. Given that you are a professional sports writer, I shouldn’t have to tell you that. You can’t have it both ways, Jason; you can’t demand that the American people cheer for their team simply because it’s American and then let the players off that same hook by saying “this isn’t their dream.” That very attitude is the reason why many Americans are rooting against the USA team. All they want is a team that plays with no sense of entitlement. They want a team that hustles and has some respect for fundamentals (Tim Duncan excluded). What they got is a team that shoots worse than I do on a 5-foot rim yet expected to be handed their gold medals when they stepped off the plane.
You went on to say that Olympians such as Michael Phelps, Carly Patterson, and Justin Gatlin give superior efforts and only “care” about the Olympics because it’s there one chance in four years to “strike it rich.” You say they’re “chasing money” from endorsements. These are shallow assumptions by an obviously narrow-minded man. I guess you probably think that when athletes such as these are standing proudly atop the medal podium, unashamedly crying as the Star Spangled Banner plays, that they must be thinking “Oh boy, am I going to be rich.” If you truly believe that these Olympians are given pride by endorsements and brought to tears by the sound of cash registers in their heads, all I can say is that I pity you. I hope you were only saying it as a punchline.
What most offends me about your column is the exposition of your own blatant racism. To exemplify my point, I list two statements you made in said column.
“Canadians invented hockey in the late 1800s, and once dominated it the way African-Americans dominate basketball….African-American basketball players no longer have a lock on the game. The rest of the world has caught up.”
Do you even realize that you just compared a nation of people with a race of people? Those jerseys don’t read “African-USA,” do they? These aren’t the race Olympics, are they? I thought I was watching a competition of the nations of the world, not that of one race from one country against everybody else. The issue at hand is one of Americans rooting against other Americans. The only one talking about race is you, Jason. I know you think you’re exposing an underground railroad of racism in America, but, I’m afraid you’re only revealing your own self-centered complex fueled by your own fear. The sooner you come to grips with the following truth, the better off you’ll be. The World is not out to get you. There are surely racists in this world, yes, and there are even more injustices, but the two are not always necessarily connected. There is no grand conspiracy.
No one is going to “spit on Iverson, Duncan, LeBron James, and Carmelo Anthony at the airport” as you fear. At the end of the day, these are still just basketball players we’re talking about here, not soldiers of war. Most Americans that are rooting against them don’t care that they’re African-American; they just want somebody who “cares.” If the fictional Hickory Huskers played the exact same way as this USA team, they would be rooted against just as vehemently and that is just plain truth. Americans aren’t rooting against the corn rows (Iverson is the only player with them anyway), they’re not rooting against the tattoos, and they’re not rooting against the color of their skin. They are rooting against a team that is disgracing America’s hardworking, blue-collar spirit, plain and simple. If racism is at work here, how do you explain America’s embrace of other African-American Olympic Champions such as Maurice Green and the newly anointed Justin Gatlin? After all, they’re both African-American and they both have tattoos. Are you going to tell me that Racist America has been following basketball exclusively?
You close your article with the following:
“Save the hatred for when (Iverson’s) back home skipping Sixers practices and boring us to death playing a two-man game with Glenn Robinson.”
The only person using the word “hate” here is you, Jason, and the attitude that causes a professional basketball player to skip practice at home is the same attitude that got him whipped by Puerto Rico in Athens. That’s actually all there is to it.
|
I must’ve missed the memo – the memo that went out to the red-blooded American sports public and explains exactly when it became OK to cry “racism!” whenever the ball of criticism happens to fall at the feet of an African-American. Your column on ESPN.com’s Page 2 was the most ignorant and inciting manipulation of words I’ve read in some time. While your view is half-dimensionally naïve, I think what’s more alarming is how while trying to draw the curtains to reveal a racist America, the only racist found standing there is you. If that was your intention, I congratulate you on your rousing success. However, if your goal was to write a fair and interesting assessment of a national phenomenon, I’m sorry, but you just fell flat on your journalistic face. Either way, I admire you for having the guts to include your e-mail address; I am sure your inbox will be flooded with responses far more intelligent than mine.
First of all, if you think Americans rooting against a team of mercenary basketball players is unpatriotic just because the front of their jersey reads “USA,” then you don’t know the first damn thing about this country. The United States of America is the most free nation in the history of the world, allowing its citizens the right to say whatever they want and to root for whomever they want, be it in the Presidential Election or the Olympic Games. Americans exercising their right to root against a team whose play does not represent their own integrity, even if that team bears the name of their country, is the very definition of American Patriotism. Your brand of patriotism, based entirely on loyalty to flags and colors, sounds more in line with a fascist nation than a free one.
Secondly, it doesn’t surprise me that you root for this USA Basketball team given the low expectations you had for them going in. You said we shouldn’t expect this team of NBA players to “care” about the Olympics as much as, for example, Michael Phelps because NBA players spend their childhood dreaming of only the NBA. One thing should have nothing to do with the other, Jason. If this team has a shred of the patriotism you expect from its fans, it should care enough about representing its country to play their heart and souls out for every second of every game in every round of Olympic competition. Regardless of whether they’ve achieved their dreams of having an NBA career back home, if these players are going to be a part of any team, be it Olympic or a YMCA Summer League, they should be giving 100%. That’s the pure spirit of sports. Given that you are a professional sports writer, I shouldn’t have to tell you that. You can’t have it both ways, Jason; you can’t demand that the American people cheer for their team simply because it’s American and then let the players off that same hook by saying “this isn’t their dream.” That very attitude is the reason why many Americans are rooting against the USA team. All they want is a team that plays with no sense of entitlement. They want a team that hustles and has some respect for fundamentals (Tim Duncan excluded). What they got is a team that shoots worse than I do on a 5-foot rim yet expected to be handed their gold medals when they stepped off the plane.
You went on to say that Olympians such as Michael Phelps, Carly Patterson, and Justin Gatlin give superior efforts and only “care” about the Olympics because it’s there one chance in four years to “strike it rich.” You say they’re “chasing money” from endorsements. These are shallow assumptions by an obviously narrow-minded man. I guess you probably think that when athletes such as these are standing proudly atop the medal podium, unashamedly crying as the Star Spangled Banner plays, that they must be thinking “Oh boy, am I going to be rich.” If you truly believe that these Olympians are given pride by endorsements and brought to tears by the sound of cash registers in their heads, all I can say is that I pity you. I hope you were only saying it as a punchline.
What most offends me about your column is the exposition of your own blatant racism. To exemplify my point, I list two statements you made in said column.
“Canadians invented hockey in the late 1800s, and once dominated it the way African-Americans dominate basketball….African-American basketball players no longer have a lock on the game. The rest of the world has caught up.”
Do you even realize that you just compared a nation of people with a race of people? Those jerseys don’t read “African-USA,” do they? These aren’t the race Olympics, are they? I thought I was watching a competition of the nations of the world, not that of one race from one country against everybody else. The issue at hand is one of Americans rooting against other Americans. The only one talking about race is you, Jason. I know you think you’re exposing an underground railroad of racism in America, but, I’m afraid you’re only revealing your own self-centered complex fueled by your own fear. The sooner you come to grips with the following truth, the better off you’ll be. The World is not out to get you. There are surely racists in this world, yes, and there are even more injustices, but the two are not always necessarily connected. There is no grand conspiracy.
No one is going to “spit on Iverson, Duncan, LeBron James, and Carmelo Anthony at the airport” as you fear. At the end of the day, these are still just basketball players we’re talking about here, not soldiers of war. Most Americans that are rooting against them don’t care that they’re African-American; they just want somebody who “cares.” If the fictional Hickory Huskers played the exact same way as this USA team, they would be rooted against just as vehemently and that is just plain truth. Americans aren’t rooting against the corn rows (Iverson is the only player with them anyway), they’re not rooting against the tattoos, and they’re not rooting against the color of their skin. They are rooting against a team that is disgracing America’s hardworking, blue-collar spirit, plain and simple. If racism is at work here, how do you explain America’s embrace of other African-American Olympic Champions such as Maurice Green and the newly anointed Justin Gatlin? After all, they’re both African-American and they both have tattoos. Are you going to tell me that Racist America has been following basketball exclusively?
You close your article with the following:
“Save the hatred for when (Iverson’s) back home skipping Sixers practices and boring us to death playing a two-man game with Glenn Robinson.”
The only person using the word “hate” here is you, Jason, and the attitude that causes a professional basketball player to skip practice at home is the same attitude that got him whipped by Puerto Rico in Athens. That’s actually all there is to it.
# posted by j.h.k. @ 1:32 PM 
