"Racially insensitive" remarks by sports figures

[Alcott]

In one of the most recent incidents of a coach or management personnel making comments in which a reference to race was included, Fisher DeBerry, head football coach at the Air Force Academy, was reprimanded and extolled to apologize.

His original comments were: "[TCU] had a lot more Afro-American players than we did and they ran a lot faster than we did... It just seems to me to be that way. Afro-American kids can run very well. That doesn't mean that Caucasian kids and other descents can't run, but it's very obvious to me that they run extremely well."

While anyone knows how these type of statements will be jumped on by the media, and it would have been better if he had just said his team needs more speed, was there really anything wrong with his choice of words? Probably all coaches think what is largely verified by the stats-- that the fastest athletes are very likely to be black. So should he have been publicly reprimanded for being "racially insensitive?" And does the fact that he coaches at a service academy, which awards scholarships on a different, more rigid basis than most schools he competes against, require of him a different standard than if he coached at a "football factory" school?

 

[Convicted by the Spirit]

I have found no fault in his words either.

Honestly african american's are better atheltes over all than Caucasian and hispanic. They are gifted by God in this area. I have to play Dan Majerle brand of basekball just to stay on the court.

Everyone in America knows that african american atheletes are far better gifted over hispanic and Caucasian. They know it we know it everyone knows it, but it can't be spoken off? treated as racist comments?

I am guessing it was a slow news week so that is why the media jumped all over it.

 

[Sampson]

I didn't really see that as a racist comment either

 

[Johnv]

I don't think it was an outright racial comment. But it was probably a little racially insinsitive. Nothing more than a poor choice of words. No biggie. Little oops. Let's move on.

 

[dcorbett]

Political correctness is one of the problems with this country today.

Debbie C

 

[RockRambler]

Coach didn't use the proper code words. Those same things are said just about every Saturday afternoon by college/pro sports announcers. How many times have you heard, "Florida State is a very athletic team...they have big-time athletes throughout the roster". Translation: Florida State has a bunch of fast black kids.

"The Duke football team doesn't have a lot of big-time athletes, but Coach Roof's kids play smart on every play". Translation: They have a bunch of high SAT players, mostly white, that can't run or jump.

Coach just got to get with the proper code words.

 

[Alcott]

DeBerry's comments were quite a step down from the best documented cases: 1, Al Campanis, GM(?) of the LA Dodgers about 12-15 years ago, who said he doubted that most blacks have the mental capacity to manage a sports business; and 2, Jimmy "the Greek," who said the majority of NFL stars are black because slave owners bred their slaves to have large thighs, resulting in greater strength in the lower body and sprinter's speed.

It didn't prove to be quite the same years earlier on a Monday Night Football game in which Howard Cosell, referring to Alvin Garrett, a small, quick and shifty kick returner, after a nimble, twisting return, "that little monkey!" There was vast criticism from, among others, Ralph Abernathy, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Even though I never really liked Cosell, he did right in holding his ground that there was nothing 'racial' about his remark; insisting that he calls his own grandchildren "monkeys" in reference to their nimbleness and vigor.

Maybe the lesson is something like this: If it sounds like something Archie Bunker might say, then don't say it.

But I think you're right, RR, that most sports media people do know how to code what they're thinking to avoid the 'controversey.' In the late 80's Florida St. beat Michigan 50-31 in Michigan, and many reports of that game included some facsimile of "Michigan's toughness of either side of the ball proved just no match for the blazing speed of Florida St." That is saying traditional Big Ten football, based on size and physical play of sururban and small town, mostly white, kids can be beaten by the leaner, speedy, chip-on-their-shoulders southern blacks who take out their anger on the field.

 

[robycop3]

What do they say when they're beaten by RUSSIAN athletes, who look like any other average white people?

 

[Alcott]

I think 'they' say, "Do you believe in miracles?"

 

[Filmproducer]

There was nothing racist in his statements at all. My husband, who is an African American athlete (played football for UK), was surprised that he even was made to apologize for the remark. I am sensitive to racial insensitivity, but this is a little ridiculous.

 

[Filmproducer]

Originally posted by Alcott:
I think 'they' say, "Do you believe in miracles?"

LOL-

 

[robycop3]

I think the term "African American" is silly. A person is either African or American, not both...and what those dark-skinned people whose descent is Australian?

Last African American I know of was the basketball star Hakeem Olajuwan. While still a citizen of Nigeria, he obtained American citizenship. He rectified the situation when he realized it, and he's no longer African American.

Another goofy New-Age-Liberal term is "Native American". America is a EUROPEAN name, from cartographer Ameriga Vespucci, an Italian.

Columbus meant no disrespect when he called the people he found here "Indians". He thought they were citizens of the nation of India, his having never seen one. Shoot, that most Lakota of Lakotas, Sitting Bull, called himself an Indian.

The various Indian nations have many more names for white people than "Paleface". many of the Plains Indians called black people "Buffalo soldiers" because they believed them to be reincarnated buffaloes.(Most REAL cowboys were black!)

 

[Bro. Curtis]

"That's what I hate about white people" Charles Barkely

 

[NateT]

You can't say 'black' anymore. That's what Rush Limbaugh learned when he said Donovan wasn't that great, but the NFL wanted a black quarterback to be a star.

If anything, the ACLU should have been all over the Air Force for not giving equal standing to whites

 

[just-want-peace]

PCism run amok!!

Will be the death of this great country!

 

[ChurchBoy]

Originally posted by NateT:
You can't say 'black' anymore. That's what Rush Limbaugh learned when he said Donovan wasn't that great, but the NFL wanted a black quarterback to be a star.

If anything, the ACLU should have been all over the Air Force for not giving equal standing to whites

What Rush said was just plain dumb.

 

[robycop3]

However, I doubt if "El Rushbo" was much disturbed by the critics, given his stature among radio audiences.

 

[Hope of Glory]

However, click on this link and see a quote by a black man that if a white man had said it, he would be drawn and quartered.

Football Photo

 

[west]

I was watching the Sports Reporters one Sunday .The panel were all black men .They said they would like to see a team win the Super Bowl that had a black head coach .I thought if a white guy said I want to see a Team win that had a white head coach what would have happened .I would like to see the Colts win it not because of their coach being black but he seems to be a nice guy .

 

[Scott J]

I think that PCism is actually preventing the kind of honesty we need between people now to the great harm of black people in particular.

The truth needs to be fleshed out and dealt with. For instance, statistically a child in a single mother household is much more at risk of various problems (poverty, crime, drug use, etc) than a child with two parents. Yet you can't criticize black American culture for promoting promiscuity without being called a racist... even though statistics prove it to be true. Black friends have told me that their culture influences them to be more loose sexually.

How can we deal with reconciliation and resolution if we can't even honestly define problems?