January 21, 2007

HOW TO PERPETUATE RACIAL STEREOTYPES WHILE PRETENDING TO CONDEMN THEM

The Horsefeathers award for racial stereotyping goes to Selena Roberts of the New York Times.

        The New York Times sports pages have long been infected by the same p.c. leftism as their editorial pages. The football playoffs provide an opportunity for extended socio-political pontificating. In NYTimes sports world: Black=caring=warm=soulful=flexible=creative=human=PROGRESSIVE. White=rigid=authoritarian=unemotional=robotic=DICTATORIAL. Selena Roberts produces a classic example of how to condemn racial stereotyping while actively perpetuating it.
        In an article on football coaches, Bill Belichik, the outstanding coach of the New England Patriots whose main defect seems to be his skin color--white--is contrasted with the "soulful", utterly adorable, black coach of the Indianapolis Colts, Tony Dungy. Dungy gains Ms. Roberts's worshipful accolades: he, unlike the robotic, dictatorial Belichik and other white coaches like Bill Parcells, Eric Mangini and Tom Coughlin, "values relationships over victory. As many know, he, (Lovie) Smith and another past Dungy hire, Herman Edwards, all recently dined together in an Indianapolis restaurant when their teams made the playoffs. Smith and Dungy remain. If Smith’s Bears end the Saints’ feel-good journey, if Dungy’s Colts finally crack the Patriots playoff code, it will be the first time a black coach, much less two, advanced to the Super Bowl..."
        Apparently by virtue of his skin color, Tony Dungy, like his fellow black coaches, and unlike his white counterparts, cares for his players as people. Should he and Chicago's coach Lovie Smith win, then Ms. Roberts instructs us, "...It shouldn’t have to be a big deal, but there would be no diminishing the social significance of Dungy’s and Smith’s potentially coaching in the largest television event of the year... And as it is in so many cases, a societal shift has to be seen to be absorbed, be viewed to be felt. In one Super Sunday, a league forever led by an ant trail of white coaches (our comment: yuck!) could finally find a comfortable seat aboard the Soul Train." Hooray!
        Does this possibility make Ms. Roberts happy? Not entirely, for "...Somewhere today, a voice from a TV booth will celebrate Smith and Dungy for their motivational skills but not their mental acuity, leaving the thinking-man’s adjectives for Belichick or the Saints’ Sean Payton..." Aargh! Ah yes, for the mind reading Ms. Roberts, racial stereotypes never die, they're just projected onto other people. Unfortunately her own article is shot through with racial stereotyping of whites as 'ice people'. She portrays white coaches from Bill Parcells to Belichik to Eric Mangini as cold, robotic, uninterested in people and mentally rigid. They haven't gotten on board the soul train. By contrast black coaches care, they're flexible, they're more creative- but they don't receive the deserved recognition for their emotional intelligence, no doubt because of white control of the 'narrative'. Instead, "...rigid systems are celebrated more than a football coach’s mental ability to fit plays around players. Belichick will easily discard past stars for interchangeable parts to plug into his design. Dungy is more fluid in his math, able to adjust a team’s persona as well as its scheme..." Besides, Parcells and all his other white disciples are "bullies".
        Thank goodness for the New York Times; without it we might think America had made progress towards overcoming discrimination. Instead we stand reminded that whites are cold, robotic, uncaring exploiters of blacks and that success by blacks occurs because they possess the empathic intelligence lacking in their white counterparts. Thanks Selena, we needed that!

September 10, 2005

NYTIMES TENNIS REPORTER MAKES A GUILTY DISCOVERY: POVERTY EXISTS IN AMERICA

        One of the small pleasures of attending a sporting event is the time devoted to celebrating America. The crowd stands respectfully for the national anthem, and patriotic pride is shared at the playing of God Bless America. Occasionally, for special events, a flyover of fighter jets draws 'oohs' and 'ahhs' from the crowd. At one game in Yankee Stadium, shortly after 9-11, a spectacular trio of Air Force parachutists descended, bullseye!, onto a huge American flag while the West Point band played a glorious Sousa march, Remarkably, these displays of unabashed patriotism shared proudly by fans of diverse backgrounds, escaped the critical gaze of the NYTimes editorialists. Perhaps the sports pages were regarded as not worthy of the attention of serious people, like Gail Collins, Maureen Dowd, Tom ('it's a flat world, after all') Friedman, Paul Krugman and friends.
        Although political correctness did invade the Times's sports coverage, especially when it came to their relentless efforts on behalf of androgyny, patriotism itself was not a target. Now, however, NYTimes tennis reporter, William Rhoden is shocked, shocked by discovering in the aftermath of a hurricane, that poor people do exist in America. Recovering from the vapors induced by this rather late recognition, Rhoden felt troubled when he heard John Mc'Enroe say he was happy there would be an American in the final of the U.S. Open. He tells us his deep thoughts designed to convey what a caring person he is, even while covering a sport like tennis. He's newly, post-Katrina, conflicted about 'flag waving' patriotism. He can no longer join in such expressions of affection and gratitude to this great nation. His profound, hand wringing reflections lead him to wonder how we can celebrate America when, good grief, poverty still exists! He writes guiltily that before Katrina he would have cheered, but now he has seen the light. "...Horrifying images since the storm have underscored the reality that there are multiple tiers of America and Americans. The images of death, desparation, hopelessness and poverty flushed into full view, have made many of us wonder where this America was hiding. We did not recognize it. Some of us did not even realize this America existed..." Having suddenly awakened to the fact that America is not utopia, Rhoden is angry. The America he thought he rooted for was an idealized version of a child's yearning for perpetual bliss. To become aware of reality is disillusioning. Rhoden no longer knows which America he's celebrating when the flag is waved. Notice his use of the editorial "we", designed to implicate all of us in his guilt, while suggesting that because America is not an egalitarian paradise it is simply impossible to feel and express unabashed patriotic sentiments.
         The glory days of sports reporting are long gone. We won't see the likes of Red Smith or Jimmy Cannon again, because they had not been indoctrinated in the dogma of post-modern journalism, whose aim is to create a politically correct 'narrative'. Is it too much to ask that the NYTimes's stable of bloviating, self-flattering pontificators be kept away from the sports pages? If we need or want instruction in politically correct thinking, we can find it every day, right there on the front page as well as the Op-Ed page. Let's reclaim the sports pages as a cant-free zone.