Gagging Black Athletes

[Scuba]

http://www.progressive.org/gagging-black-athletes

Unless it’s commodified, laid out over a beat, and marketed to suburban white teens getting their ghetto fix, there is no freedom to be angry in black America. From Jim Crow to the New Jim Crow to Fox News fulminations about the New Black Panthers, there lurks an existential fear to, in the words of Ronald Reagan, “hold back the jungle.” Nowhere on the cultural landscape is black anger policed more vigorously than in the world of sports. Ask Roddy White and Victor Cruz.

After George Zimmerman was found innocent of profiling, stalking, and gunning down seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin, the two responses that garnered the most attention were from Cruz, a New York Giants wide receiver, and Atlanta Falcons wideout Roddy White. Cruz tweeted, “Zimmerman doesn’t last a year til the hood catches up to him.” White’s response was, “All them jurors should go home tonight and kill themselves for letting a grown man get away with killing a kid.”

Both were pilloried by the press, piled-on by their twitter “followers,” and hectored into apologizing. Cruz had to go on The Dan Patrick Show, where he said, “In the moment, when it happened—I’m not going to lie, I was a little angry. As a father, you think about if that was your son, if that was your kid.” It’s tempting to make this a story about social media and impulse control, but the roots of this run far deeper.

...

This story of controlling the black voice in sports is as old as sports itself. In the 1930s, Joe Louis wasn’t told to “be loud and larger than life like Babe Ruth.” He was told, “Don’t open your mouth like Jack Johnson.” Jackie Robinson was told by management to turn the other cheek. The white media told every boxer from Sonny Liston to Joe Frazier that their “job” was to shut up “the Louisville Lip.” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, despite his All-Time Status and Doogie Howser IQ, never got a coaching job. Craig Hodges and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf were drummed out of the NBA for expressing quiet, dignified disdain for nationalism and war.

[cali]

1. Seriously? Pretty insane to defend

the comments made by these guys. Is the author actually saying that criticizing those comments is gagging athletes?

Those comments deserved criticism. These guys are people with influence and these comments were damn close to urging violence.

There is a point to be made here- that there's a stereotype of "the angry black" and all that attends that, but that doesn't excuse inciting or encouraging violence.

[Scuba]

2. Compare and contrast the outrage over similar comments made by white athletes. Or this guy ...

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/15/985303/-Glenn-Beck-Why-Buy-A-Gun-then-points-at-Obama-photo

[cali]

4. please find a story that's about white athletes encouraging

violence where they get a pass. And Glenn Beck even got kicked off of Fox.

[Scuba]

5. See that's the point - when white guys do it there is no story.

[11 Bravo]

3. I ran this by my oldest son (a college athlete) when it happened.

I know that he and his teammates have been cautioned by their coaches, the NCAA, and the university to stfu on social media. I asked him if he felt any less stifled than some A-A athletes cum celebrities. His response (I wrote it down) was as follows: "Well, Dad, I'm a well-off white kid from the suburbs. If I was a black dude in this country, I would probably have a Hell of a lot more to say." Young man has a point.