GatewayRedbirds.com

I don't remember their names, but Rome's forum today featured two black sports columnists, and one of the issues they discussed was the Roger Clemens/Barry Bonds situation. It was mentioned that race was a big factor in how the public perceives both players. Okay, that's fine. The fact that one is white and the other is black certainly doesn't affect my opinion, but I'm not naive enough to think that that's the case for everybody. There are prejudiced people in society - I don't see that issue ever disappearing completely. What bothered me, though, was that one of these columnists suggested that the media actively tries to portray Roger Clemens as a "good guy" while attempting to enhance Barry Bonds's "bad guy" image, purely because Roger is white and Barry is black.

Maybe I'm just oblivious, or maybe I'm just unaware because I'm by no means a minority, but doesn't that sound a little bit ridiculous? Roger Clemens has gotten more than his fair share of criticism/bad publicity in the media, and I'd have a hard time believing anybody could deny that. Barry has received a ton of criticism as well, but much of it is due to his abrasive personality and anti-media attitude - he's not the friendliest person in the world.

I mean, does everything have to be turned into a race issue? As I said before, I know racism/prejudice still exist in our world, but I have such a hard time buying into an argument like this one. At some point, isn't it counterproductive to throw the race card out at every possible juncture? After I heard what this guy had to say, I wanted to rip my hair out.

I'm guessing one of them is Terrence Moore. Ignore everything that comes out of his mouth. This is a guy who condemned Albert Pujols and said that there is a giant cloud of suspicion hanging over his head right before he slurped up Ryan Howard.

ThatGuy wrote:I mean, does everything have to be turned into a race issue? As I said before, I know racism/prejudice still exist in our world, but I have such a hard time buying into an argument like this one. At some point, isn't it counterproductive to throw the race card out at every possible juncture? After I heard what this guy had to say, I wanted to rip my hair out.

Sometimes I wonder if we're almost preserving racism by acknowledging race so much in the first place.

Stuff like, "hey, Tony Dungy was the first black coach to win a Super Bowl!"

In other words, race still plays a huge role. Its just now, we're not discriminating against race... we're celebrating it. I'm not saying that's necessarily a problem, its just that I think the best way to get rid of racism completely would be to stop factoring in race at all. It seems counter-productive to me.

Kyle wrote: ...its just that I think the best way to get rid of racism completely would be to stop factoring in race at all. It seems counter-productive to me.

I completely agree.

Kyle wrote:In other words, race still plays a huge role. Its just now, we're not discriminating against race... we're celebrating it. I'm not saying that's necessarily a problem, its just that I think the best way to get rid of racism completely would be to stop factoring in race at all. It seems counter-productive to me.

That's exactly how I feel. I was trying to think of a good way to say it, but you did it for me.

GatewaySnayke wrote:I'm guessing one of them is Terrence Moore. Ignore everything that comes out of his mouth. This is a guy who condemned Albert Pujols and said that there is a giant cloud of suspicion hanging over his head right before he slurped up Ryan Howard.

One of them was a columnist for ESPN, and the other was an older-looking guy. I'm going to try and find the ESPN guy's name, but you may be right.

ThatGuy wrote:

GatewaySnayke wrote:I'm guessing one of them is Terrence Moore. Ignore everything that comes out of his mouth. This is a guy who condemned Albert Pujols and said that there is a giant cloud of suspicion hanging over his head right before he slurped up Ryan Howard.

One of them was a columnist for ESPN, and the other was an older-looking guy. I'm going to try and find the ESPN guy's name, but you may be right.

I think the ESPN columnist is Jeffrey Chadiha.

my opinion: blacks today increasingly have opportunities to be successful that weren't available in the past. but in general, the penalty for screwing up, for any black who has overcome some of these obstacles and achieved some degree of success, is instant crucifixion by the media. its not necessarily a racist bias by the media so much as general pandering to the public interest, and the public interest does indeed have a racist bias, by virtue of demographic alone. Ignoring it won't make it go away, it would only turn it into a two ton gorilla that no one talks about. In my opinion, when the gorilla starts gaining weight, someone should mention the love handles.