Race and Sports

Race is still an issue in America. I doubt anyone would argue much against that point. But how big an issue is it? HU-MOOOOOOOOOONG-OUS! I mean really, why else would the media continue to call a mulatto man the first “African-American” president? But, let’s digress from politics. I can make humor of that another day. For now I’ll focus on sports, the easiest way to show how racist the U.S. is.


One day, I was watching “Outside the Lines” this show on ESPN that discusses the injustices, inspirational stories, and politics through sports. During this segment they were talking about the declining number of black baseball players in the MLB. I had to just sit and get a laugh out of this one, so I heat up some Chips Ahoy, pour a glass of milk and figured I’d get a few laughs in before going to class. A black panelist at some point comments that black kids just were not interested in baseball: they like basketball, football and track… (I’m paraphrasing but that was the jist).


This made me think about high schools in Memphis: did they even have baseball in the Memphis City School system? Ok, I know they do but they really don’t really push it or nothing. You could always find highlights of local football and basketball games (occasionally track stuff) but that was it. Then I thought about it further: inner city high schools don’t have swim teams, cricket, racquetball, etc. Black teenagers don’t give a damn about it because they have never been exposed to it. Think I’m exaggerating? Look at the 2008 rosters for the United States Olympics teams: swim team is all white, track team is all black.


Look @ football: Name a white skill position player (wide receivers, cornerbacks, safeties, running backs). Taking you a while? You might be able to do it in NCAA Divison-1 football if you typed it into four search engines, but they don’t exist in the NFL, period (Jason Seahorn is retired sadly).


You know what’s really messed up? I didn’t even get to mention Asians, Native Americans or Hispanics (and they take up more of the population than black people now) cause they don’t play sports, apparently...