Subtle Racism in Sports

I'm sick. I probably have a cold, a flu, or pneumonia, but I'm not sure how to tell the difference. All I know is that I've got a wicked cough that makes my throat seize up, my whole body aches, and I can feel the fluid building in my nose. Not helping matters is that my project at work involves cutting and pasting thousands of zip codes into a spreadsheet, a task my boss has told me may or may not actually be needed.

Along with the shitty job, I blame my illness on the excitement from football last weekend. I watched the Giants game with "Irish" Patrick, who grew up on a cattle farm outside of Galway, and spent the entire contest with a glazed look on his face. His only moments of excitement came when he showed me the Blade Trilogy DVD Box Set he had recently purchased, which he then pressed to his chest, as though he wished that somehow the former vampire hunter and current tax evader Wesley Snipes could suckle from his bosom until he was strong enough to shoot Blade 4. When the final whistle blew, and a Giant's win was secure, I began raising my arms in victory, while Irish turned to me and asked, "Is the game over?" Obviously, my attempts at assimilating him into American culture have a long way to go.

Something else I noticed that has a long way to go is sportscaster's vocabularies, particularly when it comes to describing certain players. Obviously, there's the notorious Kelly Tilghman "lynching" comment in regards to Tiger Woods that has drawn so much well-deserved publicity, but the kind of language I'm talking about is often more subtle in nature. All one has to do is watch a regular football or basketball game, and they will find TV analysts use certain words exclusively to describe white players and other words only for black players. These are just a few examples likely to be heard on any given broadcast:

White Player/Black Player
1). Scrappy/Has a swagger
2). Shifty/Explosive
3). Moves well in the pocket/A threat to run
4). Needs to get more athletic/Needs to get more fundamentally sound
5). Reminds me of Ricky Proehl/Reminds me of Randy Moss
6). Stiff/Fluid
7). Typical Coach's son/A natural athlete
8). Heady/Emotional
9). Hard worker/Has so much God given ability
10). There's Mom and Dad in the stands/The whole family is here tonight

Look out for such descriptions next time you watch sports on TV and I guarantee you'll recognize at least a couple of these stereotypes. This overlooked form of discrimination does not appear to be malicious, and probably exists at a subconscious level, however, a little imagination and persistence could make such statements relics of the past. Not that it matters for Irish Patrick; he's got nine hours of movies to re-watch before I make him sit through the Super Bowl.

[Super Bowl] [Racism] [Sports] [New York Giants] [Blade] [Wesley Snipes] [Black Athletes] [White Athletes] [Randy Moss] [Ricky Proehl] [Tiger Woods] [Kelly Tilghman]