HMW: A CERTAIN TYPE OF 'NEGRO' COULD NEVER MAKE IT IN 'THEIR' SPORTS - John Thomas

A certain type of ‘negro’ could never make it in ‘their’ sports market?

Written by: John Thomas

Date posted: 6-21-2011

Allow me to ask you a question; why is it that when an African-American has a sports talk host position all of a sudden his stripes begin to change? He no longer says eggs, he now says aiggs. Why does he now call legs laigs? Doesn’t leg rhyme with beg? Just askin’. It kind of reminds me when Lionel Ritchie crossed-over. His name was no longer Ly-nell Ritchie, but was now Li-o-nel Ritchie. Why do they all of a sudden begin using all of the super jive time catch phrases and cliches normally used by their Caucasian counterparts? Why do they copy the example of talk show hosts whose knowledge of sports usually pale in comparison to their own? (Carl Dukes)…

The unfortunate answer is ‘IT SELLS’ here in this market. If an African-American in one of those positions does not copy their formula and basically take a ‘heal-hound’ position to them, they look for the first opportunity to get him gone. The fact that the public largely buys in to ‘the game’ as played by these hosts, in a certain way proves that what P.T Barnum said is actually true, “There’s a sucker born everyday”. His words are generally taken to mean that there will always be many gullible people in the world. Gullibility is a failure of social intelligence in which a person is easily tricked or manipulated into an ill-advised course of action. It is closely related to credulity, which is the tendency to believe unlikely propositions that are unsupported by evidence.^] This is a fact that is also understood and utilized by advertisers and politicians.

John Lopez/sports Radio 610

Why is it that John Lopez, a Hispanic, is able to maintain his position at 610? Because he has heal-houndin’ down to an art. He brought his pitiful act from 790 A.M. to 610 A.M. I remember early last season when one of the Washinton Redskins football announcer Ian Eagle, was on 610’s morning show; this was during the time that they were demonizing DT Albert Haynesworth. The Redskins announcer took exception to Lopez’s characterizations of what was actually going on in Washington, concerning Mr. Haynesworth; and tried to enlighten Mr. Lopez to the real facts. When Mr. Lopez realized that the announcer was not going along with his ignorant characterization, he started talking to the guy ‘crazy’. Well, what followed was a bonafide, first class clownin’. Mr. Lopez got clowned. The announcer set him straight in no uncertain terms. Now, after the gentleman left the show Mr. Lopez was acting as if he stood his ground with the announcer, constantly asking his co-host “you didn’t think I wasn’t going to defend myself did you”? To Mark Vandemere’s credit he made it clear that he understood that Mr. Lopez had just got clowned. I think I laughed for 30 minutes. I was like, how in the heck did he defend himself, when all I heard was him getting clowned. His skinnin’ and grinnin’ has to take a toll on him; I suspect he has a difficult time looking at himself in the mirror. If not, then his conscience is as useless to him as it is with those other cats.

As long as these people can take home a paycheck, they will justify, in their own minds what they do. Those paychecks must also assuage how their spouses must feel about them. For there is nothing manly about the cowardice they display, or the unreasonable logic they usually spout. 610 is particularly guilty; from the program director on down. The fact that they have been given the no. 1 rating for sports talk programming in our area, gives them a sickening arrogance that betrays their lack of humility, which they seem to admire in the athletes they cover. To them an athlete is humble if he either chins and grins, or if he talks down about himself, and or ‘says all the right things’. In fact, none of those things actually define one as being humble. A humble person is modest, one who submits to righteous teaching; without arrogance.

Back to Mr. Lopez; I remember how he would talk crazy to the callers when they would give their opinions about Yao Ming, or Tracy Mcrady; when those gentlemen were the talk of the day. If a caller expressed what he liked and disliked about Mr. Ming, he would be labeled a Yao Ming hater; while most if not all of their statements were either correct or reasonable, at the very least. I’ve gotten to the point that I can predict how these folk will respond to various news items, on their shows.

Ralph "The Godfather" Cooper

Those African-American sports talk hosts who get caught up in that system, can usually maintain in that crap for so long, before he does or says something that , in the words of Ralph Cooper, will “get his behind run off”; or he will feel impelled to leave on his own, (ask Andre Ware), (ask Craig Shelton), (ask Ralph Cooper why he would not accept one of these positions). And it is people like Mr. Shelton whom they respect , but cannot deal with, because he represents what tears away at their insides; an African-American who has intelligence, the ability to verbalize his thoughts, confidence in his knowledge of his craft, and the audacity to put his personal dignity in their face. They surely hate the fact that he now has a forum to publicly scrutinized them, without reservation or limits. I recognize this so well, because that’s the way I’ve lived my life. In fact, I refuse, with the tenacity of a pit bull, to live it any other way.

I was recently privileged to see Mr. Shelton at work first hand, in the studio of his talk show ‘The Cut’. Now to be sure, I am not one easily impressed, but I was thoroughly impressed by the control he had of the various aspects of the program. Let me also add that I’m also a little jealous, because I wish that I was so gifted. His quick wittiness and ability to multi-task shows us how intelligent and talented he is. If you give attention to what he is doing with ‘Houston Media Watch’, as well as his radio show ‘The Cut’, you will see why he is unacceptable to Houston’s media outlets. It all goes back to how they feel about us. A Caucasian with attitude is a tough guy, an African-American with attitude is thuggish or worse.

The sad fact is, to attract their Caucasian brethren, these sports talk show hosts make their racial bias palatable to their brethren by staying within certain acceptable bounds. Whereas now they would never refer to one using the ‘N’ word, they have no problem using the term ‘THUG’ in the same context that many, at one time would have use the ‘N’ word.

So, the moral to the story is the same as the title of this BLOG, A certain type of ‘negro’ could never make it in ‘their’ sports market.

Now that we have an alternative, let us support it; so that it will grow into the type of sports programming that we all crave.

My super jive catch phrase and cliche list:

Going out on a limb

I know I’m putting the cart before the horse

He says all of right things

He’s a high character guy

He threw him under the bus

He gets it…(I remember Jim Rome saying that about Pat Tillman)…Yeah, he got it alright.

He nailed it

I would like to end by saying this to Mr. Shelton; We have a natural tendency to descend to the level of our attackers, to engage them; but the high ground is always the best ground to do battle.