I see two problems with the argument that the recruitment of blacks and the celebration of black players correlates to a decline in racism.

First, the majority has always been happy to let the minorities entertain them–from prize fighters to gladiators and everything in between. And while the audience may claim their champion, it has never meant that they would let him date their daughters.

Secondly, the argument and article seem oddly dated. The legacy of inequality does live on in the economic status of minorities, and that does inform city demographics, but race is, at this point, secondary in the case of sports. It is the difficulty of a player’s economic background (whether he grew up in a trailer, immigrated from a poor country, had no father, etc.) that make up the stories of the day. I do not think that skin color has been a relevant barrier to entry in athletics in this country for decades.

However, this may be where the article shows its relevance. In the south, these points appear to be often overlooked so that absurd racist rationalizations for white success can continue. So the need for this article exists–anything to educate the uneducated–but suggesting that black players are equal on the field, while quite obvious–if not insultingly so, does not necessarily mean that their audience in the stands believes it too.

Threads like this one [link] arose, claiming that racism still runs deep in the white subconscious, and that the Twitter reaction was proof. I disagree — not that racism runs deep, but that this was a symptom of it.

I think the Twitter reaction had to do with two things: anger, and a blindness to the subtleties of language.

If West happened to have Down syndrome, they would have called him “retard”; if he were short they would have called him a “midget.” But that wouldn’t mean that these posters nursed a subconscious hatred of either group. When people are angry, they attack, and they attack using the most hurtful term.

One may counter, “But if  a person thinks that term is derogatory, when it’s just something black people call themselves, doesn’t it prove that they have a negative bias?” That’s where the subltety comes in. Words have histories, and this one, like “fag,” has been used by the majority as a purely hateful and controlling term.

When people know that a name has power to hurt, they use it, usually not realizing that they’ve just targeted a much larger group with the entire force of history.

The most interesting thing to me about the article referenced above was its claim that “racism has a sole, functional expression: White supremacy.” Perhaps that is the product of white-on-black racism, but what of the racist foundation of the article itself, which is a general indictment of all white people, based on the handful of white faces he picked out of a Twitter lineup?

My advice to the blogger was to practice the racial harmony he preaches, and then take a wider view of this issue, because it isn’t entirely logical to indict a majority race, just because they were the most numerous faces in an angry mob that chose the most hurtful term available, and used it carelessly.

Environmentally, it’s a nightmare, and the fact that the technology remains so poor and undeveloped–and that it’s still in use years later, is baffling. It feels like we made a bad and strange technology mistake, but only a few caught on. That’s all.