On this week's edition of HBO's Real Sports, a respected sports television news magazine, it's host Bryant Gumbel was recorded making this comment:
"Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don't care about them and won't watch them. In fact, I figure that when Thomas Paine said that "these are the times that try men's souls," he must've been talking about the start of another Winter Olympics.
"Because they're so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the winter games look like a GOP convention.
"Try not to point out that something's not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what's called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won. And try to blot out all logic when announcers and sportswriters pretend to care about the luge, the skeleton, the biathlon and all those other events they don't understand and totally ignore for all but three weeks every four years. Face it -- these Olympics are little more than a marketing plan to fill space and sell time during the dreary days of February. So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they're done, when we can move on to March Madness -- for God's sake, let the games begin."
This speech by Gumbel has set off a firestorm of criticism from a number of writers, all white so far. Indeed, the fact that a group of writers who happen to be white are complaining only works to make Gumbel's point. But before I continue on that, let's coldly look at what he's saying.
First, I watched the Winter Olympics, and I like doing so. I've never thought of the partcipants as the "World's Best Athletes" but as the best in their athletic field of choice -- the idea of the "World's Best Athlete" to me is someone like Strongwoman Shannon Hartnett, who lifts very heavy objects or my new friend Shana Bagley, who was coaxed into the same field by Hartnett and can lift a 350-pound tire...And is just about 5-4 and well under 200 pounds. Women who can do that are the World's Best Athletes to me. (Oh, they're both white, by the way.)
But then, they are also in the Summer Olympics in weight lifting -- so Gumbel's right because they're not in the Winter Olympics regardless of race.
On the matter of race, there's a nasty misuse of the term "racist." To be racist is to put someone down because of their race. What Gumbel was stating was that because Blacks are not in large numbers in the Winter Olympics, thus making the event less than diverse, it's impossible to claim that the participants are amoung the World's Best Athletes because the entire field of people who could do that sport well regardless of color is not represented.
Let's face it folks, he's right. That's being race concious, not racist. He's not saying whites can't be great athletes, just that you can't say you've got all of the best if they're mostly one color.
It's sad that what he said has been twisted by the unintelligent writers out there. They should be asking how the Winter Olympics could be diversified. To ask this question is to take on the very foundation of economic and social discrimination that still exists, yet must be destroyed.
I guess that task is too much for some people.
