- The day the shit hit the Olympic fan occurred in summer
of 1968. A pair of American sprinters and recent Olympic medal winners,
John Carlos and Tommy Smith, stood on the podium in Mexico City to receive
their medals. As the American national anthem played, an unforgettable
Olympic moment occured. Smith and Carlos lowered their heads, and raised
a black-gloved fist.
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- Feelings of disbelief, followed by fury swept over white
America like a south Florida hurricane. How could those uppity niggas on
the podium shame the wonderful country that gave them everything? The white
mainstream media immediately went into a feeding frenzy. Carlos and Smith
were suspended and sent home.
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- Never mind that few white Americans knew (or cared) that
weeks earlier, several hundred students in Mexico City had been massacred
by the host country for expressing the same right of "free" _expression
that the two medal winners allegedly abused. Free speech, it seemed, was
a dangerous thing and evidently had no place in public squares, podiums
or sporting events.
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- Sport, and especially the Olympics, was always considered
sacrosanct. Above politics. Athletes were expected to perform, fondle their
medals, smile for the camera--and shut up. Smith and Carlos, like Muhammed
Ali, had broken a scared covenant. The only way to deal with pampered,
uppity niggas in the new century (since lynching was outlawed), was to
teach them a lesson.
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- Lynch them in the press.
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- That feeling remains today, nearly forty years after
Muhammed Ali was suspended from boxing and lost his championship for protesting
the war. Be a good nigger, be Cassius Clay again, white people seemed to
say. Keep your mouth shut and perform. Be like Mike--Michael Jordan--or
better yet, be like Tiger Woods. They never say anything.
-
- Recently suspended NFL star, Terrell Owens. learned the
high price of petulance when he crossed the line by criticizing the organization
which employed him. Owens called them classless on national television.
So the Philadelphia Eagles suspended him for the remainder of the year,
as if to emphasize his point.
-
- "T.O., it's official. Your initials now stand for
Totally Obnoxious," wrote white sports columnist, Pete Prisco. "There
was a cancer removed from this (NFL) locker room."
-
- The consensus of white opinion concurred. In a poll conducted
by AOL.com" "Did the Eagles make the right decision suspending
Owens?"--93% of respondents agreed with the suspension."Another
ingorant (sic) ball player with poor upbringing," ranted blogger,
Dale Robbins. "Another 'brother' with an attitude problem," concurred
fellow blogger, Petronord.
-
- "Turns out Owens is a cancer that transcends team
boundaries," added indignant white sports columnist, Tim Dahlberg,
fixated on fatal diseases, like his colleague. "And he spreads quickly.
It took him less than a season and a half in Philadelphia to create such
a mess that it might be too late to repair."
-
- Cancer? Too late to repair?
-
- Sounds almost as if white bloviators Dahlberg and Prisco
were talking about the cancerous mess in Iraq (caused by rich white men)
rather than referring to one self- absorbed black athlete.
-
- The pompous outrage of fat, white sportswriters is always
laughable and ludicrous. Yet the palpable indignation of white sports fans,
fueled by the legion of moralistic white scribes like Prisco and Dahlberg,
who pen odes to touchdowns from the loftiness of ivory towers, might be
laughable except for the serious issue of an ignorant citizenry, who lend
more weight to the antics of a petulant black athlete than the, far more
dangerous, actions of a petulant president.
-
- Owens made the unforgivable sin of airing his resentment
of Eagle management on a TV talk show. Suspended once before, for his on-field
behavior, Terrell Owens seemed to exhibit all the unapologetic chutzpah
of fellow pariah, black boxer, Jack Johnson.
-
- A hundred years ago, Jack London, wrote of boxing champ
Johnson, "(Former white champion) Jim
Jeffries must now emerge from his Alfalfa farm and remove that golden
smile from Jack Johnson's face...Jeff, it's up to you. The White Man must
be rescued."
-
- The noble White Man"sports fans in this case--must
be rescued from uppity niggas, whether Jack Johnson or Terrell Owens. Ingrates,
loudmouths, self-promoters, uppity niggas like Owens never seem to know
their place.
-
- Is it a race issue or a freedom of speech issue, or simply
a case of an insolent but talented (black) performer acting up?
-
- "I blame the front office," said long-suffering
Phillie fan, Bill 'Harbo' Heaney. "They should have made him happy.
I made a living out of reading people and manipulating them, and T.O. looked
easy from where I sit. Promise him more money, tell him he's wonderful,
and send him out to play. Who cares what he says on some obscure TV program?"
-
- But "cancers," especially black one, must be
cut out for the good of the team. And suspending black malcontents and
withholding their pay, serves as a stern reminder to the rest of the (mostly
black) pro athletes in America.
-
- The idea that Philly is better without Owens is laughable,"
said Dave
Zirin, author of the provocative yet entertaining book, What's My Name,
Fool? "Yes he is a loose cannon. But the only thing 'unbecoming' about
Owens is the roster bonus the team will owe him if he stays on the squad."
-
- So straighten up, future black sports stars, shut your
fucking mouths--or risk a suspension, and thus millions in salary and product
endorsements. Even if what you have to say is obviously true.
-
- "T.O. was correct," added Eagle fan, Heaney.
"McNabb choked, literally and figuratively, we all saw that in the
Super Bowl...and I could do a better job at pleasing T.O. than the Eagles'
front office. They screwed up with a screwed up guy and they acted as nutty
as him."
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- "They make the (black) players seem like Zulu warriors,
inmates rioting in the asylum," said Bob Marvick. "Television
loves that...Do you think that the NFL feels anything but love for T.O.?
Who would watch? What would we talk about? My god, how fucking boring."
-
-
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- Uppity Niggas.
-
- Black athletes--overpaid, over-pampered, over-indulged,
or outspoken--will get no sympathy from the white fans who pay their salaries.
White fans, most of them, work far too hard for far less money. But like
the black athlete, the average white sports fan is clueless. He hasn't
a say in his favorite sports team or in his country, or the management
of either.
-
- Only difference is, the white fan, unlike the black athlete,
don't realize it.
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- _____
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-
- Diehard sports fan and skinny white guy, Douglas Herman
writes regularly for Rense and is the author of the modern classic novel,
The Guns of Dallas
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