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Your Black Politics: Did Tiger Woods Pave Barack Obama’s path?
Did Tiger Woods pave Barack Obama’s path? Are you joking?
By: Dave Zirin
Originally Appeared In NY Daily News
It’s always dangerous, but never boring, when a newspaper sports columnist uncorks a political thesis. Enter Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel. Bianchi thinks that there are some unsung heroes who deserve credit for helping put a black man in the White House – and they are athletes. “If you’re searching for tangible reasons why it became possible for Barack Obama to make his historic run at the presidency … look no further than the golf course, basketball court or football field.”
Bianchi believes that, since sports have conditioned white America to accept African-Americans as heroes and leaders, black sportsmen deserve a pat on the back. He wonders: “Where else but sports can you go to Amway Arena and see 15,000 mostly white fans cheer and celebrate the accomplishments of a team that is mostly black?”
Sounds lovely. But it happens to be embarrassingly wrong – and an insult to the reason that millions waited on long lines to cast their vote [...]
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Your Black News: Troy Davis Set To Be Executed Oct. 27th
“All you have to do is remember two numbers, nine and seven; nine for the number of witnesses who originally testified against Troy Davis, and seven for the number who later recanted their testimony.” Those were the words of author and journalist Dave Zirin on Oct. 18 in Washington, D.C., where a crowd gathered to demand justice for death row inmate Troy Davis.
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On Sept. 23, the date of Davis’ last scheduled execution, thousands around the world mobilized to demand that the U.S. Supreme Court hear his case, successfully forcing the court to grant a stay of execution. However, on Oct. 14, the court refused to hear his case outright and a Chatham County judge signed the execution warrant the next day. Davis’s execution has now been rescheduled for Oct. 27 [...]
Your Black Sports: Sarah Palin’s Extreme Sports – By Dave Zirin
Sarah Palin’s Extreme Sports
By: Dave Zirin
Ever since Andrew Johnson welcomed the New York Mutuals to the White House in 1867, presidential politics has exploited professional sports. It’s a foolproof way for politicians to show voters they enjoy competition, fair play and are salt-of-the-turf Americans.
Sports signifies different things to different voters. Football (JFK) and baseball (George H.W. Bush) are good. Windsurfing (John Kerry) and hunting “varmints” (Mitt Romney)–not always so good. And no candidate should ever bowl in a necktie, unless he can seriously roll.
Barack Obama’s game is basketball. He shot three-point baskets with the troops in Iraq and his high school b-ball videos have become a YouTube sensation.
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A month earlier, John McCain made his own ESPN appearance. He’s also known to work the crowds at NASCAR events. But no one in this election uses sports like Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. At times on the campaign trail, sports is her primary form of communication with voters outside of her narrow, Christian fundamentalist base. Communication is critical for Palin, since she mangles the English language so consistently that she’s become the subject of ridicule. Talking sports–whether as a mom on the sidelines of her kids’ hockey games or a as an outdoorswoman who loves to hunt and fish–gives her the opportunity to seem genuine, friendly and accessible.
Palin’s politics may be beyond the fringe, but her sporting interests are effortlessly mainstream. In this sense, she resembles the current occupant of the White House [...]
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Your Black Sports: Vince Young And The NFL’s Depression Denial
Vince Young and the NFL’s Depression Denial
By: Dave Zirin
Your sports page may have recently induced an unpleasant sense of déjà vu. A pro football star, by all accounts, seemed caught in a spiral of depression. Friends and advisers were worried enough about suicide to call the police. After an ensuing public-relations fracas, the player and the team assured us that it was all a grand misunderstanding.
Two years ago, this was the story of Dallas Cowboys star receiver Terrell Owens. Less than 24 hours after Owens had sleeping pills pried out of his mouth, his PR flack said that the police report was a fabrication and “Terrell has 25 million reasons to be alive” – an ugly reference to the dollars he was due in his contract.
This month it was Vince Young, quarterback of the Tennessee Titans. During a Sept. 7 victory over Jacksonville, Young threw two interceptions, sparking a chorus of boos from the home crowd. Then he seemed to be refusing to re-enter the game – and was injured shortly after he did return. The following night, when he didn’t return calls to his cell phone, the police were sent to find him. He had apparently uttered the word “suicide” to his manager, and perhaps a team therapist, and made clear that he was in possession of a gun.
But now Young and the team say that this is a whole lot of noise about nothing…
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Your Black Sports: Dave Zirin: Leave Josh Alone
Leave Josh Alone
By: Dave Zirin
Dallas Mavericks All-Star Josh Howard has been raked over the coals of public opinion this week for daring to say what more than a few athletes think. He was caught on someone’s cell phone camera saying that he doesn’t stand for the national anthem because “I don’t celebrate this [expletive]. I’m black.” Judging by fan and media reaction, you would have thought he was barbecuing some bald eagle over a flaming pit of American flags. You would, given the peals of outrage, never know that there’s been perhaps some more pressing news in the papers this week.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, to his eternal credit, has posted some of the anti-Howard emails he has received and they are the most vile, racist trash you could read outside a Klan chat room. (http://blogmaverick.com/2008/09/18/thanks-for-the-advice-on-josh/).
Many of these courageous e-bigots actually attempt to link Howard’s mini-rant to the ascension of Presidential candidate Barack Obama. Their crude threats reflect a white fear as old as the United States itself: that no matter how much blood black Americans spill for this country, their loyalties are dual and divided. It’s a fear that — in a backhanded way — acknowledges that racism is still so prevalent in our society that loyalties of the descendents of slaves must be suspect. But instead of confronting the reality of racism, the e-bigots among us instead lash out in both frightening and filthy fashion.
Well, count me out. Count me out as someone who will pile on Josh Howard. Howard is someone who said, during his 2004 senior year at Wake Forest University, that the war in Iraq “was all about oil.” He then saw his draft stock plummet to the point where he was picked after no-talents like Reece Gaines and Ndudi Ebe. I saw one scout even call Howard a risky pick saying that “Anti-war views may reflect rumored erratic behavior.” Count me out as someone who thinks anti war views are erratic…
Your Black Sports: Hypocrisy Engulfs Plaxico Burress Controversy
By: Dave Zirin
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week: all Plaxico, all the time. There’s nothing like an NFL player shooting a hole in his own leg in a packed nightclub to become our latest walking, talking weapon of mass distraction. Why ponder the global economic meltdown, two wars, and rising unemployment, when millionaire black athletes like Plaxico Burress walk among us… with guns?
Don’t think that this is a defense of the New York Giants star wide receiver. Having a loaded gun in your pants, with no safety, in a crowded club, is about as smart as using a toaster as a bathtub toy. In fact, shooting yourself in the leg is really one of more preferable outcomes. Now Burress faces three and a half years in prison for carrying a loaded handgun in the city.
Right on cue, the moralists are slithering onto their soapboxes to hiss at the latest athletic bogeyman. Hypocrisy reigns supreme [...]
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