Hube sends word Scoop Jackson, a black sports writer who thinks there’s something unfair about there being 300 black professional basketball players but not 300 black sports writers. As he describes himself speaking to high school students:
I ask everyone to tell me how many black professional basketball players they know. Depending on the size of the room, 90 percent of the time, the students say they can name most of the players in the NBA.
There are roughly 350 players in the League, about 85 percent of them black. We usually round to about 300 — therefore, the students claim to know for a fact that there are 300 professional basketball players.
Then I ask them to name 300 black sportswriters.
The room always gets eerily quiet. Beyond mortuary.
….
Then I make a point.
“Do you know why you can’t name 300 black sportswriters?” I say to them. “Because 300 of us don’t exist.”
The room becomes less quiet. Mumbling. Private conversations break out.
Then I make the point: “Which means you all have a better chance to make it to the NBA than you do doing what I do for a living.”
I wish I wrote well enough to describe the looks on their faces. Every time.
I wish I wrote well enough to describe the look on my face when I read that.
UPDATE [28 July PM]
Reader James Ellis emailed a notice of this excellent article by Jason Whitlock of the Kansas City Star, who himself seems to be one of the black sports columnists who, according to Scoop Jackson, virtually don’t exist.
Whitlock’s view of Scoop Jackson’s article?
Scoop Jackson, a black columnist at America’s best and most influential online sports section (ESPN.com), filed a rant so juvenile and flawed on this topic that I nearly broke down in tears after reading it. His “column” perfectly exposed the problem within my industry and the sports industry when it comes to diversification.
When looking up the bio on Robert”scoop” Jackson, I learned that he is a graduate of two HBCU’s and writes about basketball.
Maybe there are not 300 black sports writers beause most of those “white” sports writes chose to write about something other than how well Lebron can throw it down.
Maybe there would be many more blacks in sports journalism if so many black sports writers would not isolate themselves in the “journalism” ghetto of only writing about basketball.
What the color of the writer’s skin has to do with his ability to write about how well Lebron posts up or how well the coach manages the clock is of course something Scoop can never explain.
And of course Scoop’s racial door swings only one way and that one way, not surprisingly, swings to his advantage in his chosen field — basketball sports writing.
While Scoop is perfectly content to advocate for a system where blacks dominate in writing about blacks in basketball, he would certainly oppose a similar system of racial proportionality that operated to limit opportunities for blacks to write about subjects where white are dominant such as politics, or business or education or … (And he would be right to do so.)
Scoop’s remarks just remove the veneer that masks the real motive behind so much of the aff action/diversity movement.
And why is 85% of the NBA black? Seems like we need a little diversity there. Who wants a basketball court that looks like America? Raise your hands.
Agog,
I looked up “Scoop” columns at ESPN.com and virtually everyone was about basketball (except the one about Duke Lacrosse).
I don’t think “Scoop” realizes that most sports writers cut their teeth on baseball (the minor leagues in small towns) and on college football before they cover the NBA.
I would tell any black student who wants to become a sportswriter to stay as far away from basketball as possible and go to as many PGA, NASCAR, ATP, and women’s event that they can attend. Sports columnist have to be able to write on a variety of topics (that is why Whitlock and Wilbon are nationally know and “Scoop” is writing for Vibe magazine. For a sports writer who wants to advance, it is more important to be at the Daytona 500 than the NBA All Star Game.
“And why is 85% of the NBA black?”
White men can’t jump. It’s not definite whether or not genes play a role. It could be low expectations, a lack of role models, or a general anti-athletic culture among youg white males.
Of course if they raise the rim to 15 feet and bring back the set shot, who knows?
I don’t see where he says anything is unfair. Could you repost? Thanks.
Also…for SD, do you have a sense of how many black sportswriters cover basketball vs. other sports? Thanks.
Never mind. Thanks, I clicked on the link…anyway, Scoop is a whiny sort of dude. Check out his column on Phil Jackson. Thanks again. Whaaa!!!
Nearly all sportswriters who wade into racial matters will eventually demonstrate racial/ethnic underrepresentation by comparing the percentage of athletes to the percentage of coaches, GM’s, trainers, owners and now writers. High/low profile writers, national/local media, newspaper, magazine, internet, it doesn’t matter. This past football season, two football columnists at Sports/Illus. and CNN/SI declared the number of black coaches too low, essentially because the number of black players in the NFL is higher. Despite their high level of access to coaching staffs, owners and other execs., they were unable to claim a single instance of bias in any actual hiring decision, and neither was able or willing to finger an owner who discriminates against anyone on the basis of race. Since sportswriters never seem to mention it, I guess we are left to presume that playing ball and coaching or writing about it require undifferentiated skills and talents.
I’m with Dom. The NBA needs an affirmative action programs to achieve a critical mass of old, short, fat, and slow white guys so that the young, tall, fit, and fast black guys can enjoy, to paraphrase Justice O’Connor, “the … benefits that flow from a diverse [team] body.”
And if a few better qualified 6’9″ black point guards lose out on their NBA dreams?
So what?
Shattered individual dreams are just collateral damage (and a small price to pay )on the way to a more perfect socially engineered world.
Scoop Jackson writes:
>>>”But understand this is not about racism or racist activities in sports as much as it is about a way of life in this country. Yes, there is something racially wrong with four out of 305, but if that’s what we concentrate on, then we are missing the raw data inside the study.
As Chad wrote, the excuse for why there are so few black sport editors is because “usually [newspapers] aren’t looking for black people or claim they can’t locate them.” I had that “reason” spun on me once at a magazine. And of course I let it slide, saying to the publisher, “Cool, I’ll let you have that. Finding black [writers] is not your job, not your responsibility — it’s mine.”
To me, his line of thought was not Mark Fuhrman-ish. But the next comment was.
“But none of them is going to be as good as you,” the publisher said.
It is here we must deal with the issue of race and journalism as it exists in sports head-up, mano a mano, white-on-black.
“Why,” I asked the publisher, “does a black writer have to be held up to my standards and every white writer that gets an assignment or white editor who gets a job with this magazine isn’t?”
He said nothing. Couldn’t. And this guy is far from a racist, but I told him, “That’s the most racist [expletive] I’ve ever heard.”
And of course it wasn’t, but I had to make a point. I had to make them see my Anthony Hamilton, see where I was coming from, see life from the back of the bus, see what it was like to be tar in their game of feathers.”
Excellent analysis. Scoop should be invited to post here, as his insight would be a great addition to the Discriminations debates.
I totally understand that many members of the anti-affirmative action type crowd may feel a great sense of psychological comfort from the reinforcement of white paternalism. Perhaps its more soothing to some have old, white male authority figures report the news, or in this case, sports stories. There have been noted backlashes against female sports reporters over the years from conservative circles, so this type of derision goes beyond race.
This is certainly not surprising. Not to me at least.
–Cobra
“Perhaps its more soothing to some have old, white male authority figures report the news, or in this case, sports stories.”
If you change white to black, you’d be talking about the need for role models, and you wouldn’t call that paternalism.
There are many points to be made about this story. First, the presence of blacks in the NBA, and many other sports, is very high. You don’t see white people complaining about this, at least not the ones in the stands.
Second, you can see the diversity flim-flam in action. We want proportional representation of (pick your base-line). The city? The state? The country? Jackson was the first to say he wants to use the NBA as the base-line. Obviously, you pick the group that gives you the biggest take. There is, after all, no obvious reason why the number of sports writers should reflect the number of players, especially since the number of players does not reflect the country.
Isn’t a better question who the ^&#@!$%*^*&^(*(&^% knows the race of a sportswriter?
A television personality, sure; you can, after all, see them. And a tiny number of writers end up on television (the holy grail for a newspaper reporter — the pay is a lot better on television). But sportswriters?
How freaking obsessed do you have to be with race to think about things like this?
Does this mean only women should report on “women’s” issues, as well?
Perhaps we should be more surprised that the audience of white racist sports fans bothers to watch an 85% black sport at all.
Sharon writes:
>>>”Does this mean only women should report on “women’s” issues, as well?”
In my liberal opinion, absolutely not. You’d have to ask the advocates of white paternalism theirs.
–Cobra
[[ Depending on the size of the room, 90 percent of the time, the students say they can name most of the players in the NBA. ]]
Does this astonish anyone besides me? I’m not sure I could name a majority of the roster of my favorite team in any sport. I’m not surprised that more sports-focused people can do better, but most of the players in the league?
Ask them to name 300 sportswriters, white or black. I’m sure they can’t.
Only if the ratios are identical, and I really dont think they’re remotely close.
Sharon: Does this mean only women should report on “women’s” issues, as well?
Cobra: In my liberal opinion, absolutely not. You’d have to ask the advocates of white paternalism theirs.
Of course, first you’d have to find an advocate of white paternalism.
I thought the best quote in the Whitlock article was”
When I was in college, I was the only black person working at the school newspaper. The editors at the Ball State Daily News asked me to help them recruit other black students to write for the paper. I tried. We tried. We begged. We failed to entice anyone.
Maybe the reason that the NBA is heavily black and the newsroom at sports media are generally white is that too many black families will push their children to be basketball players (See the movie “Hoop Dreams”) and too few black families push their children to be writers as witnessed by Mr. Whitlock.
The other problem is that if a black writer does decide to cover sports, he decides to cover “black” sports and thus isolates himself from moving up the corporate latter.
At the newspaper I worked at, you probably had a better chance of advancing if you were black than if you were female. It was heavily into promoting a “multicultural” image, to the point of mentoring low level minorities and shunning low level anything-elses. I was even told once that I couldn’t cover Black History Month activities (I’m not making this up) because I wasn’t black, even though I was more interested in it than the person they assigned it to. I suppose if you think black people report or copyedit differently from their white counterparts, then worrying about the ratio of black players-to-black reporters is important. I always thought the important part was whether or not you knew what the hell you were talking about.
John writes:
>>>”Of course, first you’d have to find an advocate of white paternalism.”
Among the Anti-Affirmative Action Types? That’s not hard to find at all.
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>”Maybe the reason that the NBA is heavily black and the newsroom at sports media are generally white is that too many black families will push their children to be basketball players (See the movie “Hoop Dreams”) and too few black families push their children to be writers as witnessed by Mr. Whitlock.”
Sharon writes:
>>>”At the newspaper I worked at, you probably had a better chance of advancing if you were black than if you were female. It was heavily into promoting a “multicultural” image, to the point of mentoring low level minorities and shunning low level anything-elses.”
Perhaps you both should inform the National Association of Black Journalists about your concerns.
Sharon writes:
>>>”I was even told once that I couldn’t cover Black History Month activities (I’m not making this up) because I wasn’t black, even though I was more interested in it than the person they assigned it to.”
Given your previous posts here at “Discriminations”, I for one would LOVE to read YOUR coverage of Black History Month activities.
–Cobra
If sports periodicals are going to cover black history month, and prevent non-black journalists from covering black history month, that pushes blacks further into coverage of special-interest stories. That can’t be good for their advancement.
“Perhaps you both should inform the National Association of Black Journalists about your concerns.”
Why would I do that? They are more interested in counting jelly beans than worrying about qualifications.
“Given your previous posts here at “Discriminations”, I for one would LOVE to read YOUR coverage of Black History Month activities.”
Oh, I have no doubt you would, given your racist proclivities. Sorry, but it would disappoint you, since I was raised on that ol’ objective school of journalism that doesn’t seem to be fashionable these days.