So I'm on a road trip to Atlantic City this week with a friend from work and naturally we get into talking about sports. He's half Thai, half Puerto Rican, but he's like anyone else, brainwashed by the media to believe blacks are superior athletes. The issue of race and sports has never really come up in our previous arguments about sports but it did this time. I asked him if he would draft Brian Leonard, and sure as Snow White is white, this guy starts sounding like any one of the countless, self loathing, media talking headsin explaining why Leonard won't play RB in the NFL, but will probably be a blocking FB if anything. "He's not fast enough" "He's not agile enough" blah blah blah. So I fire back that he ran a 4.49 at the combine, he out benched every running back, his vertical isnear 40 inches, he's literally hurdled defenders standing straight up while running the ball. I tell him if Leonard was black with his statistics, speed, and strength, there is just no way in hell anyone would be talking about making him a FB. Just goes to show, you can actually have the facts/stats staring them in the face and they will swear up and down that a blacks' 4.6 is somehow faster than a white's 4.49. He denies the racial factor in forming his judgement, but I could see in his face he was questioning his own conclusions about Leonard.
Nextwe get into boxing andhe says that he loves boxing but it's a joke these days. I said "Why? Because most of the champions are white?" Of course he denied thats why it's a "joke." "It's just that the fighters now couldn't beat the fighters of 10 years ago" etc etc. I asked him if he really thought Tyson would be able to beat Nikolai Valuev. He didn't know who Nikolai Valuev was!!! I wasn't surprised though, but I asked him how he could conclude boxing was a joke when hedidn't even knowwho one heavyweight champion is. (Silence) Then he says it's because he never heard ofthem,is the reason they're all jokes. A little ipso facto logic there. So thats where I call bullsh*t and tell him that if he doesn't even know enough about today's era to even KNOW who the champion(s) are, then he has no logical basis for which to conclude it's a weak era, and that in fact, he's just parroting what the media tells him about the state of boxing. (Silence) Then to further drive in the nail, I asked him "What does that say about black boxers these days if this era is such a joke that they can't seem to get a fighter who can knock these 'sorry excuse for boxers' white guys down?" (Silence)
Nextwe get into boxing andhe says that he loves boxing but it's a joke these days. I said "Why? Because most of the champions are white?" Of course he denied thats why it's a "joke." "It's just that the fighters now couldn't beat the fighters of 10 years ago" etc etc. I asked him if he really thought Tyson would be able to beat Nikolai Valuev. He didn't know who Nikolai Valuev was!!! I wasn't surprised though, but I asked him how he could conclude boxing was a joke when hedidn't even knowwho one heavyweight champion is. (Silence) Then he says it's because he never heard ofthem,is the reason they're all jokes. A little ipso facto logic there. So thats where I call bullsh*t and tell him that if he doesn't even know enough about today's era to even KNOW who the champion(s) are, then he has no logical basis for which to conclude it's a weak era, and that in fact, he's just parroting what the media tells him about the state of boxing. (Silence) Then to further drive in the nail, I asked him "What does that say about black boxers these days if this era is such a joke that they can't seem to get a fighter who can knock these 'sorry excuse for boxers' white guys down?" (Silence)