Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Diversity or anti white?

We have learned thus far in our class how to be aware of certain stereotypes that we as the white majority media  put out there. I will be the first to admit that they are there. I'll also be the first to admit that you can find whatever message you want if you look hard enough at anything, so interpreting media messages is subjective and nowhere near an exact science.
However, I'm surprised (but not really) at the lack of leniency for white people versus the leeway given to minorities in the media. There is not a more perfect example than this story about Torii Hunter, an outfielder for the Los Angeles Angels. The article written in 2008 was about a panel discussion with USA Today in which Hunter was asked about his opinion on why there aren't more African-Americans in professional baseball. (The percentage of black players on opening day was 10.2%, up from 8.2% the year before.) Hunter responded saying that black Latin American players were "impostors" and not "real" black people. (In case you didn't know, Torii, black slaves were brought in to Latin America just like the British Colonies that later became the United States.) He went on insult black Latin American players even more saying, "Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?' ... I'm telling you, it's sad," he said."


 Hunter has no room whether to decide who is black and who is not. The majority of African-Americans haven't stepped foot on African soil nor will they ever. So what room does someone have to decide? Are they culturally different? Yes. But so are white people. You have Russians, English French, Irish, Spanish, and the list goes on. But are they put into different racial groups. NO. They are all labeled as white because their skin is white. Same rule applies here. We are not discussing ethnic groups or cultural differences. Black is black. And the people who do these statistics need to rework how the categorize because it's giving people more reason to whine than they should. Is the NBA representative of the U.S. populations? No. There are 18% of the players that are white versus 77% black percentage of players. Should the NBA really get an "A" in diversity? *&!% no! That's not diverse by any means. If you are looking for what diversity really means according to the University of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, it's how many white men can we kick out of the work place. So what if there are only 10.2% African-American players in the MLB? It's because they play football and basketball! I'll listen to the argument when people are concerned with the lack of white players in the NBA. 

1 comment:

  1. Here is something that has occurred to me, and probably to you, too. I am a big baseball fan and have wondered why there are not more African-American baseball players. Could it be cultural? Many black kids grow up playing basketball (and football, too). Isn't that one reason by the NBA is dominated by African-Americans? Many black Americans play basketball constantly--it is part of growing up. Baseball isn't so much. But white kids, especially in the Midwest, grow up playing baseball. So do a lot of Latin American kids. Isn't this one explanation?

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