Bryant Gumbel's Racism gets a free pass.

[Big Dick McGee]

Here is what Bryant Gumbel had to say about the Winter Olympics. The comments were made as part of his closing statement, during the last "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" on HBO:

"Try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the games look like a GOP convention," Gumbel said on the program. "And try to blot out all logic when announcers and sportswriters pretend to care about the luge, the skeleton, the biathlon and all those other events they don't understand and totally ignore for all but three weeks every four years. Face it: These Olympics are little more than a marketing plan."

I don't know Bryant Gumbel personally, do I don't know his intent. What I do know is that a white broadcaster, stating his opinion, had denigrated a sport because of its lack of caucasion athletes, that white reporter would be vilified, and certainly fired from his job. He'd probably be un-employable.

So, why does a black sportscaster get to exercise his freedom of speech without consequence, when white sportscasters can't do the same? It's an incredibly hypocritical double standard.

Gumbel should be fired, period. His comments were racially insensitive at best, and downright racist at worst. HBO should do the right thing and fire him.

 

[Hambil]

Blacks can't be racist

 

[Big Dick McGee]

^^You're an idiot.

 

[The Question]

Blacks can't be racist

Are you saying they lack the same ability to hold racist attitudes that other human beings have? Are you saying blacks are subhuman, Hambil?

 

[Gagh]

Blacks can't be racist

I hope you weren't being serious when you typed that.

 

[Big Dick McGee]

^^Of course he was. Hambil is a liberal apologist. What he doesn't realize is that being an apologist for a race or skin color in essence makes him a racist!

 

[starguard]

If memory serves me correctly, at the time when Bryant Gumble made those statements, there were a lot of Black Civil Rights Leaders that were angry with him stating that he had turned his back on his people and was nothing more than an "Uncle Tom" for the media. Many of them were accusing him of going along with anything his white counterparts told him to without having any reguards for his own people. Mr Gumble became somewhat outraged at this, and what made matters even worse, a lot of liberal whites were agreeing with the very civil rights leaders that were condemning him.

I believe those statements Bryant Gumble made were made in anger, all in a vain attempt to get his political critics off of his back.

 

[Big Dick McGee]

Well, he made them last week, and I wasn't aware he had come under fire from black leaders. It's still inexcusable. Would Colin Powell call Bush a "crazy nigga" to avoid being called an Uncle Tom?

 

[The Question]

And isn't it just a little racist to call anyone "Uncle Tom" in the first place?

 

[MessengerX]

 

[WordInterrupted]

I don't think this is primarily a racial matter. Bryant Gumbel is prejudiced against anyone who isn't Bryant Gumbel.

 

[The Question]

^^The whole point is that it isn't Bryant Gumbel who's prejudiced. It's the civil rights leaders who called him an "Uncle Tom", thereby spurring him to make racist remarks, who are ultimately to blame. The funny part is that they were essentially accusing him of being a sellout, so in order to try to repudiate that, he... sold out. To them, of course, which I guess they would find acceptable.

 

[Laker_Girl]

I'm not entirely sure how it's the IOC or the USOC's fault that more blacks don't participate in Winter Olympic sports but if there's a will Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will find a way. Soon we'll have to send average black athletes to the Winter Olympics and not the U.S.'s best because Bryant "Oreo" Gumble stirred up a hornets' nest.

 

[Big Dick McGee]

No one has been able to answer my original question. Rush Limbaugh was fired by ESPN when he implied that Donovan McNabb (my man, QB of my beloved Eagles) was being hyped by the media simply because he's a black QB.

Why isn't Gumbel being fired??

 

[Laker_Girl]

Oh sorry. Gumble will not be fired because there's a double standard and rich white executives don't want to deal with the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton so racist blackie gets a free pass.

 

[Big Dick McGee]

^^Yup, that's pretty much what I figured. If he was fired, he'd cry "Free Speech". Too bad whitey isn't afforded the same level of free speech.

 

[The Question]

I say have a press conference, get a representative from every ethnicity in America on national television, and have each of them read a list of racist slurs. And after each slur, a round of applause. Then let the representatives all stand arm in arm, each addressing their respective "civil rights" organizations, so that each of the reactionary froot-loops can be assumed to be watching. Then from the gathered "representatives" shall arise a forest of upraised middle fingers and a chorus of, "SUCK IT!"