Nice well thought out post NOE.
Unfortunately, in this country today, we cannot have an open and honest race conversation without smarmy little pricks like jdjo interjecting themselves and their agenda into it. I don't get it, maybe b/c I'm white, but it seems to me like the leaders of the black community do a disservice to race relations in this country with the way they pander to the lowest common denominator. I'm not saying there isn't racism in this country- I absolutely believe that there is. What I'm saying is that when the community leaders cry racism everywhere, even when there is none- it does nothing to advance the constituency they are trying to advance.
Sports have the least amount of racism anywhere, in my opinion. There is not a greater meritocracy anywhere that exists, in my mind, then the diamond, gridiron or court. If you can play they will find you. If someone ignores talent b/c of prejudice they will lose, lose badly, be exposed and fail. None of those owners want to fail with their teams.
They are ego boosts, not profit centers. Almost every owner is in it to win it. They aren't ignoring talent b/c it has the wrong skin color attached to it.
Shame on that smarmy prick JDJO. Shame
I believe, since no *actual* Black Community leaders have stepped up publically to make this a public forum issue, that none really exist. This is JdJO's own agenda and he's using the e-mail he recieves from some fans who probably honestly want to know why the Astros passed on Chris Young, since he's in their backyard. It is now twisted into a pretzel of an issue in the name of honest dialogue. Well, truth be told, the Black Community leaders in Houston have some issues with McLane but they were economic in scope... not racial. They wanted to know from McLane if he intended to bring the Black Community into the fold of the economic development boon that was to happen when the stadiums were being built. Those were legitimate concerns by the leaders of said community and they did this all by themselves without the help of JdJO. The Houston Chronicle did it's job in that it *covered* the story about the Black Community leaders want for economic inclusion by McLane. But there is a huge... I mean *HUGE* difference between covering a story and being *THE* story. One you actually remain unbiased about and report the facts. The other, you raise your own agenda in order to draw attention to yourself.
These Chron blogs have done more to draw attention to the actual writer than to the stories they may be wanting to cover. It is what it is, but they (the Chron) shouldn't include the community leaders into a discussion like this after the fact. It is insulting to a leader to think that someone in the newspaper industry thinks this lowly of them that he can just say "racism" and that will automatically trigger the reaction necessary to stir up a whirlwind story. People who are true leaders will not fall for that, just like in the Telemundo flap when the Chron and Telemundo did the same thing. Leaders in the Hispanic community called for calm and reasonable people to dialogue about this thing before the tar and feather job got out of hand. This is while Lopez at the Chron was stirring up the masses with his "if it walks like a Duck..." comments and then the Hispanic radio stations in town decided that they could spare some time away from Tejano Music in order to do the same. They even had a game they invented that was supposed to be a mock "pin the tail on the donkey McLane" they played all day Friday in a sign of protest over what they believe was an actual true story. By Saturday, the story went National with guys like Aldante (?) in LA writing about it as if it really happened.
By Monday following, the truth came out and McLane was absolved, forcing Telemundo's CEO to issue a public apology for his employee Marco Camacho's behavior. All the while, community leaders in the Hispanic community, like Al Lopez kept saying to everyone to let this story play out. So Al Lopez was right and the media frenzy was absolutely wrong. A little research by the local and national media that went crazy for two days on McLane would've revealed that Camacho had done the same thing only a few short months earlier when he accused the Houston Livestock and Rodeo about the same thing. The Rodeo people accused Camacho back of grandstanding in order to garner attention to himself and his station to boost ratings and that there was absolutely no substance to his accusations. The only media to cover the story of Camacho's grandstand ploy was the Houston Press. A little fact finding by the media who went crazy over Telemundo-gate would've revealed the character flaws of the main accuser in this he said/she said accusation.
And only Telemundo issued an apology too.
So if we are to have Chris Young-gate, the sequel to Chronicle goes wild with accusations of racism towards the Astros, then let's do it. I mean, be a man and do it or shut the fuck up about it. Because it seems from here that this is a ploy to stir up some good folks in the Black Community and then leave them hanging with a less than strong accusation against the Astros. In fact, only those who are prone to use these sort of things to gain camera time (*cough* Jesse Jackson *cough*) will truly care. I'm convince the same way Al Lopez called for rationale and calm behavior from the actual community, the leaders of the Black Community will do the same if push came to shove.
Thing is, will JdJO be man enough to say he wants to push or run away like that kid we all knew in the neighborhood who would kick other kids in the shins and then run and hide behind his mother's apron.
