A Sick Salute
| More news stories on Black Culture |
|---|
Jonah Goldberg, New York Post, July 30, 2008
THIS month, ESPN awarded Tommie Smith and John Carlos the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs (the sports network’s equivalent of the Oscars) for their once-infamous black-power salutes from the medal platform at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
{snip}
Comments by ESPN sportscaster Stuart Scott typify the inanity of ESPN’s award. Scott, who was 3 years old in 1968, nonetheless told the Desert Sun newspaper that he remembers how “tense” the times were and how he remembers thinking, “Oh, that was cool for a black man to do that.” He added: “As an adult, I get it even more now.” Even more than when he was barely out of diapers? That’s setting the bar high.
{snip}
Is it even worth trying to remind people today that the black-power salute was, for those who brandished it seriously, a symbol of violence—rhetorical, political and literal—against the United States? It was the high sign for a racist militia, the Black Panthers, which orchestrated the murder of innocents and allied itself with America’s enemies. In today’s lingo, you might even say black power was “divisive.”
But even a more benign view of the salute shouldn’t obscure the intense contradictions of ESPN’s decision to honor Carlos and Smith. Both men were members of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, which wanted a complete black boycott of the ’68 Olympics. The group considered an entire generation of heroic black athletes, including Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson, to be Uncle Toms.
Another important distinction is that this was 1968, not 1938. By the end of the 1960s, America had seen two decades of steady—if too slow—racial progress. The black-power vision of an irredeemably “racist Amerikkka” was all but blind to the desegregation of the military, the accomplishments of Owens and Robinson and the civil-rights acts of 1957, 1960, 1964 and even 1968. One hopes ESPN disagrees with those views as well.
{snip}
  |
(Posted on July 31, 2008)
Comments
I can’t understand why so many White fans support these black ‘athlete’ thugs. They couldn’t care less about their White fans.
Posted by at 6:21 PM on July 31
Their school, San Jose State, has honored them with a statue. Time seems to take care of everything.
Posted by Frank at 6:25 PM on July 31
For quite a few years now I have given up watching football. I will continue to stay away until they institute affirmative action to add a little more color to the field. Now, I will cross ESPN off my list.
Oh well; at least there is still the internet.
Posted by Bdouglas at 6:40 PM on July 31
Courage, huh? In the summer of 1968, young Americans were being killed by the dozens everyday in Vietnam. And 40 years later these clowns are being honored? How this country has changed.
I’ve long told my sons that sports libs are the worst kinds of ultra-lefties. ESPN is full of them.
For the longest time, athletics were bastions of the meritocracy, a very conservative way to live life. That’s no longer the case as coarseness, braggadocio, and outrageousness get the headlines and the mainstream media’s adulation. And Africans are among the most noteworthy when it comes to those aforementioned behaviors.
Posted by Annoyed In Illinois at 6:44 PM on July 31
Scott was three years old? A three year old knew what the climate was for black people in 1968.The problem here is that our nation’s past outlaws are now heroes.Look historically to other countries.Todays terrorists are tomorrows presidents.Look at South Africa,who was in prison and rose up to become president.Where was Hitler before he became chancellor?Wasn’t Menachem Begin considered a terrorist when he was the commander of the underground force that sought to oust the British from Palestine.He later became prime minister of Isreal.It is all a matter of timing and who is in power!
Posted by THE MAN at 7:23 PM on July 31
The first thing that I notice in the photograph is their downward-looking faces — looks like pretty half-hearted “pride” to me.
Posted by at 7:43 PM on July 31
“By the end of the 1960s, America had seen two decades of steady—if too slow—racial progress.”
Obviously, it was a mistake invoking all this civil rights nonsense to a people who didn’t appreciate it, because their make up is such they can’t appreciate it.
Now we have seen with our own eyes that it would have been better to give blacks money to return to their homeland, the one they adulate and place above all others, or to encourage them to settle in a two state region among their own kind, so that their constant cowardly whining wouldn’t be their one and only purpose in life.
And, too, it is simpleton’s like this Stuart Scott who should be allowed to live with them in order to rejoice in his love of diversity.
Hopefully, in the near future this opportunity will be offerred to him. When it is we should video his reaction, because it will undoubtedly be an exclamation of triumph and joy, and I, for one, will be very happy for him.
Posted by ice at 9:10 PM on July 31
Yeah, but just tie one little noose to a tree, and all hell breaks loose.
Posted by Flamethrower at 9:11 PM on July 31
I want to know if there’s a “white power” salute and, if not, why not?
Posted by jewamongyou at 11:11 PM on July 31
I wish the photo weren’t cropped as it is. To the left is the bronze medalist from some Nordic country, respectfully standing at attention.
Ken P.
Posted by Ken P. at 12:05 AM on August 1
Why anyone would feel it necessary to honor these cretins for politicizing their status as Olympic atheletes is beyond me. Since by definition they were physically fit, they should have been sent to Vietnam, where they could have enjoyed egalitarian delights like crotch rot, dysentary, leeches, punji stakes, incoming fire, and drug-resistant venereal diseases.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 12:21 AM on August 1
I am old enough to have seen this live. I was baffled about why they did it.
They like showing a closeup of these two. The reason why is that the white Aussie silver metalist joined in the protest. You don’t want to show a white person supporting blacks, now do you? It defeats the purpose. That is the lesson for all you wiggers out there. blacks will never appreciate you.
Posted by flyingtiger at 12:30 AM on August 1
“The first thing that I notice in the photograph is their downward-looking faces — looks like pretty half-hearted “pride” to me.”
-7:43 PM on July 31
Absolutely. “A picture tells a thousand words.”
Indeed, the limp-elbowed, LEFT-arm “salute” by the 2nd individual (#9 in photo) screams a blatant weakness-of-conviction (if not, downright shame), and a glaring noncompliance toward his stiff/RIGHT-armed “brethren” in the foreground.
Posted by jokerekoj at 12:51 AM on August 1
If a skinhead athelete gave a straight-armed National Socialist salute at the Olympics to make a political point, would he have received a special award, or international approbation?
Nearly anywhere in Europe, our hypothetical skinhead would first have been arrested.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 3:04 AM on August 1
As much as I like sports, I hardly ever watch anything on ESPN, especially when commentary is involved, Olberman from MSNBC is the role model of every one at ESPN, they seem to be so racially aware of the suffering those poor black atheletes have endured at the hands of white devils.
Posted by abc at 6:14 AM on August 1
Show me an average American “sports-fan,” particularly the truly devoted type, and I will almost invaiably show you the most hopeless of our(white)race. Professional sports have been a magnificent tool in conditioning White America to embrace “people of color” in a way that almost never would have occured in regular society. This combined with the never-ending stream of non-whites in the entertainment industry - music and film, etc. - have turned entire generations of Americans minds to mush when it comes to race. This articel only serves to prove that. Who is ESPN’s core audience? White males…brainwashed, disconnected White males.
Posted by HH at 6:33 AM on August 1
“In the summer of 1968, young Americans were being killed by the dozens everyday in Vietnam. And 40 years later these clowns are being honored? How this country has changed.”
It hasn’t changed all that much. They were honored back then too. And every year since…
News sources like AmRen haven’t held much influence in America. For the most part they haven’t even existed. If they had, I’m quite sure we’d hear about them, on the very pages of AmRen. Quite sure…
I’ve met those who believed that, if they weren’t already, during the 60’s black men became the dominant-males in our society. That is, if you believe in that sort of thing. Oops, I meant to say, it was during the 60’s that these poor, eternal ‘victims’ became the dominant males.
Posted by Dinosaur Hatchling at 8:21 AM on August 1
I was 14 years old when that happen and back then, everybody was really into the olympics, back before when it was still supposed to be for amateur atheletes, before they allowed professional sports players to compete.
Anyway, I remember that my parents, my grandparents and a lot of our neighbors were extremely angry over it. The thought it was disgraceful. But I’m referring to people who were from the WWII generation. Both of my grandfathers served in WWII, one in the Phillipines and one Germany. There was a different mentality then. These were men who had so much respect for their country.
Those black atheletes were part of the growing upheaval in this country that started with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. My parents and grandparents didn’t take too kindly to those images. And even at 14, I knew it was wrong and that it was disrespectful.
Posted by Gayle Sollenberger at 12:07 PM on August 1
Yes, white males who worship professional black athletes are pathetic. They would blow their tops if their daughters came home with a baggy-panted ‘aspiring rapper’ but they would be euphoric if their daughters brought home the star high school running back or college center. Absolutely disgraceful and disgusting.
Black males will never become the dominant males in society. They are simply too stupid. The image of the dominant black male is a total media fabrication. Real life isn’t edited, revised, or spun. If Nicole Brown Simpson isn’t a sufficient lesson for the black male athlete groupies, there is no hope for them.
Posted by Civilized Neighbor at 1:50 PM on August 1
In San Jose, CA at the University I think they put up a statue of this display, made of bronze. I just that one of the bronze thieves who are so rampant these days because of the high price of bronze would play their part in recycling the statues.
Posted by Peejay in Frisco at 2:00 PM on August 1
I wasn’t three when I saw that salute. I was 28 and in the Navy. What I saw were young black men giving their country their version of the finger. My reaction was feeling for the first time that there was something wrong with blacks and my support of black civil rights was vaguely discomforting. How right that reaction would turn out to be I had no idea. Today I am a confirmed race realist.
Posted by mikeh at 4:23 PM on August 1
yea ESPN is pathetic, but it is the only watchable all-sports network on tv, sadly. they turned me off when they hired rush limbaugh to be controversial, then when he did EXACTLY what he was hired to do, they fired him immediately. if i were rush, i would sue ESPN/ABC/Disney till they ALL went out of business
Posted by tnecvolfan2001 at 7:41 PM on August 1
Why anyone would feel it necessary to honor these cretins for politicizing their status as Olympic atheletes is beyond me. Since by definition they were physically fit, they should have been sent to Vietnam, where they could have enjoyed egalitarian delights like crotch rot, dysentary, leeches, punji stakes, incoming fire, and drug-resistant venereal diseases.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 12:21 AM on August 1
You forgot the famous and much sought after “immersion foot” and our own commanders’ treachery. I saw blacks take over a barracks in Viet-Nam when I was at a camp collecting ammo and batteries. They were making demands and issuing threats and the Camp commander was giving in, I would have set the place on fire and killed them as they ran out, the word MUTINY comes to mind and one can be summarily executed in the field for that. I left to continue my patrol along the trail before the situation resolved itself, so I do not know how it actually ended. I was in Viet-Nam at the time this picture happened in any case and knew nothing about it.
Posted by Skip at 1:25 AM on August 2
Black power? In the black culture the only real power they have is the eternal black whine & ignorant out of touch white liberals like Ted Kennedy.
Posted by at 10:03 AM on August 2
I might well be preaching to the choir, but I’m going to say it anyway.
Notice that this “black power” salute happened in 1968. That was AFTER the Federal government passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, numerous other laws, plus an almost endless barrage of “Ungrateful Society” welfare programs which were meant for the disparate benefit of blacks.
Black militancy increased after all these things. The reason is that white society showed its hand as sympathetic and weak. Therefore, the genie was let out of the bottle. There would have been no “black power salute” in 1952.
Posted by Question Diversity at 10:14 AM on August 2
When I see espn on my channel guide, I think only of blacks and how espn panders to them. Then I just skip over espn and move on to something worth watching.
Posted by at 6:00 PM on August 2
When I see espn on my channel guide, I think only of blacks and how espn panders to them. Then I just skip over espn and move on to something worth watching
Like the Sci-Fi channel:)
Posted by Skip at 12:51 AM on August 4
I have worked with ESPN. I can tell you that the majority of those manly men are homosexuals.
Posted by at 10:20 PM on August 12