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Thinly-veiled race-related stereotypes in sports

TarHeelNation11

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Mar 9, 2007
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Before anyone gets their panties in a wad, this is just in good fun, so let me preemptively say calm the fu*k down. Feel free to add to my list:

"An athletic team" -- i.e. the team lacks any white guys (h/t to @UNC71-00)
"He's a gym rat" -- 99.9% of the time, aforementioned "gym rat" is white.
"A very cerebral player" -- white guy, usually a QB.
If an analyst seeks to highlight Player X and compare him to a more well-known player (Player Y), Player X and Player Y will ALWAYS be the same race lol. Always. I dub this one the Ryan Switzer Special because he hates when people compare him to Wes Wellker.
"He's just a natural athlete" -- black guy, almost always.

What else y'all got?
 
Before anyone gets their panties in a wad, this is just in good fun, so let me preemptively say calm the fu*k down. Feel free to add to my list:

"An athletic team" -- i.e. the team lacks any white guys (h/t to @UNC71-00)
"He's a gym rat" -- 99.9% of the time, aforementioned "gym rat" is white.
"A very cerebral player" -- white guy, usually a QB.
If an analyst seeks to highlight Player X and compare him to a more well-known player (Player Y), Player X and Player Y will ALWAYS be the same race lol. Always. I dub this one the Ryan Switzer Special because he hates when people compare him to Wes Wellker.
"He's just a natural athlete" -- black guy, almost always.

What else y'all got?

Why the F does this have to be "he"...sexist a-hole.

;)
 
As the father of an african-american daughter, I'm pretty offended by the word "black" ..... can we please not use ... kidding kidding :D

 
^^ technically, isn't she Haitian-American? Or am I remembering that wrong?

That brings up an interesting question: what are black people in Africa called? African-africans? What are black people in China called? Do they call them black? African-Americans? African-chinese? And what are black people called in Mexicoland? Are they "people of color" like they are here? Aren't all people "people of color" there?
 
This thread also reminded me of Gus Johnson's "He's got getting away from the cops speed!", which he got away with for obvious reasons. Can you imagine how fast someone like Sean McDonough's career would have been ended if he had said that?
 
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This thread also reminded me of Gus Johnson's "He's got running from the cops speed!", which he got away with for obvious reasons. Can you imagine how fast someone like Sean McDonough's career would have been ended if he had said that?
If I ever become a broadcaster, I'll use "He's got private school smarts on the court!!"
 
"Articulate" is usually a white announcer basically saying he's surprised that an African-American athlete can enunciate and form complete sentences. It's not used as much these days, but I hate hearing this one.
LOLOL yes. In journalism school one of the very first things they taught us is NEVER, EVER describe a black person as articulate, for it implies that him/her being articulate is a deviation from the norm.

....they also taught us to never say "manmade" because it is sexist. You can imagine what a disruption in class I was when they were feeding us some of this BS (referring to the latter example, not the former)
 
"Diva" almost always refers to a black person acting entitled. Don't think I've heard many white players called Divas before

Typically, that term is used with football players and more specifically, wide receivers. Tell me how many wide receivers in the NFL are white.

While I was watching diving at the Olympics, one of the announcers said, "I guess the Chinese team has to specially order extra small swim suits." Just kidding. I just wanted to make a @chick_bleeds_carolina_blue joke.

I'll be the one to say it...stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.
 
Speaking of asian jokes and athletes - remember the Jason Whitlock --> Jeremy Lin "... a couple inches of pain tonight" comment. Ouch.
 
Or when ESPN had to apologize for their article about him titled "A chink in the armor"
I was in an "ethics of journalism" class when that ESPN "chink in the armor" thing went down, and I shit you not, like 15 people in that class of ~70 students didn't know "chink" was a pejorative term for an Asian.

I was like "...really?" lol. Don't worry, it didn't stop them from being ultra offended once they found this out. SMH. It refers to a chink, as in a missing or damaged section in a hunk of metal.
 
Speaking of asian jokes and athletes - remember the Jason Whitlock --> Jeremy Lin "... a couple inches of pain tonight" comment. Ouch.

I generally like Whitlock and he's never scared to go racial. But he's black. So he can say offensive things without fear of backlash. He knows that too and that's why he talks about racial issues frequently and I'm usually in agreement with him.
 
I never knew until recently that calling a black person a "Monday" was a racial slur. And I've heard it before .. just never knew what I was hearing.
 
I never knew until recently that calling a black person a "Monday" was a racial slur. And I've heard it before .. just never knew what I was hearing.

What? Please interpret. I may want to slur someone in the next few days and I'd like to have that in my arsenal. But only if I'm informed on how I'm degrading them.

Thanks.
 
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Nobody likes Mondays. I thought this slur was pretty commonly known tbh lol.

I've been around plenty of racist in my life and I've never heard that one.

I like racial jokes. I don't know why people get so bent about them. Comedians used to tell racial jokes all the time and people laughed. All people told them and all people laughed. Wish we could go back to those days.
 
As a white, go spend time in a country like Haiti, you'll find out what true racism feels like. I've gotten used to it down there and it doesnt bother me, I just laugh now, but it's pretty rough.
 
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As a white, go spend time in a country like Haiti, you'll find out what true racism feels like. I've gotten used to it down there and it doesnt bother me, I just laugh now, but it's pretty rough.

See this is the thing that many people in this country fail to understand. It's come to the point that relatively innocent jokes can't be said anymore because of the backlash and everyone deeming that person a racist, which isn't necessarily true (and probably in most cases isn't true, just someone trying to be funny). What people don't see is that the person telling the joke isn't truly racist as you allude to - where they won't do business with someone, or will attack someone, or something like that just due to their race - that's actual racism.
 
See this is the thing that many people in this country fail to understand. It's come to the point that relatively innocent jokes can't be said anymore because of the backlash and everyone deeming that person a racist, which isn't necessarily true (and probably in most cases isn't true, just someone trying to be funny). What people don't see is that the person telling the joke isn't truly racist as you allude to - where they won't do business with someone, or will attack someone, or something like that just due to their race - that's actual racism.

Yeah down there it's not a bunch of guys telling a "white american" joke and me overhearing it ... it's overt, loud, mean racial comments. But given the history of their country and specifically with how the US has treated them over the years, I get it and just move on.
 
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