This Morning on OTL: Why, Ms. Hill, Why!

Just a tidbit (sorry, J) for today. On Outside the Lines this morning ESPN’s Jemele Hill was on a panel with Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Dr. Todd Boyd, professor at USC and ESPN.com Page 2 columnist.

The topic of discussion on OTL’s first segment? Why Michael Vick, of course.

I have to admit, I didn’t scramble to record the segment because I thought I’d hear the same old same old. Then Bob Ley mentioned Hill’s “Open Letter to Young Black Men” Page 2 column.

Now, I recognize that being the only black female columnist in the country make Hill a unique commodity. As a result, she is allowed latitude and leeway that other journalists might not be afforded. Her voice, because of that explosive combination of the “exotic other” of race and gender automatically allows her a platform on which to speak.

Should our society be so backward as to feel this way toward Hill? No.

However, her statements in that Page 2 column and her statements this morning say something about her as a black person, how she perceives the world, and what she understand about blackness in America.

Ms. Hill said this morning that the Michael Vick case “shouldn’t be a test case to play out racial injustice – not in a court of law.” This I understand. But then she immediately followed that thought with, “Not in the court of public opinion.” A scant few seconds later, after implying that Vick is being molded into a martyr by a large enough segment of society – black society – to actually know this is happening, she said this about racial bias and racism in relation to living as a black man in this country, “You have to expect [racism, racial bias] that’s going to happen to some degree.”

Reflexively, I nearly spit my coffee from my mouth.

My auto-reaction wasn’t in the, ‘you set us (black people) back 100 years’ reflex. It was of the ‘you just allowed white people to get off the hook – yet again, and set us back 400 years, reflex.

Ms. Hill, something to think about – and I’ll word this in simple, “If”, “Then” axiom form:

“If racism is pervasive in this country, Then, even in a court of law, racism can exist.” Now, notice I did not say, will exist, I said can exist.

“If racism is pervasive in this country, Then it must exist in the ‘court of public opinion.'”

Follow me?

Remember, Ms. Hill Michael Vick was judged as guilty the moment reports of dog fighting were aired. Those who perpetuated the notion of his guilt without evidence were almost exclusively white. Not even the AJC’s Terrence Moore immediately hopped on the “Vick is guilty” bandwagon.

Now, of course all these prognosticators point and say, see, we were right, as if that makes it okay to pronounce guilt before anything beyond speculative evidence is known.

But the real problem is, why should we expect racial bias and racism is going to happen to some degree?

Now, for the final axiom:

“If we expect racial bias and racism at every turn, Then why shouldn’t this and every treatment of a black athlete by the media be about race in the court of public opinion?”

You can’t have it both ways. Ms. Hill.

You cannot think it’s okay to face a racially-biased press corps in a racially-biased country, where the first thing people want to claim is that they are not racist (if you don’t believe me, just check the comments at this website for proof), and say anything that happens to any black person in this country, including Michael Vick, cannot be about anything more than race and the perceptions of black people in the United States?

How, then, is it possible for any reporter to write that dog fighting is a “cultural thing?” And have it be repeated everywhere as gospel?

Did dog fighting begin with black people? Hell NO! Did it continue in England with black people? Hell NO! Is it a misdemeanor in Wyoming and Idaho because a preponderance of black people live there? Hell NO!

So what the hell do you think white people are trying to say when they say dog fighting is a cultural thing – a Southern, black thing?

They are calling black people animals, Ms. Hill. A-N-I-M-A-L-S, get it?!

But hey, what the hell, we should just expect it, right?

Don’t swing so low, Sweet Chariot.

(addendum: and on “The Sports Reporters” (boy has it change since the days of Ralph Wiley!) Howard Bryant, he of a brutally uninformed and factually-challenged book on steroids and baseball and Barry Bonds, said he didn’t know if this dog fighting thing was “racial, regional, or what.”

I wonder what the white people in Wyoming and Idaho are thinking about Bryant and his cohort Mike Lupica, who wholly agreed with Bryant, today. I wonder if they’re laughing all the way to the ———– dog fighting pit. And I wonder why PETA and the Humane Society aren’t in those states protesting en masse the law that makes dog fighting a misdemeanor instead of a felony in those states…. hmmmm.)