Monday, February 05, 2007

Thoughts on the Superbowl

Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy should both be ashamed. Not of their performances as coaches - both did a fine job at that, as one would expect of any coach able to overcome the pre - in - and post-season trials and tribulations to bring their team to the game of the year.

No, they should be ashamed of allowing the media to play the "race" card so blatantly and continuously during the game. Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy are great coaches. Period. They'd be great coaches if they were purple. They'd be great coaches if they were Chinese. They'd be great coaches if they were... dare I say it?... white.

"Black History Month" is doing as much if not more harm than it ever did good at this juncture, IMNSHO. The time has come to stop celebrating that people who achieve great things are black - and simply celebrate that they have done great things. Racial equality will never exist until racial differences are NO LONGER NOTICED.

Every tool has it's time. Just as Unions were needed to break the backs of the robber barons in the early 1900's, so too it was necessary to have a "Black History Month" and to form an NAACP to right the aggregious wrongs of previous centuries.

However, just as unions have to a great degree outlived their usefulness and become more of a burden to the worker than a benefit, so too do Affirmative Action and the NAACP, the "Rainbow Coalition" and other such institutions now do more to alienate than they do to unite and advance.

Just exactly what did the media think they were achieving by harping on and on about how Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy are black? Anyone with functional eyesight can see that. And for some of us - it makes no difference. They are great coaches - we care not if they have darker complexions than some of us. IT SHOULDN'T MATTER. That's what racial equality is about - realizing that we are ALL people - all human beings - all capable of the same levels of greatness - or the same levels of failure.

To harp on the skin-tone of the coaches in last night's game was an INSULT to black people. It was a very, very subtle dig - "See, THESE black guys have done really well - it's amazing - it's remarkable - it's something you don't see every day - it's not something that most black guys could achieve" is the message that it sends.

The implication is that it is really not possible for black guys to do well - and that these 2 guys are proof, somehow, that they are abberations, rather than just 2 guys who worked hard and did well. It minimizes their achievement as athletes and coaches. Rather than ignoring race and simply focusing on the two men as MEN - the media harped on race as if being black were important - which gives the "race card" another chance to alienate, rather than unite.

And that is WRONG.

Shame on CBS

Shame on the Superbowl organizers for booking the "artist" Prince, formerly known as some dorky-ass symbol, formerly known as Prince, formerly known as Prince Rogers Nelson (The man with 3 last names). Uck. Gag. Spit.

You just KNOW he was lip-synching - and nobody in their right MIND would play an electric guitar in the rain like that. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Damn shame he DIDN"T play it for real. That would have been worth watching.

I turned off the sound. What happened to marching bands and pom-pom sluts?


734 days

2 comments:

BBC said...

Not having watched it, I don't know what went on. I do watch TV news once in a while at the laundromat, and they talk about the damnest things.

Like I say, it's just monkeys screwing around.

As for unions, I contend that they are still needed because so many employers are still greedy. If there wasn't unions non union people wouldn't make as much either.

Unions help lift everyone up. That isn't to say that I like how they always operate though, even they get greedy.

It didn't freeze overnight, but it is overcast and may drizzle today.

Peacechick Mary said...

I didn't watch it, but maybe if they had the marching bands and pom pom sluts - you made me laugh at that one!