Thursday, October 02, 2003

Okay, I can't leave this alone. Many of the people now hammering Limbaugh don't even know what he said. I heard a caller to a local radio station this morning claiming that Limbaugh said "the only reason McNabb's playing is because he's black." I'm hearing Limbaugh's comments even compared with Jimmy the Greek's and Al Campanis'. Which is, to say the least, absurd.

Regardless of the truth or falsity of Jimmy Snyder's and Al Campanis' claims, their statements were generalizations about qualities inherent to black people. Limbaugh said nothing about anything inherent in Donovan McNabb or black people. He said that McNabb was an overrated quarterback. He did not say that McNabb was a so-so quarterback because he's black. He didn't say anything about blackness at all. He was only talking about media behavior. If anything, he's a "media-ist," since that's who his comments were about. He was referring to their behavior and characteristics, not black people's.

Whether you agree or disagree with him, how can a comment that says nothing whatsoever about black people or their characteristics be "racist"? Some say that we're a soundbite culture. No, that's too generous--our attention span isn't even that long anymore. We can no longer even discern the context within a 15-second soundbite. We only hear isolated words now.

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