Though Jason Whitlock’s confusing, self-congratulatory coverge of All-Star Weekend hasn’t escaped notice at CSTB (pt. 1, pt. 2), Edge Of Sports’ Dave Zirin (above) is especially aggrieved at the AOL columnist he accuses of “acting like the love child of Clarence Thomas and Haystacks Calhoun.”
When you have the unholy arrogance to compare your crusade against “ghetto acting” black people to the actions of Rosa Parks, when you call young African American kids “the Black KKK”, and when you liken walking the Vegas strip to being in “the yard at a maximum security prison”, it’s simply time to say, “enough.”
In your own words, “Instead of wearing white robes and white hoods, the new KKK has now taken to wearing white Ts and calling themselves gangsta rappers, gangbangers and posse members. Just like the White KKK of the 1940s and ’50s, we fear them, keep our eyes lowered, shut our mouths and pray they don’t bother us.”
Please, please, please take a moment to listen to yourself. The Klan at its peak had 4.5 million members. They organized campaigns of lynching and terror to keep people of color from voting, holding jobs, or even existing in peace. To compare an NBA player’s entourage with this bloody nightmare makes you sound scared, small, and simple.
You actually write, “This must be the way Rosa Parks felt on that bus. She was just tired of eating white racist (spit). I’m tired of eating black racist (spit).”
Wow. You, Jason Whitlock. The new Rosa Parks. I suppose it is Black History Month, the one time we hear a great deal about Ms. Parks and her contribution to building a better world. I don’t quite recall her droning on about strip clubs and lap dances the way you do (maybe I just missed it). I don’t remember her reveling in the excess that seems to define your personal life. I’m not positive but I don’t think she ever referred to herself as “Big Sexy”. I do know she cared more about fighting for the less fortunate than cozying up to power. Maybe she was just “bojangling.”