Bill Rhoden makes me puke

frank

selena and harvey araton are the best the times offers up these days.

 

Word, Wordman.
There's is nothing - N-O-T-H-I-N-G -- that is worse the the recent specimen of the Professional Contrarian, aka "I'm just saying/writing what everybody else is thinking." One, probably not. Second, that's an attitude, not an argument.

 

It's not hard to beleive, it's sad

 

Took me a while, and an accidental backtrack through the thread, to get to your posts. No apology necessary. We're all big kids here, though I have to admit it takes substantial interpretation to decide that "Whoa" is condescending.
However...
I decline to accept the notion that Ralph -- whom I was honored to call a friend -- changed that radically in his later years from his earlier years. Was he perhaps more temperate in his rhetoric? Maybe. But "Why Black People Tend..." and "What Black People Should..." are not all that different in anything but tone. Did he write better than Rhoden does? Yes. Did he think better? Probably. But did he grow more concilatory, or open, on questions of race as he got older? Not remarkably. He still stood his ground and fought on issues that would have the "race card" thrown at him hereabouts. And, frankly, I don't know what cozying up to a charlatan like Limbaugh proves about anyone except that Ralph was a nicer guy than that fat lying drug addict deserves ever to have known. (Did Malcolm make nice to Wallace? Would he have, even post-Mecca? Doubtful. And, if he did, it wouldn't be a great addition to his legacy.)
Ralph was accused for years of throwing around what people on this board regularly call "the race card" -- which can fairly be summed up by "Anything about black people and white people with which we disagree, or which makes us feel icky." He'd laugh at the whole notion. He wrote better than Bill Rhoden did. Nobody disagrees with that.

 

I appreciate Araton's skill, same way I can appreciate that Jimmy Page is a great guitarist but that his playing doesn't reach down and grab something inside of me like some others do, but knowing that people who know a lot more than I do about music, such as my guitar-playing wife, think I'm missing something.

 

You're not.
Page is technically brilliant but he has all the soul of a salad fork.

 

I've known Bill for years. He's not a racist. I'm tired of hearing that shit. I'm white and he's been to my home many times. I've been to his home.
He says what's on his mind. He's a columnist. He's paid to do that. If you don't like what he writes, don't read. Apparently, he must be doing something right because when I talked with him last night, he was still collecting a NY Times paycheck.
Jealousy in this business is very sickening. No wonder so many papers are dying a slow death.

 

Um, it was more a column about the "what have you done for me lately" nature of fans than about race.

 

It may well have been but it all got lost in Rhoden once again bringing up the African American QB thing.

There was no need to bring up the obvious - that Donavan Mcnab is African American.

For column in question it would have been fine to just bring up the looming QB contraversey
next year between Garcia and Mcnab.

Rhoden makes a lot of good points that get lost in his constant need to bring up race.

If Rhoden wants to talk about an important issue he should start writing columns about guns in the hood as they relate to atheletes. I've yet to see that column even though we've seen 3 high profile gun incidents in last 3 months.

Boots - Is Rhoden a back door man like yourself?

 

We're close, but not THAT close.

 

I just figured if you shared your affinity with us that you would have shared it with your close friends. I assume then that he does not know you as "boots"

 

This is my point. I never said that Rhoden isn't a good guy or a good writer, but he's consumed by race, and you always know what his take is going to be.

This debate can encompass gray areas, not just "he's racist" or "he's not racist." I'm tired of the false dichotomies.

Take Whitlock, for example. He's admitted he's 'racist,' 'racist' being defined as cheering more for the Williams sisters in tennis, etc. Is that the same as a KKK member being 'racist?' No, it isn't. It's not always what you think, but what you write, what you do. I don't think anybody could have a problem with Whitlock's 'racism.' What sport's fandom isn't built on some sort of '-ism,' be it racism, provincialism, nationalism, etc. When a boxing promoter wants a sure sale, he'll have two guys of different races fight; that's boffo box office.

Rhoden is a well-paid NYT columnist, and he provides a consistent, specific take on the world of sports. As I've said earlier in this thread, I'm ok with that. Someone needs to provide that take, it might as well be him. No problem there.

But where he falls down in comparison to a Wiley, or even the younger Whitlock, is that he plays it on the up-and-up like he's not subjective or something. He's not alone in that, there are many columnists of all ethnicities who do the same thing. And I've pointed that out on this thread, noted that it's not a 'black thing,' per se. That would be an asinine point of view, and I don't hold it.

But the thread was about Rhoden, and it was brought up that he is just like other black writers who bring up the issue of race. Yes, he is, but he's also unlike several black writers who do a more thorough and evaluative look at the issue. That's my point. Unsaid (or sometimes said) in many of Rhoden's writings is the idea that the U.S., or U.S. athletes, are superior. His writings about the new NBA collective bargaining agreement last year (I think it was then), and how more foreign-born players would be 12th men instead of U.S., black players reflects this attitude. There is no - I repeat NO - way around that; that's what he wrote. You might agree or disagree, but that's what the man wrote. So if that makes him a racist, whatever, he's a racist. I'm not here to judge his merits as a man, but his worth as a writer. You are what you write.

Rhoden has many such examples of this favoritism/bias/whatever you want to call it. And as I said, he's not alone by any stretch. But the thread is about him, so I gave my opinion about him. If a column comes up saying Bob Ryan is a 'racist,' and I think he is, I'll say that in a second.

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