Bryant Gumbel: White Bad, Black Good

In what has made barely a ripple on the national news scene outside talk radio, Bryant Gumbel recently gave a commentary on HBO about the Winter Olympics. Said Gumbel:

"Count me among those who don't care about them and won't watch them. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention"

The messages are clear: White athletes are only at the Olympics because blacks are not competing. How can an athlete possibly be considered among the world's greatest if he's white? Worse yet, Gumbel's implication is that blacks are somehow prevented from playing. If this were a simple matter of blacks choosing not to compete, wouldn't Gumbel's message be delivered to the black community? Wouldn't he encourage all races to participate in speed skating, snowboarding, etc.? And why would he feel the need to bring in the GOP if he wasn't trying to paint a mental image of racist white men running the show?

Gumbel is a fool and should be fired today. Since when is it acceptable to state that an event is not worth watching because the participants are of a certain race? Had a white man stated "I have no interest in watching the NBA because it's blacker than an NAACP convention", do you think he'd keep his job? Of course not.

But HBO's decision to keep Gumbel on staff, and the national media's failure to report this story are just two more indications of our national culture of reverse discrimination. White bad, black good.


Here's another take on the story from the Sporting News: