a few comments about the liberal media
I have always believed that the mainstream media views everything that is news through the prism of liberalism. This prism affects how they report the news, how they write headlines, how they decide what is news and what isn't news, and who they consider to be worthy of attack and worthy of praise. This has always been so, and I have always been aware of it, but several recent events have made this fact even clearer to me. I'll explain.
One of my favorite TV stations is ESPN Classic. My wife tells me that if I watch Game 6 of the 1976 NBA Finals one more time (I've only seen it 342 times!) she will call the lawyer! One of the programs on that station is a show called "SportsCentury". It's a program that examines the life and career of a famous athlete from the past. Two weeks ago "SportsCentury" told the story of Hank Aaron, a man who I consider to be one of the top 2 or 3 baseball players of all time. A good deal of the program dealt with Aaron's chase for "714"--Babe Ruth's supposedly "unreachable" home run record. Aaron played for the Atlanta Braves, and those were the 70's, and there were people in that Southern town (and elsewhere, as well) who just couldn't stand the thought of a black man breaking the Babe's record (Did you know that Ruth was probably of "mixed" ancestory? He took a lot of abuse from fellow players about the possibility of him being partially black, but that's the subject of another post.). Hammerin' Hank actually received death threats in 1973 and '74, and had to resort to hiring bodyguards. The FBI began to travel with him to try to ferret out the culprits. Aaron finally hit #715 in April of 1974 against Al Downing of the LA Dodgers, went on to finish with 755 home runs for his career, and has had a very successful baseball management career since then, but he remains very scarred emotionally from his experiences 30 some years ago. This is a story I am very familiar with, because I have heard it repeated literally hundreds of times. Highly skilled, intelligent Black athlete plays in a Southern town and the fans can't wait to burn a cross in his yard. Atlanta is no longer like that, but the good folks who live there sure do get hammered every time the story of Hank Aaron and #715 comes up.
Today's SportsCentury program was about Willie Mays--in my opinion, the greatest baseball player in the history of the world. The program talked about how popular Mays was in New York during the early years of his career, and how the fans loved and admired him. None of this was unfamiliar to me. Then came 1957, the move to San Francisco, and a part of the story I had never heard before. It seems that baseball fans in Frisco were a tad bit resentful that a Black man who had played in New York was deemed a better baseball player than The Great Joe DiMaggio, who had been born and raised in San Francisco. Joltin' Joe had also played minor league ball for the local Seals. The locals scorned Mays. One local "picture of enlightenment" threw a brick through the front window of Willie's home!
By now you are asking, "What's this guy's point?" The point is this: Racism occurs everywhere, but the mainstream media doesn't think so. They think it only occurs in the South (like Atlanta) or in such unenlightened backwater places like Indiana (I'm a native Hoosier, and this kind of thinking really irritates me.). San Francisco is touted as the Mecca of Tolerance, the Shining City On A Hill Dedicated To Enlightenment. It is the City of Love, with a Summer of Love to call its own. I have never, ever heard this story of racial bigotry in The City By The Bay, but I'll bet I have watched Atlanta dragged through the mud a thousand times. Racial intolerance is ignored/swept under the rug in places that liberals think are groovy, but the red states get pounded.
I mentioned that I am a Hoosier. As an avid basketball fan (state law requires it!) I have watched Allen Iverson of the 76'ers get booed and cussed in every arena in the NBA. When he got booed in Indy several years ago, the media immediately called it racism. They dredged up Indiana's KKK past (that all died years ago), they referenced the Mike Tyson trial as a racial persecution (it wasn't--the dude was guilty as sin!), and they called Hoosiers racist rednecks. Why have I never read a story or seen a TV program (before today) that talked about the racism Willie Mays faced in San Francisco? That's your liberal media in action!
That's all for this topic. My wife now says that if I'm going to get this worked up over a sports show, she's going to "sentence" me to 1 month of nothing but the Lifetime Network and Oprah. Yikes!
One of my favorite TV stations is ESPN Classic. My wife tells me that if I watch Game 6 of the 1976 NBA Finals one more time (I've only seen it 342 times!) she will call the lawyer! One of the programs on that station is a show called "SportsCentury". It's a program that examines the life and career of a famous athlete from the past. Two weeks ago "SportsCentury" told the story of Hank Aaron, a man who I consider to be one of the top 2 or 3 baseball players of all time. A good deal of the program dealt with Aaron's chase for "714"--Babe Ruth's supposedly "unreachable" home run record. Aaron played for the Atlanta Braves, and those were the 70's, and there were people in that Southern town (and elsewhere, as well) who just couldn't stand the thought of a black man breaking the Babe's record (Did you know that Ruth was probably of "mixed" ancestory? He took a lot of abuse from fellow players about the possibility of him being partially black, but that's the subject of another post.). Hammerin' Hank actually received death threats in 1973 and '74, and had to resort to hiring bodyguards. The FBI began to travel with him to try to ferret out the culprits. Aaron finally hit #715 in April of 1974 against Al Downing of the LA Dodgers, went on to finish with 755 home runs for his career, and has had a very successful baseball management career since then, but he remains very scarred emotionally from his experiences 30 some years ago. This is a story I am very familiar with, because I have heard it repeated literally hundreds of times. Highly skilled, intelligent Black athlete plays in a Southern town and the fans can't wait to burn a cross in his yard. Atlanta is no longer like that, but the good folks who live there sure do get hammered every time the story of Hank Aaron and #715 comes up.
Today's SportsCentury program was about Willie Mays--in my opinion, the greatest baseball player in the history of the world. The program talked about how popular Mays was in New York during the early years of his career, and how the fans loved and admired him. None of this was unfamiliar to me. Then came 1957, the move to San Francisco, and a part of the story I had never heard before. It seems that baseball fans in Frisco were a tad bit resentful that a Black man who had played in New York was deemed a better baseball player than The Great Joe DiMaggio, who had been born and raised in San Francisco. Joltin' Joe had also played minor league ball for the local Seals. The locals scorned Mays. One local "picture of enlightenment" threw a brick through the front window of Willie's home!
By now you are asking, "What's this guy's point?" The point is this: Racism occurs everywhere, but the mainstream media doesn't think so. They think it only occurs in the South (like Atlanta) or in such unenlightened backwater places like Indiana (I'm a native Hoosier, and this kind of thinking really irritates me.). San Francisco is touted as the Mecca of Tolerance, the Shining City On A Hill Dedicated To Enlightenment. It is the City of Love, with a Summer of Love to call its own. I have never, ever heard this story of racial bigotry in The City By The Bay, but I'll bet I have watched Atlanta dragged through the mud a thousand times. Racial intolerance is ignored/swept under the rug in places that liberals think are groovy, but the red states get pounded.
I mentioned that I am a Hoosier. As an avid basketball fan (state law requires it!) I have watched Allen Iverson of the 76'ers get booed and cussed in every arena in the NBA. When he got booed in Indy several years ago, the media immediately called it racism. They dredged up Indiana's KKK past (that all died years ago), they referenced the Mike Tyson trial as a racial persecution (it wasn't--the dude was guilty as sin!), and they called Hoosiers racist rednecks. Why have I never read a story or seen a TV program (before today) that talked about the racism Willie Mays faced in San Francisco? That's your liberal media in action!
That's all for this topic. My wife now says that if I'm going to get this worked up over a sports show, she's going to "sentence" me to 1 month of nothing but the Lifetime Network and Oprah. Yikes!
posted by hondo at 10:07 PM
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