Basketball and black history

[ChrisOH]

Hello all!

As we're wrapping up the month of February and Black History Month here in the USA, I'm reminded a of a newspaper article I read some years ago about some black high school students who were disappointed in their schools' presentation in "honor" of BHM. The students had expected to learn about things such as slavery and the Civil War, the African cultures that American blacks descended from, the struggle for civil rights, and black pioneers in fields such as science, medicine, and education. Instead, the assemblies were largely about basketball! Apparently, the schools thought sports was the only "history" the students would be interested in (not surprising, given numerous such cases we've discussed on these forums). To me, even as a white man, this seems demeaning to a race of people to suggest that a sport is their greatest contribution to society.

Here's a satirical article from "The Onion" describing just that:

http://www.onionsportsnetwork.com/artic ... ts-t,7018/

[Safety]

I love the Onion. Black people are black people, and that is their standard.

[ChrisOH]

I love the Onion. Black people are black people, and that is their standard.

That's exactly my point, and as I see it, the Onion's point too! Why is sports the "standard" we live by, regardless of race?

Pointing out basketball players as examples of "successful" black people is a disservice. Most people will not play sports professionally, so it's certainly not representative of blacks in general, or any indication that "racial equality" has been achieved.

In the city where I live (Cleveland, Ohio) many of the poorest neighborhoods and communities are largely black. The schools are underfunded (during the segregationist days of the '60s and '70s, many whites moved out of these neighborhoods into their nice white, uppercrusty suburbs, leaving the inner-city communities without jobs and tax revenue), and they suffer from dilapidated buildings, overcrowded classes, high teacher turnover, and poor discipline. But...they still have their sports teams at these schools -- no cutbacks there!

The classic mantra of sports supporters is that "sports are the only chance minorities have to go to college, and be successful." Uh, no. Here's a novel idea -- maybe try funding academics at minority schools, and providing them with a conducive learning environment, so they can have a chance to go to college based on their knowledge and learning abilities? Funny how we heard for 8 years how the U.S. was responsible for building schools in Iraq -- yet somehow there's no way to fix education in our own country, no?

[i_like_1981]

...during the segregationist days of the '60s and '70s...

I'm not an expert on this part of American history, but I always believed that the problem of segregation saw major improvements in the 1960s and wasn't such a problem in the 1970s? Of course, I'm sure people still did feel divided at that time, and I've heard numerous times that segregation was firmly in place in the first half of the 1960s, but I thought that this problem had been mostly resolved by the time of the 1970s and economic stagnation had become more of an issue in America that decade? I may be wrong, though, but it's just what I've heard.

Best regards,
i_like_1981

[ChrisOH]

...during the segregationist days of the '60s and '70s...

I'm not an expert on this part of American history, but I always believed that the problem of segregation saw major improvements in the 1960s and wasn't such a problem in the 1970s? Of course, I'm sure people still did feel divided at that time, and I've heard numerous times that segregation was firmly in place in the first half of the 1960s, but I thought that this problem had been mostly resolved by the time of the 1970s and economic stagnation had become more of an issue in America that decade? I may be wrong, though, but it's just what I've heard.

Hello 1981!

Most of the civil rights movement took place in the late 1950's and '60's in America. However, as late as 1979 in Columbus, Ohio (near where I lived at the time), mandatory busing was being instituted to "desegregate" schools. It didn't personally affect my district, as I lived in an outlying area not subject to the policy, but I remember it causing quite a stir among parents at the time (some still didn't want schools integrated at all; others objected to longer bus rides, earlier pickups, and unfamiliar schools). Since this is from my personal memory, I included the 70's in my comment.

In any event, the white and middle-class exodus from Cleveland, Ohio, and its inner suburbs was quite steady for several decades.