As IF Times

link Marc Lamont Hill: NBA impasse: Owners & the help – Philly.com.

Hill’s right.   Maybe it’s about time that legions of “black and brown” skinned men he refers to, those that have been taken advantage of from very early ages, should revolt.  It’s long overdue for  the slaves to push back against generations of oppressive treatment.  How this kind of blatant discrimination and selective servitude can exist in this modern time is a disgrace.

As we all know, from a very early age,  games such as basketball  and football are introduced to young blacks much as drugs are offered to teenagers.  By doing so, young minorities are lured away from the easier path of academic study or the more exciting life of a technical education.  They can only look wistfully at their non minority friends as they pursue the glamorous fields of accounting, finance and motorcycle mechanics.

The oppression usually continues right through the college years as they are regularly bombarded with big ticket professional contracts, preferential treatment, cars, lucrative ad deals and of course the never ending adulation of fans and the media.  Their luckier academic counterparts meanwhile are living cushy lives, studying in anonymity and working at menial jobs.

Once the athletes are roped into the life of professional sports, their lives really take a turn for the worse.  They are forced to sign long term playing contracts guaranteeing them wheelbarrows of money stretching into infinity without being allowed to assume any risk for starting a team, building a stadium, marketing or any other organizational risk available only to the white slave masters.  As of the last proposal offered by these rapacious NBA owners, the players were offered only a measly 50% of revenues.  Why Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the ACLU, PETA, Michael Moore etc aren’t expressing more outrage about this is a mystery.   Of course, most of us assuage our guilt by paying hundreds and in some cases, thousands of dollars for tickets just to help out these poor athletes.  If only Jerry Lewis wasn’t so old, he’d be spearheading an annual telethon for them.

To put some perspective on the compensation paid to professional slaves, er athletes, the average salary paid to an NBA player is just over $5 million dollars per year.  Of course averages are misleading since an outstanding star can be paid many times that amount.  This of course excludes endorsements and sponsorships.  For a more thorough view of sports salaries, see http://www.nba.com/2011/news/features/steve_aschburner/08/19/average-salary/index.html

From this website, here are some numbers for player salaries:

NBA: $5.15 million (2010-11)

MLB: $3.34 million (2010)

NHL: $2.4 million (2010-11)

NFL: $1.9 million (2010)

As we can see, the NBA is definitely the most oppressive.

Surely in this inclusive, modern era, we should be able to make professional sports less about oppressing visible minorities.  There should be avenues for young minorities to escape the prison  that is professional sports.  At the very least,  they should be paid more than the scraps that are offered to them today.  If not, one day, someone will get the bright idea of starting their own league.  That’ll teach the owners.   After all, the reservoir of talented ball players is limited.  It’s not as if there are hundreds of thousands of people vying for spots on the plantation.

link Jersey Shore Italy Trip — Italian Group FURIOUS! | TMZ.com.

Unflattering to be sure.  It’s hard enough to dispel all the stereotypical depictions of Italians in film and entertainment through the years  as being goombas, guidos and mobsters.  Now, on the TV show Jersey Shore, even more cartoonish portrayals of Italian/Americans are served up and consumed by an apparently mesmerized public.  With a planned trip to Italy in the works, Italian American groups are now up in arms about the depictions of their culture.  I have never seen the show, but based on snippets in the news and pop entertainment pieces, it is obvious that the behavior of such characters as Snooki and The Situation are played up to cartoonish levels for ratings.  No self respecting person wants to have their heritage mocked and derided unless it is obvious satire.   With that being said, it’s unlikely most rational people would confuse the portrayal of the characters in the show with Italian Americans in real life.   There are enough successful Italians out there in all walks of life that Jersey Shore characters are taken for what they are, entertainment.

Following this theme, it is amusing to observe the constant stream of inane blather that passes for comment from the Reverend Al Sharpton.  It’s unclear to me how the Reverend can still pretend to fly the banner for the African American population.  Is it the fault of the media for allowing him a platform to pontificate on every issue?  Do they think that Reverend Al represents any constituency other than his own gang of race baiters?  As said here before, he would find white lines on black road to be racist in some way.  Recently, conservative personalities Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin made laudatory comments about Dr. Martin Luther King honoring his principles and life’s work.  Rather than affirm the comments of the ‘enemy’, Reverend Al decided that they were trying to steal ‘our crown’ referring I suppose to fact that Dr. King was a black person and that his struggles belonged solely to people of color.  No one seems to see the irony of Sharpton making divisive claims about people who are trying to be inclusive!  Where are the groups representing African Americans disavowing Sharpton for his cartoonish depictions of them?

Why aren’t the views of Bill Cosby, or Allan West or even Oprah sought out on any given topic? The constituency of black people in the U.S. is estimated at 13% of the 300 million plus population, making the total about 39 million people.   Why aren’t people more indignant about the obtuse ramblings of Reverend Al, who purportedly represents them?  It’s unlikely that African Americans view all issues that affect them through the prism of race  as portrayed by Sharpton.  It’s a safe bet that Sharpton no more represents the views of black people  than the genius Bill Mahar represents the views of whites.  Like Italian Americans discussed at the top, most black people probably lead normal lives doing normal things, assimilating with the population in general,  successfully or unsuccessfully as the case may be.   They don’t need Reverend Al to portray them all as oppressed victims struggling to get a share of the American dream.  Does no one find him an embarrassment? At the very least, media outlets should air a disclaimer when he is interviewed indicating that the views are for entertainment only and not to be taken without a responsible adult present.