Friday, May 29, 2009

Kansas City Star readers' rep gets an earful about racist "three middle-aged white men" column by Jason Whitlock

I'm a day late with this story. I meant to get to it last night, but didn't, and some readers reminded me about it in comments. Anyway, here it is...

Readers' rep Derek Donovan had to devote his Thursday column to a flood of reader complaints about a racist column by sports columnist Jason Whitlock. Here is what Donovan said:
Boy, have I heard a lot about Jason Whitlock's column about the NBA's referees today, particularly his reference the court as " police state, overseen primarily by three middle-aged white men intent on making sure the primarily black and foreign-born players don’t compete with the kind of aggression and emotion commonplace in football, hockey and baseball."


A sample e-mail, with "Inappropriate and Racist" as the subject line:



"First - If his point is that NBA refs are stifling the NBA, why reference their color? There's no good reason to do this - other than racism. Second - Can you imagine if a white columnist had used the unnecessary comment 'three middle-aged black men?' All hell would break loose and someone would be getting fired."



Now, let me be clear: "Fair" in an opinion column is purely subjective, and my purview doesn't extend to questions like this. Whitlock is known for his sometimes-blunt, sometimes-provocative statements on topics relating to race, and I've also fielded many, many complaints from other readers who have felt he's been too hard on black athletes and fans in the past.



But a columnist has the bully pulpit, and his critics deserve to have their voices heard, whether we agree with them or not. There are some letters to the editor expressing these sentiments coming. I make no judgment either way here, other than to note this has definitely been the big topic of the day for my traffic.

Whitlock has been making his boss look like a fool for years.


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14 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's OK. Whitlock is Black and being Black means you get away with anything.

I mean being Black got a Islamist elected President.

Anonymous said...

Not once in American history has a black mob lynched a white person and had society condone it.

Anonymous said...

Not once in American history have three black men gone into a white 15-year-old's home in the middle of the night, kidnapped him, beaten him to the point of being unrecognizable, murdered him, tied an industrial fan around his neck with barbed wire and thrown his body into a river. And after being acquitted in court, openly bragged about it.

Anonymous said...

Not once in American history has a white person had to answer the question "How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?" before being allowed to vote.

John Altevogt said...

Yes, and I'm sure Whitlock had all of those events in mind when he wrote his column. Just as telling is Donovan's meaningless and useless response. Typical reverse Nuremburg.

Anonymous said...

****Not once in American history has a black mob lynched a white person and had society condone it.****

Crown Heights 1991? I'm sure Whitlock, Rev. Wright and the Obamababoon cheered on the death of a Hasidic Jew.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure Whitlock, Rev. Wright and the Obamababoon cheered on the death of a Hasidic Jew..
You're 100% correct, which of course means that a Hasidic Jew can now write any anti-black columns without the threat of punishment and become President.

Oh wait, Hasidic Jews are mainly white.

Anonymous said...

The Pitch link has the picture of Jason and the little beauty making the obscene gesture. Low class doesn’t quite cover the bad taste and racism Jason spews at whim. No one at the Red Star would think that his writing is of low quality, or in bad taste. His garbage is what they accept as normal for the whole dirty rag.

Anonymous said...

Jason Whitlock, Rhonda Lokeman = Ghetto Trash

John Altevogt said...

Whitlock and Posnanski are money makers for The Star. They will be part of anything that survives simply because they do generate revenue from elsewhere. At least that's what I'm told.

Anonymous said...

Posnanski generates revenue. Whitlock generates greenhouse gases, hate and discontent. He is useless and costs far outweigh any benefit of bringing the Star's name to light over his bigoted rants.

You know, like sitting in the press box and holding up a sign telling the home town crowd their quarterback is gay.

Of course, if disrepute is a positive, he is a gold mine.

Truth Hurts said...

"Not once in American history has a black mob lynched a white person and had society condone it."

American Blacks constitute 12% of the population, yet commit 50% of the nation's murders, and society condones it.

The black-on-white murder rate is approximately 16 times that of the white-on-black murder rate, and society condones it.

The black out-of-wedlock birthrate is 70%, and society condones it.

Shall we make a list of what society condones?

Anonymous said...

Whitlock gets away with being rude and crude because he is black. If you dare say anything critical of him, you are labeled a racist. It is the same with all the affirmative action hires at the Scar.

John Altevogt said...

TH: Love your posts, brother, love your posts. Always informative and to the point. Outstanding.