ESPN and the Undefeated blogsite has long counted on Kenny Mayne (host of the Wider World of Sports) to alleviate tension with his humor. Mayne ventured onto The Undefeated blog with a "Dear White People" letter heaping white guilt on Caucasians for the racism of past generations on Aug. 24. His awkward attempts to mix humor with white guilt and politics fell flat.Mayne says he is writing "to you, Caucasian people in particular, because probably none of us will ever have the police showing up because we’re walking down the street. … Stop me. Wait. I’m likely not going to be stopped. For mowing my lawn. For feeding the homeless. For driving a nice car. For. Being. White." Then he moves past disclaimers to introduce The Negro Motorist Green Book, which he mentions 10 times in the post.
We are transported from today to 1936 when the Green Book first began informing black motorists about "where they could and couldn’t stop, eat or sleep under Jim Crow. The stretches of highway where the Ku Klux Klan used lynching indiscriminately. It kept the list of sundown towns where nonwhites were not allowed after dark. There were thousands of sundown towns all over the country." And this bizarre mix of apples and oranges:
"The Negro Motorist Green Book. For black people. To get around safely. In their own country. Just typing the words reminds me of something from the great steroid home run race of the late 1990s."
Rejoining the 21st century and the politics that his boss, ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro, says his organization avoids, Mayne asks, "Remember when that black guy was voted president? That was something. First time in this country that anyone can grow up to be president." And:
"Barack Obama’s election must have been particularly meaningful to elderly black people who served in World War II, returned home to Whites Only drinking fountains and used The Negro Motorist Green Book. It must also have been particularly painful for them to watch as a certain group of white people repeated the lie that President Obama was in office illegally, given he wasn’t born in the United States. Then the man who was most outspoken regarding the false allegations was elected president of the United States."
Mayne complains that Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, former protesting NFL players who haven't been signed to play again, "seemingly lost employment over this. Forever."
Mayne then adjoins one of the latest hypocrisies of left-stream sports media that say player protests are not aimed at patriotism, only to complain about patriotism at sports events:
"The players who have peacefully dissented have never once said a bad word about our military, but some people believe the demonstrations insult our armed forces. It’s just an easier criticism to make by those who aren’t interested in the actual issue. If you or your kids aren’t likely to face a life-and-death situation based on the shade of their pigmentation, it’s not difficult to go with the simplistic story when it comes to a government-sponsored ceremonial event at the start of football games."A pretty solid venue for expressing a point of view is during a compulsory patriotic ceremonial event held in publicly financed stadiums, broadcast over federally allocated airwaves. You can’t ask for more than that if you have an argument to make. The protesting players, in short, are calling for us to live up to the principles represented by the flag."
Protesting athletes doesn't even "interfere with the drunken people ordering more beer on the concourse during the playing of the anthem, or with the people in the stands taking selfies. Or talking. Or sitting the first 20 seconds of the song until noticing an anthem is taking place. American exceptionalism."
