Anthony Bellino Race and Gender Blog

            First and foremost the Absurdity of Colorblind Rhetoric made me feel like I am becoming a very old person. The complaint for rape filed against Kobe Bryant was done so in 2003, at which point I was in the midst of my 11-year old season of little league baseball.

With that being said one thing I disagree with that the article says is on page five. Leonard states that Michael Jordan, Shaq, Tiger Woods and Lebron James are evidence of racial progress. Looking at these for above, Jordan has been documented as a gambler since his playing days, Shaq has been known to wreck team’s like when he was with the Lakers and Magic, Tiger Woods had his life outside of golf under a microscope after several women said to have had affairs with him and Lebron James is quite possibly the most scrutinized athlete ever. While I do believe there has certainly been racial progress in this country, I believe these athletes listed above are playing under more pressure because they are in the minority race. We still hear about Kobe’s rape accusations and it’s been nine years, Ben Roethlisberger was only called “Rapistberger” for a brief time and now everyone has seem to forgotten about it.

Moving on to the Kian article, there is a question posed on page four that says, “Are there attitudinal differences between female and male writers with regards to women’s sports?” I think the answer to that question is an obvious yes. With the exception of a few times, most of the time you see women play-by-play announcers on ESPN is when they are showing the Women’s College World Series, women’s basketball, and the WNBA. These women know a lot about their respective sports and I believe are looked down upon because they are women calling sports. Many are used a sideline reporters and like the article says are just hired because of their looks.

The two articles we read for this week will certainly spark an interesting conversation in the class just because it is a touchy subject whenever you get into the race/gender talks when talking about sports media.