AP on Spike Lee's donation

walter payton

develop your question a little better. be more specific, please.

i think it's important for morehouse to develop good journalists with the passion to stay committed to the industry.

 

Jason -- Do you think it is important for these journalists to learn and understand you don't have to try and sound hip and urban -- like a Scoop -- that using proper English does not make you a sell out and that you don't have to try and "keep it real" by constantly excusing the behavior of black athletes?

 

Is the color of their skin more important than the quality of their work?

I don't think it develops better than that.

 

dude, you know the answer to this question.

but let me clarify. you can sound hip, urban and intelligent. they are not mutually exclusive. just because one particular writer does a horrendous job at it doesn't mean it can't and it shouldn't be done.

obviously using proper english is never a bad thing.

no one should excuse poor behavior based on race. but this policy is not a one-way street. the very people you suspect of excusing poor behavior because of race might be doing it as an inappropriate-but-justifitied-in-their-mind reaction to years of reading and watching other journalists overhype athletes because of race and look the other way at obvious racism. because of race.

 

no. i don't think skin color is more important than quality of work. but "quality of work" means a lot of things to a lot of people. "point of view" is part of the "quality of work" equation to me. america is diverse. it's hard for newspapers to reflect their communities when the "point of view" is so heavily skewed one direction.

 

Can you at least see where I'm coming from? My parents are working-class white folks. My grandparents are ranchers, plumbers and carpenters.

I work 50-60 hours a week full time at the local paper and put myself through college and live on my own. When it came time to apply for scholarships I sifted through a lot of awards open to just women, or just black kids, or just Native Americans or just hispanics. There are no just-white men scholarships.

If someone came out and donated money to help exclusively white kids go to school, they'd be called a racist.

To me, Dr. King's message was that it doesn't matter what color you are, what country you came from, what god you worship -- the only thing of importance is how you treat your brothers and sisters and how hard you work.

The kind of thing Spike is doing runs counter to that message -- at least to me. That's my perspective. How do you see it differently?

 

Couldn't agree more. ANYTHING that in any way, shape or form increases the competency of the journalists and columnists covering sports today is WELCOME.

America thanks you, Spike.

 

walter payton

the man gave a million dollars to his alma mater, his father's alma mater and his grandfather's alma mater. come on, man. you can't be serious. i'm living for the day i can drop a million on ball state. seriously. nothing wrong with this man loving the school that loved him.

 

You have a good point. I agree with you there. But wouldn't it also help to be inclusive in educating people of all races, religions and social classes as to how the other half lives? If white america's filtered view of black athletes is a problem wouldn't it be equally important to educate the caucasians, too?

For example, If I knew more about what it was like to be a poor black kid growing up -- having people follow you when you walk around the supermarket because they think you look like a thug (had a friend told me about it) -- wouldn't it help me understand a black subject better for a story?

I guess what I'm trying to argue is that being divisive isn't going to help solve the divisions in this country.

 

It's interesting. Yes, Morehouse is an HBCU. And yes, it would seem the focus of the program is to appeal to and develop the African-American sports journalist.

There is a little HBCU in Durham, NC (NC Central), that offers a four year law program. The program is primarily aimed at giving folks who have jobs the chance to go to law school. It's one of the few night law school programs in the country. It was started at the HBCU, in theory, to give African-Americans that are in the working world the chance to become lawyers.

The student body of that program is now made up of more white than black students.

 

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. Spike can spend his money however he wants. I'm arguing about how much it helps the bigger issue of racism in america.

 

Utter garbage. You've been repeating this trash for quite sometime here. This "you're acting white" thing you're hinging on is an overrated myth.