Do You Want To Be Like Jason?

Don't take that out of context.

You said being white opened more doors. I said it didn't. Someone else said being white is your scholarship. I said, fine where's my whiteboy scholarship.

Don't drop the "some of you guys" just like you dropped the "you're like the white kids I went to school with" line in the Spike Lee thread. I don't lump you into a general group, I'd ask for the same respect.

I repeat, I think aid should be given to people based on need and merit, not skin color. That's ALL I'm saying.

 

Tell me how it doesn't when the industry is currently comprised of 87% white males? And if it isn't opening doors, why paint it as if they're being excluded because of what Spike Lee and others are doing in addressing the lack of african americans and others in the industry?

You seem to be one of those idiots who fall for the mantra that somehow white males are being squeezed out by a contingent of black/female/gay separatists.

 

I'm done.

 

You never had a chance. Sorry.

 

That's better. Well done.

 

Then I may try a response for you, because looks like a couple here have been unfairly distorting Sweetness' words. Chee, I don't believe he ever said the Spike Lee thing was bad. I don't believe anybody here's said that. That's Spike's private money, he should be able to do what he wants with it.

I do have somewhat of a problem, however, with the many preference programs that are tied to public money. I consider myself fairly liberal politically, and am all for special programs meant to help kids from non-privileged or hardship backgrounds, and to the extent one race is disproportionately represented among the non-privileged it will also disproportionately benefit. The problem is the way so many of these programs are written based on minority status rather than need, and desperately needy kids who happen to have wrong skin color are just shit out of luck. Is a white kid raised in an impoverished broken home in less need of help than a middle class black kid? Again, I believe preference programs are good things, but the eligibility criteria should be things like the applicant's economic background and need, not their race. I think that's basically all Sweetness was trying to say, as well.

And the 87% percent thing is a simplistic flawed argument. Disproportionality alone does not prove discriminatory intent. Did you consider that this field might be disproportionately white male simply because a disproportionate number of the people who choose to pursue a career as a sportswriter and pay their dues happen to be so. There are plenty of other professions that have disproportionate percentages of women, African-Americans, Asians, etc, for similar reasons. I just saw a little article about how law schools were becoming disproportionately female in recent years. You think that's because they're trying to keep males out? Of course not, its because, for whatever reasons, more women now choose to take the LSAT and pursue legal careers while fewer men have been doing so. Same goes for why engineering schools are disproportionately male, etc.

And I'm definately not saying that racial hiring discrimination doesn't exist. I know it does. But you got to give better evidence than just citing that percentage. As for this industry, I can only speak from my personal experience, and I've seen several instances where an applicant's african american status helped get a job, I've never seen it hurt.

 

In your previous post, you wrote about looking at "a prospective employer" and thinking you wouldn't be able to relate to anyone. To me, that sounds like pre-judging. As for your most post, you may be right. A woman covering girls sports or the WNBA could be a token hire. Or, maybe, there was an opening to cover girls sports or the WNBA and the best candidate just happened to be a woman.

 

Not to be confrontational, but can you specify a few of the many? I'm genuinely curious. I assume they're run by the government, or at least that's your implication - that there's some large number of government-funded programs, federal and state, pumping some large amount of public money into race-based higher ed developmental programs.

Can you specify the programs, the preferences and the amounts of public funding? Can you specify the groups these programs exclude?

Can you then compare the amount spent on those preferential public programs to the amount of public and private money made routinely available for all college-bound students?

 

Why thank you

 

Did you ever consider that perhaps white males also made up 87 percent of the job applicants?

 

jgmac, you know damn well that I haven't the time or interest in doing what's needed to answer this in the detail you're requesting, particularly just to respond to this post on a message board. And I never claimed to be an expert on this stuff. But I have read plenty on these issues in the past and am aware that there're quite a few grants, scholarships or similar programs out there that include preferences that are either fully or at least partially publicly subsidized (I'd clarify my words were not "run by the government" as you suggested, but instead "tied to public money"), including several with sponsorship by various public universities.

I'd also point out that, beyond the type of programs you're envisioning, something as common as public universities maintaining policies allowing different minimum admission standards along racial categories is essentially a publicly funded preference program. As are the various affirmative action type policies authorizing hiring preferences for federal or state government government jobs.

But I haven't the time or interest in getting into this in the kind of detail you seem to be seeking. I only got drawn in because I thought that Sweetness' words had been unfairly distorted, didn't mean for it to go much beyond that. Last thing I wanna do is be sucked into an extended affirmative action debate where I'm the one expected to play the role of the anti-minority bad guy.

 

Coupla things.

Jemele makes a good point about many african-americans being the first in their family to go to college and feeling pressured to take a better-paying job than the newspaper business provides.

However, and this is the big thing, the problem starts way before they're 26 and working for the AP. The main reason there are so few minorities in sports sections is because they're not going to school to study journalism. They're just not.

I've been in the biz 10 years. In journalism school, how many african-americans did we have in the news-ed focus in four years? None. Not one. Females? Two. One who is doing quite well for herself, and another who is probably still working on her 3-inch brief on how the club hockey team did against Pitt.

At my last stop, we had a talented African-American intern. Fantastic. I'm going to be working for him one day. I asked him how many other African-Americans were there in his J-school classes or on the school paper or working part-time at the local shop. None.

The new prep writer at my last stop is also African-American. After a year, one year, actually a little less than that, he's apparently giving it up so he can coach high school basketball, though of course he has no coaching experience whatsoever. So good luck to him.

At my current stop, we have an African-American who pitches in on sports part-time. Has done so for the last three years. He's OK, but needs to get out there and beat the bushes. I've encouraged him to apply for jobs with papers in the area getting the experience he needs. He's demurred each time.

The same goes for female sports writers. There simply aren't a lot out there, because they're choosing to write features, cover courts or whatever. Had an ex-girlfriend who is a very talented writer. She wants to work at a major metro one day. She's certainly got the chops. But sports wasn't her thing, so she continues to write her great features for a smalllish daily in VA.

My wife also tried the biz. And she was pretty good. But decided it wasn't for her and went into marketing instead.

I think the fact is that the reason there is a lack of diversity on most sports staffs starts way before the resumes are sent in. It starts in middle school, high school or college. They're not in the classes, they're not taking calls at the local rag part-time. They're not doing freelance/stringer work.

Is it because they think there is no chance for them? If they do, something needs to be done to help change that perception.

I think we had this discussion when our boy Scoop came out with that "you have a better chance of playing in the NBA than being a sports writer." I'm just echoing my comments there.

There are no easy answers. But I think if we blame the lack on diversity on the fact there's a bunch of fat white guys in press boxes across America and they only want to hire other fat white guys, that's being a little too short sighted, at least when it comes to this fat white guy.