May 4, 2014:

Ponderings Of A Pilgrim Pastor

“Of Michigan and Minorities, Basketball and Bigots”

        Athletics has become one of the most popular American religions.  We’re in the South, so we know that!  How else to explain the fervent desire of some to have public prayers before games?  Now if we could just add a few hymns during the game and perhaps a closing prayer, it would be nearly perfect.  (The offering has already been taken up at the gate.)

      After the White flight from public schools after desegregation to private schools, religious and secular, nearly all that was left were Black students attending (for the most part) substandard public schools.  While these schools do produce some outstanding students able to gain admittance to colleges and universities, too many students drop out or are left behind.

      Now the Supreme Court, firmly in the hands of the political right, has upheld a Michigan referendum prohibiting the state from discriminating either for or against any citizen on the basis of race who applies to public universities in the state.  “Wonderful!,”  trumpets conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, “This will challenge minority students (read “Black”) to higher academic achievement.  Banish racial discrimination from our schools!”  This is the sort of fantasy world conservatives live in.  Never mind that in the real world social status, money, and influence are at least as important as academic skills at getting into college.  Many Black students have none of these.

      But where young Black men can excel in a real democratic community is playing basketball.  (What else positive is for them to do?)  Now most colleges and universities in their own perverse and self-serving form of affirmative action seek out the best of these Black players for their teams.  (By the way, are Black athletes “racially” superior?  When White players put in the same amount of practice time, they, too excel.)

      Inevitably, most NBA teams are largely Black.  Which renders all the more offensive the remarks of L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling that he supports his (Black players), gives them food, clothes, cars, and houses.  Does someone else give it to them?  “Do I make the game or do they make the game?”  They do, you racist bigot!  I doubt many people would pay to see teams of 80-year-old White men playing basketball.  Which all goes to show that not all bigots and racists shave their heads and carry swastika flags.

Love,

Pastor Dave