Racism at the University of Kentucky
Not today, but nearly 15 years ago.
The (Louisville) Courier-Journal is reporting that Rex Chapman, then a college basketball star at the University of Kentucky who went on to a long NBA career and is now operations chief for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, told the paper that university officials asked him not to date black women or at least “hide it” while he attended the university.
Chapman’s comments come a week after he made comments insinuating that race may have played a role in the voting for the NBA’s MVP award (Dan Le Batard's column in the Miami Herald first stirred this debate).
TYL hopes that society can look past the color of one’s skin and that individuals can be judged on who they are and what they accomplish. Unfortunately, we know that in some parts of this country racism continues to impact daily life.
posted by Unknown @ 10:01 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Phrases like "Looking past the color of one's skin" and "let's all be colorblind" have always irritated me. I'm all for celebrating individuality and, Joe, I assume this is what you meant. However, ideas like being colorblind and looking past skin color take it way too far. Yes, we're all individuals but also we're all parts of groups. We act differently as individuals than we do as group members. To look past the color of one's skin is to look past part of who that person is and we have to ask ourselves why we feel inclined to do so. It's funny to me that we celebrate (or use to celebrate) the "Great Melting Pot" while saying we want to be a more colorblind society. We're not going to solve discrimination in our neighborhoods by pretending we're all the same ethnicity or race.
That's exactly what I meant.
As a society, I expect to be judged on more than the color of my skin. I want to be judged on my thoughts, my actions, and my decisions.
Being white - in my case - is a part of who I am. But, it is not all that I am.
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