Notes: On the Obamas New Yorker Cover; Raffa, Manuel Beltran, Lance and Dr. Fuentes; Matt Jones’ Daddy Gets in the Act; Brett Favre; Lute Olson on 1-and-Done’s; Mauricia Grant Mention
July 14, 2008
So what’s been happening lately?
Scoop Jackson mentioned Mauricia Grant in a meaningful fashion - a first for MSM - on ESPN’s First and 10 segment of its First Take morning show.
Claps for Scoop, boo for the WWL for bitching up in its coverage - lack of - of the lawsuit.
High school basketball point guard phenom Brandon Jennings chose Europe instead of the University of Arizona. Lute Olson reacted by saying he would never again recruit a potential “one-and-done” player.
Hey Lute, maybe Brandon looked down the list of your point guards who have performed well in the NBA and found that list severely lacking. Mike Bibby is the only one I can recall and Jason Terry is a tiny combo guard who cannot lead a team consistently from the PG spot. In fact, all the ‘Zona point guards were/are of the score first variety, right Jason, Mike, Damon, Salim…. Miles Simon, anyone?
Brett Fav-ray has dominated the sporting news so much that he had a personal space on ESPN’s news crawl last week. The “Cherished One” has apparently decided that the pull of the locker room and its camaraderie and the sights and sounds and smells of the NFL, plus his name in lights after leading yet another touchdown drive are just too much for him to stay away from the game.
Mauricia Grant and the Disdainful Sound of One Hand Clapping
June 16, 2008
( Folks, my family and I are moving and I have a long drive ahead. So, this might be my last piece until July 6. Goodness knows I want to write about the upcoming Wimbledon and anything else that piques my interest, but I - and the fam - also might need the time to chill and acclimate to new surroundings, though we will be thankfully surrounded by more family. Hopefully, my guests MODI, MCBias, and SML, will have time in their busy schedules to keep everyone duly occupied with commentaries and articles; enough “meat” for many dinners, enough “treats” to keep minds sated.
Anyway, I’ll see y’all by the 6th and if I put some words down real quick before then, I will.
peace)
—————————–
Mauricia Grant.
I’ll type her name again so you do remember it.
Mauricia Grant.
She is why race and sports and racism in sports are the hot-button topics that almost always get pushed to the fore by white-owned mainstream media and its white-owned sports blogosphere mirror image.
The operative word here is ——- almost.
Because of its Internet “reach” when it comes to any “important” sports or sports-related topic, a blog site like AOL Fanhouse is positioned as one of the top five Google search results. Same goes for ESPN.com. Same goes for Deadspin and The Big Lead. Same goes for Yahoo! Sports when they latch onto a subject.
But in this case Google Mauricia Grant and scroll down the page. Oops. You won’t find these sites among the top five. AOL “Black Voices?” That spot where you can find videos of the latest dance? Sure, she’s there - and that’s where she lives in the AOL kingdom.
The Fanhouse? Here’s what a search on their site brings forth. And this is what these folks who love to align themselves with the mainstream have to say about Mauricia Grant:
As I’m sure you’ve seen everywhere — heck, this made front page on nearly every news web site — NASCAR is being sued by a former official claiming discrimination, sexual harassment, and other things. The official, who is black, worked for NASCAR in the Nationwide Series side of things for a couple of years before being terminated in 2007.
The NASCARification of America: 2008
January 24, 2008
On February 17, the 2008 NASCAR season will open in celebration of the 50th running of the Daytona 500 in Daytona, Fl. If you visit the official website for the race you will find an Internet space intended to trigger images of a past full of glory in an effort to pay homage to the men made the race what it is today. Upon opening, the site presents us with majestic music reminiscent of the NFL Films era of John Facenda, the voice all men who narrate sports attempt to emulate. Old cars with fins and monstrosities from the 1970s slide around various permutations of the Daytona Speedway forming a continuum of time that leads us to the NASCAR Car of Tomorrow that is very much here today.
From the website, the visitor unfamiliar with Daytona, Florida or NASCAR would never know that denizens of that city can still remember days when black people were once “gator bait” for whites, as this author was told. From the website one would never know that just last year NASCAR fans heckled 17-year old wunderkind black driver, Marc Davis with the words, “Go home nigger!” From the website a visitor would never know that once NASCAR and Craftsman Truck Series driver, Bill Lester (a black man) said of the Talladega Speedway - outside of Atlanta, Ga. - infield party scene, “I would never spend the night there.”
