The Black List, Volume 2 (Not the Commie Kind!)

Nick Gillespie | February 26, 2009

Anthropologist and Reason contributor Grant McCracken urges his audience to check out HBO's The Black List, Volume 2, which airs tonight. The show profiles prominent African Americans and how they conceive of identity in a post-racial world. Here's a snippet from McCracken talking about Volume 1:

In his segment on The Black List, Volume 1, Chris Rock gives us a glimpse of a variation on the theme.  He notes that African Americans who took up positions previously forbidden them by racism were obliged to be larger than life, heroic, exemplary.  This is a double standard too.  An African American can't be merely as good as white player.  He has to be much better.  In the case of baseball, he can't be a 'pretty good utility infielder,' he has to be Jackie Robinson.  As Rock puts it,

Baseball isn't equal till the 1970s, because that's when you start to see bad Black baseball players.  The true equality is the equality to suck like the white man.  That's Martin Luther's dream coming true. (2:50-3:14)

More here.

Comments

|2.26.09 @ 4:10PM|#

Say, when was the last time we all joined hands as a nation and sang a round of Kum Ba Yah?

|2.26.09 @ 4:13PM|#

I had no idea that Martin Luther wanted black guys to suck at baseball. Did they have baseball back then?

BakedPenguin|2.26.09 @ 4:15PM|#

The true equality is the equality to suck like the white man.

And African Americans have finally achieved equality in politics...

|2.26.09 @ 4:19PM|#

Martin Luther knew what a black man was?

|2.26.09 @ 4:20PM|#

I had no idea that Martin Luther wanted black guys to suck at baseball. Did they have baseball back then?

Only the first few of the 95 Theses are about his beefs with the Catholic Church. The rest are his issues with the designated hitter rule.

|2.26.09 @ 4:35PM|#

Baseball isn't equal till the 1970s, because that's when you start to see bad Black baseball players. The true equality is the equality to suck like the white man.

We reached it in basketball at least a decade ago.

|2.26.09 @ 4:37PM|#

Episiarch,

True, but those were really just derivative of Cicero's "On the Designated Hitter Rule" from his De Natura Deorum. I quote: "Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est."

¢|2.26.09 @ 4:44PM|#

So corrupt was the Apostolic League, that when Luther nailed his list of players who tested positive for wormwood to the Swingin' Censers clubhouse door, he found that even it was corked.

ed|2.26.09 @ 4:48PM|#

suck like the white man

That's me all right. I can't afford HBO. I must be a racist. Or white trash.
But I could turn a double play. That's something. Isn't it?

D.A. Ridgely|2.26.09 @ 4:56PM|#

Baseball isn't equal till the 1970s, because that's when you start to see bad Black baseball players. The true equality is the equality to suck like the white man. That's Martin Luther's dream coming true.

(1) Martin Luther's?

(2) So, the dream was all about Eddie Murphy's film career?
(Yeah, I know they make money, but Egads do they ever suck!)

|2.26.09 @ 4:58PM|#

Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est.

Shouldn't you be using the iussive subjunctive for this?

And Cicero was a noted Yankees fan, if you didn't know.

|2.26.09 @ 5:14PM|#

I wonder why you put up Nate Colbert's picture. Colbert certainly didn't "suck" as a player, but was in the "average" range. Like any average player, he had a couple of really great days and even had a really good year. In 1972 he tied Stan Musial's record for most home runs in a single day and finished second in home runs. Remember Bucky Dent?

tizzy|2.26.09 @ 5:24PM|#

"I wonder why you put up Nate Colbert's picture."

Because Nate Colbert doesn't see color.

Matt Welch|2.26.09 @ 5:26PM|#

Colbert was better than average for five years there, but those mid-'70s Expos unis sure did suck.

|2.26.09 @ 5:34PM|#

Now, in golf the black players who broke the barrier were decidedly average (Lee Elder, Charlie Sifford) and it wasn't until the rise of Tiger that the truly exceptional black player (or Cablinasian)was seen.

|2.26.09 @ 5:40PM|#

Ben's Baseball Troofernicity

Blacks have a genetic predisposition for athletical prowess. The pressure felt by the non negroes due to their inferior physical abilities resulted in the proliferation of steroid use in baseball. Conclusion: black players are responsible for steroids in the majors and the compete ruination of this once respectable sport.
(barry bonds falls under "ben's douchebag exception rule.")

|2.26.09 @ 5:43PM|#

Episiarch,

No, I shouldn't.

As for Cicero liking the Yankees, that's revisionist bull. Cicero hated the Yankees. Of course, back then, the Yankees played out of Lugdunum.

Dello|2.26.09 @ 5:57PM|#

"The true equality is the equality to suck like the white man. That's Martin Luther's dream coming true."

Chris Rock wins the thread!!

Dello|2.26.09 @ 6:01PM|#

Wow! Is that the same guy that does the Colbert Report? He sure has lightened up!!

Russ 2000|2.26.09 @ 6:25PM|#

but those mid-'70s Expos unis sure did suck.

Nah. The uni's are fine. Note the actual belt rather than the elastic waist, the buttoned jersey, and the narrow piping.

It's the hats that suck.

|2.26.09 @ 6:51PM|#

Blacks have a genetic predisposition for athletical prowess. The pressure felt by the non negroes due to their inferior physical abilities resulted in the proliferation of steroid use in baseball. Conclusion: black players are responsible for steroids in the majors and the compete ruination of this once respectable sport.

And nowhere does the word "monkey" appear.

|2.26.09 @ 6:51PM|#

Bob Weber and creech-

Thank you. Some folks know their baseball.

jester|2.26.09 @ 9:13PM|#

Who was Gene Mingo?

jk|2.26.09 @ 9:14PM|#

Cablinasian

That's a new one to me. The kids in my area are using the term Hapa these days to describe mixed race people.

This Hawaiian word was intended to be derogatory, but that's not the way the kids use it. Good for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hapa

|2.27.09 @ 11:05AM|#

The true equality is the equality to suck like the white man.

I like it. Kind of a variation on "you aren't really free unless you are free to be wrong."

|2.27.09 @ 1:04PM|#

The Martin Luther thing is a misquote; he says "Martin Luther King".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q1XU07BIO0

Straw man!