Bomani’s Big Boner

An ESPN personality by the name of Bomani Jones got a Yahoo! Sports writer all excited by wearing a “Cleveland Caucasians” t-shirt on TV, in an attempt to mock/protest the Cleveland Indian’s famed Chief Wahoo mascot (the bane of ultrasensitive liberals everywhere and a handful of politically active ‘Indians’). Here’s the sorry story.

First I’ll deal with the latest in dimwitted Yahoo! Sports writer, Chris Cwik. Cwik is convinced that Bomani has scored the smackdown of the century. “Down goes the racists! Down goes the racists! Down goes the racists!” no doubt echoed through his empty head in a hollow Howard Cosell cry. That he swallows this silliness is indicative of the weak-minded groupthink in the Yahoo! writers bullpen. He says “Jones is a big-time sports personality.” In what world, Cwik? It’d be more accurate to call him a single-A or double-AA “star” (at best).

He also thinks Jones has hit upon some kind of Earth-shattering gotcha. He seems convinced that after Bomani’s appearance the Indians will be working all night to create new uniforms for the next game. Oy!

Oh, and who is Bomani Jones? Okay, I’ll admit, I pretty much avoid ESPN, all channels out of protest of its liberalism (and some of its business practices), but I still have an idea who the major personalities are. Who the eff is Bomani Jones? His Wiki lists some shows he’s involved with. Nothing big — radio and second-tier low-rent filler. He’s not an ex-athlete. He seems awfully young, but then so many young are full of themselves. Surprise! His parents are “activists” (of the liberal kind). He seems to have been some kind of professional student for many years and then somehow wormed his way into high-profile gigs without any experience whatsoever. The few clips I’ve seen of him do not demonstrate can’t-miss innate talent, say, in the way of a Stephen A. Smith (love him or hate him, the guy has the gift). Jones is clearly in love with his own voice, that’s obvious. Admittedly, that helps in the business he’s in.

But let’s get back to the point.

When you think about it, it’s actually amazingly infantile. I’m sure Jones thought he was scoring some huge points. But what he didn’t realize is that most nonliberal “white” people do not think in terms of race. If anything they are likely to fall back on some ethnicity associated with the family names of the previous generation or two. That several generations of being in the United States makes a complete hash of ethnic identities is ignored.

Remember many years ago Jesse Jackson encouraging young blacks to look in the mirror and be proud of their skins? Part of the whole “Black is beautiful” thing? The average white person would never consider doing such a nonsensical thing. But modern blacks have been taught to view everything through the lens of race. Everything becomes a racial incident.

For Bomani, he hasn’t a clue that most white people, nonliberal that is, would just shrug their shoulders at the name “Cleveland Caucasians.” “What’s the big deal?” If the team is any good they might grow fond of it and if it isn’t they don’t give it much thought. If he thinks they are going to rise up in outrage, he’s seriously deluding himself. They just don’t play the racial identity politics that he does. The racist here is Bomani.

I did find the little dollar sign replacing the brave feather to be funny and also indicative of Bomani’s cluelessness. Clearly he’s unaware that some of the most dollar-oriented people, we’re talking hedge fund fanatic-level obsession, are black rappers. They love all signs of wealth. So Bomani’s “gotcha” detail for his “Caucasian” stereotype isn’t particularly correct. It’s hard to make a good stereotype if you can’t get the details right. But then I don’t think anyone would confuse Bomani Jones with an intellectual, except Bomani and Yahoo! writers.

He’s probably looking in the mirror now and saying, “Bomani, you are one bad, beautiful and brainy black cat!”

Apparently these shirts have been on the market for awhile and the world hasn’t been engulfed in the flames of racial guilt. That should have been Bomani’s first clue.

Of course, if he was really intelligent, he’d actually start marketing the shirts — make a fortune — and then discover most of his buyers are the hated white man.

The Missing Muslims

To no one’s surprise, our idiot president managed to speak on the terrorist attacks in Paris but pretty much leave out the attackers. He could not bring himself to utter the word “Muslim.” That’s not an accident.

Unlike some, I don’t think Obama is a covert Muslim. I don’t think he’s particularly religious at all, beyond worshiping himself. He just wants to avoid doing anything about the problem and he does have a soft spot for Muslims. The buddies he had 40 years ago in Indonesia didn’t seem to be terrorists, therefore Muslims can’t be terrorists. That’s the way Obama reasons.

On the other hand, those Christians… Well, they had the Crusades…

Then there’s the bit about everybody’s “shared values.” Well, genius, if everyone has those shared values, then who did all the shooting and blowing up?

He had more silliness. The only thing missing was Marie Harf chiming in on job training for terrorists programs. (Wow, they put Marie away, didn’t they. Where is she these days?)

That our president says such utterly lame, elementary school logic frivolity, is frightening. Did he write that stuff? Did he even read what he said? How does such infantile nonsense get into his speeches? There are bad people out there, you dope! (And no, I’m not talking about Republicans, the Tea Party or the NRA.) They want to kill us!

But he’d rather America be wiped off the map than admit he was wrong.

Anyway, over the weekend, as I worked on my next novel (soon, coming soon!), I had on in the background plenty of college and professional sports. And most every one of them tipped the hat to Paris. Yet none, NONE!, offered any details to exactly what happened.

There was plenty of “Our prayers go out to the people of Paris after this week’s tragedy.” It was as if the city had been hit by a flood, or an earthquake, a hurricane, or a fire or, perhaps, a volcano had suddenly appeared on the Champs Elysees. There was no indication that a group of crazed maniacs, belonging to a certain religion, had purposefully slaughtered innocent people having dinner and watching a concert. Wouldn’t want to interrupt the game with any concerns other than the game… It was an act of nature.

Such ineptitude is not an accident. Either it was ordered by corporate poobahs or it was self-censorship; a willingness to not accept reality; to not name the evil which confronts us, yet we refuse to confront. The unwillingness to do this is part and parcel of why our responses to militant Islam keep failing. We stand around like European leaders in the late 1930s. If we give Herr Hitler just a bit more of another country maybe he’ll go away.

Hey, chuckleheads at ESPN, what do you have to say to Curt Schilling now? You owe him an apology, ass-wipes. (Not holding my breath on that one and I’m sure Schilling isn’t either.)

ESPN — Playing a Game of Chicken

Is the big cable sports network ESPN playing a game of chicken with sports fans, notably those that aren’t liberal?

Over the last year it’s gotten into spats with many of its hosts, mostly over politically correct issues. In an unforced error it inexplicably decided to give an award to Bruce Jenner for his mental problems and transvestitism.

I’ve pretty much given up on the network, with only an occasional relapse. Sports Center, Obama’s favorite program, has been for me unwatchable for a long time. I do like the commercials though. I might slip a little during college football and basketball season when I watch a lot of ESPNU and small conference games. I WILL NOT watch their big ticket products — even if I’m paying for it. ESPN is one of the key problems with major college sports. In fact, ESPN has become like a big conglomerate that has lost its way and might eventually collapse.

Having said that, what brings this up today is this: baseball commentator Curt Schilling getting suspended for a politically incorrect transgression.

He “tweeted” to the effect that the percentage of “Muslim extremists” is equivalent to the percentage of Nazis in Germany in 1940 and that didn’t turn out so well.

Now one could argue that maybe, as a high profile TV sports personality, he should keep his political thoughts to himself. I’d be with that except that TV sports personalities, networks (that’s you ESPN) and athletes are no longer bashful about such things and the only banter we hear is liberalism. Conservatives seem to get punished for speaking out (though ESPN did recently part ways with Keith Olbermann — after giving him numerous second chances).

One could try to argue that what Schilling said was incorrect but that would be a stretch.

ESPN had this to say: “Curt’s tweet was completely unacceptable, and in no way represents our company’s perspective.”

That’s interesting. Is the company arguing that there are no Muslim extremists? Perhaps they quibble with number and percentages of extremists? Is the company saying that it and any employees will not say anything bad about Muslims? Is it suggesting that Muslim extremists aren’t like Nazis? Does it buy Obama’s ludicrous sophistry that terrorists can’t be Muslims and Muslims can’t be terrorists?

I can’t imagine that Muslims make up much of the network’s audience. Some Muslims would exterminate ESPN if they had a chance (and toss Espy Award-winning Bruce Jenner into a dry well filled with scorpions or something like that).

So what motivated them to respond at all. They could have just let it go instead of drawing attention to it. Who squawked?

ESPN is moving to my “mostly” boycott list until it shapes up (that might not be ever). I don’t think I can cut it out because it’s part of the Verizon FiOS sports package I get. If it becomes available as an a la carte selection, I might just pull the ejection seat lever.