having just posted on an espn magazine article about perceptions of the n.b.a. as an urban league, i came across a similarly thought- provoking observation in the same issue. brian scalabrine of the celtics offers this li'l thought experiment on race and perceived criminality:"I think the misperception of our league is definitely race-driven. Suppose that for a whole year, none of our players got into a fight, no one got arrested, no one got ticketed for speeding. Do you think the public would have a different opinion of the league? I bet not. But I do think public opinion would be completely different if 75% of the players in the NBA were white instead of black. And if our image problem is race-driven, we can't control that."
i'm not sure he's correct, but mr. scalabrine's argument is so well-stated that i might have to try it out on my delinquency class this semester. having read the quote, i just had to check out scalabrine.com to see where the young man went to school and whether he might've taken a good sociology course or two. sure enough, his bio notes that mr. scalabrine "earned his degree in social science from USC."
i'm not sure he's correct, but mr. scalabrine's argument is so well-stated that i might have to try it out on my delinquency class this semester. having read the quote, i just had to check out scalabrine.com to see where the young man went to school and whether he might've taken a good sociology course or two. sure enough, his bio notes that mr. scalabrine "earned his degree in social science from USC."
No comments:
Post a Comment