Colin Cowherd Needs to Shut the Hell Up
Thursday, December 17th, 2009This summer, amidst a series of racially charged national news stories (some of which were about sports), Dan and I had writer and radio personality Bomani Jones on the DOC Podcast to discuss the coverage of black athletes by a mostly white media. The three of us certainly did not agree on every issue that came up in our conversation, but we did reach a consensus in our disapproval of the paternalism (finger wagging) that accompanies coverage of black athletes in certain instances. In essence, the people who express that paternalism (something we also cited President Obama as doing) were not “racists” in the sense that they hated black people, but rather were judging a large number of black people from a place of ignorance and arrogance. Despite often noble intentions, this paternalism is very problematic.
An example that I cited in our talk with Bomani was listening to Colin Cowherd on the day that NFL player Sean Taylor was murdered in his own home. If you recall, Taylor had a few run-ins with the law in the years before his death and Colin Cowherd immediately cited these problems in a series of pronouncements that Taylor’s death, while tragic, was an example of someone reaping what they sowed from a lifetime of bad choices. As it turned out, Taylor was murdered by acquaintances intending to rob his home. Regardless of what actually happened to Taylor, Bomani and I were not alone in believing that assigning such instantaneous blame for Taylor’s death to his “lifestyle” was extremely distasteful.
Personally, I do not care for national sports radio in general and usually only listen to Cowherd when a breaking story makes me want to check in with ESPN’s national radio programs to hear the latest facts and commentary. I have mixed feelings about Cowherd in particular. On one hand, I do not care for the aesthetic of the fast talking guy who always takes a contrarian point of view in order to spark a strong reaction from his callers; on the other hand, Cowherd is generally a wise and funny person who often makes valid points.
When Cowherd delivers a unique and antagonistic take on the latest NFL game, for instance, he can be entertaining and can make many quality points.
When Cowherd delivers a unique and antagonistic take on issues of life and death in a breaking story that are hardwired in all of our brains to issues of race and class, however, then he becomes a disgrace to his profession and all sports fans.
I find the term “offensive” to be simplistic since a radio host does not have the power to “offend” me, so I’ll instead describe this sort of conduct to be unwise, insensitive and obnoxious. To be honest, when I learned that Chris Henry died this morning I immediately tuned into Colin Cowherd’s show expecting him to be discussing the story in an unwise, insensitive and obnoxious fashion. Unfortunately, my premonition was correct.
Cowherd’s heart seems to be in the right place and he is trying to make important points. Even so, his show this morning was an embarrassment. He discussed the percentages of athletes who go broke and how young men from troubled backgrounds can be taken advantage of and waste their money. He referred to “cousins” of athletes and posses (without saying the word); the unmistakable point was that young black athletes (and black men in general) do not have their shit together and will never succeed in our society without getting smarter. I will not speak to the correctness of that point because I have the good sense to know that my mere opinion is not a license to paint with such broad strokes. Further, timing is VERY IMPORTANT when making such points, regardless of how correct parts of them may be. As I type this sentence Cowherd is interviewing T. J. Houshmandzadeh about his former teammate and Cowherd keeps inserting these paternalistic statements about athletes in general into a conversation that should be about one particular man.
Chris Henry has been dead for only a few hours. We have no idea what actually happened on that truck. This simply is not the time to be attaching larger meaning to his death.
Even if it turns out that Henry was acting foolishly, meeting our image of him as an incorrigible and angry man-child lacking skills to live a decent life, then the points that Cowherd has made about him (and that he tried to make about Sean Taylor) are not relevant when delivered in a sports radio rant hours after his death or in a poorly conceived newspaper column (that we know will appear tomorrow). We talked on a recent episode about all of the great things that ESPN gives sports fans, but they need to police Cowherd or else he is going to keep doing this for the rest of his career. He doesn’t need to be fired but he needs to be straightened out.
And please do me a favor tomorrow morning: when you open your local newspaper and read the column about how black athletes need to get their shit together, write that middle-aged guy who wrote it an email telling him to shut the hell up, too.
