Sports talk hits new lows

"All my life I had been looking for something and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself."

– Ralph Ellison, “Invisible Man”

This week has become a difficult one for sports media personalities. They have been thrust from the comfort zone of barstool politics into sociological meditations on identity. From Rob Parker’s stereotyping of Robert Griffin III’s “blackness” to Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin calling 50-year-old transgender basketball player Gabrielle Ludwig “it,” this has been a rough couple of days for sports journalists and D.C. sports in particular (Czaban and Pollin host a D.C. show).

In the case of Ludwig, there are many intelligent questions that can be asked about transgender athletes and how best for the NCAA (and other prominent sports organizations) to incorporate the needs of transgender players. For Czaban and Pollin, it is clear that discussion should have begun with, “What does transgender mean?” They are clearly ignorant of the struggles of individuals with gender identity issues and, more importantly, have turned their ignorance into a joke for their audience.

Sports talk radio is disappointing in its reliance on misogynistic and borderline (or outright) homophobic qualifiers. There is a disturbing tendency to define a player’s worth by arguing about his manhood, as though testosterone level alone makes a player great. Any player that is struggling or does not seem to be giving his all is automatically described in feminine terms or called a “pansy.” This happens so many times during the course of a four-hour block of radio that most of us don’t even realize that it’s being said.

Czaban and Pollin will be grateful to Parker for taking some of the heat off of them by calling out a far more mainstream and popular athlete, but also for making a much more mainstream generalization. Calling out someone for embracing (or not) his or her race is much easier for the average fan to digest and respond to then is making a comment about gender issues.

Make no mistake, both are bigoted comments. Unfortunately, there will be far fewer people who step up to the plate for Ludwig.

It’s unusual when Stephen A. Smith is the voice of reason, but his comment following Parker’s diatribe about what it means, at least in his mind, to be black was dead on. He said after a noticeable pause, “I am uncomfortable with where we just went.”

I think we can all agree that when sports talk hosts begin to make broad statements about matters that take place off the field, we have started to enter dangerous territory. There are many sportswriters that I trust to embrace controversial topics and, whether I agree with them or not, produce something that is thoughtful and thought-provoking. Writers like Dave Zirin, Jeff MacGregor, Steve Wulf, Howard Bryant, and yes even Jason Whitlock can look at a tough subject and not reduce it to a glib, useless, and bigoted sound bite.

RGIII seems like a smart guy and he seems to have embraced his multiple roles as an African-American, an African-American quarterback, and the leader of an NFL team. I’m assuming (and hoping) that whatever Rob Parker’s opinion may be it will have little effect on Griffin and ho he views himself. I know that there will be plenty of people standing up for him in the next week or so.

My hope is that Ludwig (for whom personal identity has had a far greater impact on her life) her teammates, and Mission College will stand firm and support each other so that the unwanted publicity will not tear down what is really a remarkable story.

These comments should not be acceptable in the “barbershop,” or wherever Parker normally discusses identity politics, but it is embarrassing, disrespectful, and dangerous to use a national sports forum to start airing ill-informed opinions about race and gender. Rather than making snide, ridiculous comments, we should be holding both Ludwig and RGIII up as models of what is possible today in America. We need to embrace differences and marvel at the opportunities we all have to realize our dreams and to understand, as Ellison put it, "I am nobody but myself." We should not need to be questioned at every turn if we don't fit into a pre-defined package.

We have the right to free speech, but when you make comments such as these ESPN should also have the freedom to terminate your contract and get you off the air. It won’t happen, but it should.