Open MIC: Come To Think of It: Racism in Sports Is Alive and Well

I don’t have a racist bone in my body.

I know this to be a fact, because I had it surgically removed years ago.

That was obviously a joke, but racism is no laughing matter. This is a very personal article for me, but more on that later.

Look, I may be "ridin’ white and nerdy": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp6eswhgOKk. but I know wrong when I see and hear it.

Saturday was Major League Baseball's Beacon Awards, which is part of its Civil Rights Game.

While our society has come a long way, it still has miles to go in terms of equality, even in sports.

On Saturday, former President Bill Clinton told the crowd, “The push for racial equality is far from over, in sports and in everyday life."

In a country where a black man is President, we sometimes forget that racism is still alive and well, in both life in general, and sports.

Consider:

• Inter Milan striker Mario Balotelli was racially abused by a group of AS Roma fans who threw bananas at him in a bar. Balotelli was born in Italy, but has Ghanaian roots.

Outside the US, soccer fans are among the biggest racists in the world.

• Many Latinos consider MLB’s Hall of Fame to have slighted them over the years.

ESPN’s Jorge Arangure Jr. writes that, “Only seven of the 289 Hall of Famers are Latino, and the Hall of Fame electorate (there will be only roughly 20 Latino voters from a total of an estimated 600 voters this year, according to the Baseball Writers Association of America) hardly represents the percentage of Latinos on the field, much less reflects the number of Latino fans.”

How can voters understand what some of these players had to go through to excel at their craft, without being more diverse itself?

• American Indians long have felt that team nicknames are disrespectful to their cultural heritage.

While many teams have changed their names, and eliminated their mascots, some still remain. While I personally don’t understand why a mascot like Chief Illiniwek, who was forced into early retirement from the University of Illinois, would be insensitive to Native Americans, I can’t claim to walk in their shoes.

My beloved Chicago Blackhawks, the Cleveland Indians, and the Washington Redskins are but a few of the many nicknames that are said to be offensive to Native American Indians:

• A Formula One fan at the Spanish Grand Prix wore dark makeup to mock driver Lewis Hamilton.

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