Everybody else is doing it...
Plenty of people are mentioning the Winter Olympics in their blogs this week, so I figure I should do the same. Victor loves watching the Olympics, so we have been watching a lot. I enjoy the Winter Games more than the Summer Games, I think, because I like figure skating, incredible skiing jumps (and crashes), and luge. Victor is obsessed with curling.

Anyway, one person who doesn't like the Winter Games is Bryant Gumbel. Victor passed along this article from Newsbusters (a website I haven't seen before). It includes a transcript from his HBO show that reads as follows:

"Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don’t like them and won’t watch them ... Because they’re so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try too. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won ... So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, when we can move on to March Madness — for God’s sake, let the games begin."

Now, I didn't see the show, and I don't know if maybe Gumbel was trying to be funny, but since when did members of only one race have the right to be superior athletes? It's not OK for a white person to be a good athlete anymore? What about Asians? Don't they count?

I'm sorry that Gumbel doens't think that figure skaters, ski jumpers, freestyle skiers, snowboarders, and the like aren't athletes, but I bet they're in much better shape than pudgy football players and baseball players. They could probably kick Gumbel's ass too (even the figure skaters, who I am sure that Gumbel alluded to in his little speech).

I'm also sorry that the sports offered at the Winter Games don't attract as many black people as some of the sports at the Summer Games (although there are some. Certainly many African countries don't send teams or individuals to compete, which is only natural I suppose. I found a good but short article from My Brotha magazine that talks about how unfortunate it is that the Winter Games aren't associated with black athletes, and how as a result the few athletes there don't get much recognition from the black community.

Anyway, I thought that his comments were, well, a little racist.