I've never watched Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. However, last night I channel surfed across it, and saw he was doing a story on racism in football (that's soccer to us here in the US). A serious subject, and if you're not familiar with it, google it. You'd be surprised at how badly some players, particularly black ones, are treated in Europe. It's disgusting.
Mr. Gumbel ended his broadcast with a diatribe on how much he admired the World Cup - the game, its purity, it's lack of commercialism (really? What's all tha advertising all over their jerseys?), its humanity (yes, stupid refs blow calls and wrongly influencing games repeatedly at the highest level - what's wrong with that?). He even said he preferred the damn vuvuezela horns to noise we hear at sporting events here in the US, like that heard at the weekly, and I quote, "Bubba 500".
Mr. Bryant, you are allowed to say all kind of stupid things, but that comment is blatantly racist. OK folks, laugh if you want ... but that is a vicious slam against white Southerners. I don't care if he didn't mean it that way - many folks have been crucified because something they said was interpreted in a fashion it wasn't meant.
Mr. Gumbel should be made to apologize to all fans of NASCAR publicly, by his employers at HBO. Fat chance of that happening. Because he is black, and he was insulting whites, he gets a pass. Racism is not a one sided street - it goes both ways.
If anyone wants to check this out for themselves, his whole diatribe is posted over at the HBO Real Sports web page.
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