RUSH: I found an interesting sports column by a well-known sports columnist at Fox Sports. His name is Jason Whitlock, and I became familiar with his work when he worked at the Kansas City Star. He’s now with Fox Sports. He’s been at ESPN and a number of other places. He’s got a column called “Your NFL Truths for Week 8.”
The headline here is: “Bubble Doesn’t Help Black QBs — The ‘information bubble’ is the No. 1 obstacle/hindrance for black NFL quarterbacks. This bubble creates delusion, erodes self-awareness and unwittingly undermines a black QB’s chance of sustaining success. Cam Newton is a victim of the information bubble. Robert Griffin III is the bubble’s next target. Let me explain. We’re in our political season. Democrats and Republicans both have their respective information bubbles, MSNBC and FOX News, respectively.
“They can lock their televisions on a single channel and avoid hearing their perspectives challenged in a credible way and hear their critics’ lambasted. It’s comforting. It’s polarizing. It’s unhealthy for intellectual growth and our democracy” for people not to expose themselves to an alternative point of view. If I may pause for just a second? Speaking only for ourselves here, ladies and gentlemen, you and I… Well, talking about you as the audience of this program.
I explain liberalism every day in the process of refuting it. I present liberalism every day in the process of shooting it down. I read and watch it, and I tell you what the liberals are saying and doing, and I play liberal sound bites each and every day. You are not in a safe cocoon here. You are being exposed to liberalism each and every day as I attempt to help you understand it so that you are as motivated as I am to defeat them in elections.
There’s no bubble or cocoon here, and there isn’t at Fox.
They’ve got all kinds of liberal commentators at Fox!
If there is a bubble, it’s at MSNBC, where you will not find an alternate point of view. Anyway, that’s just a brief aside. “Black sports fans and black pop-culture media (not sports media) have created a loosely-formed-but-influential social-media and talk-radio information bubble for black QBs. This network of groupthink roars on sports-talk radio, black-owned radio stations, Facebook and Twitter, pumping out the message that Newton, Griffin and others can do no wrong and any criticism of them is rooted in racism.”
What? W-w-what! There’s a bubble of media types that protects black quarterbacks? Jason Whitlock, he’s African-American. He’s saying that there’s a bubble of media types that protect black quarterbacks by saying any criticism of them is racist? Hmm! Who knew? “Fear of backlash from this network of well-intentioned enablers causes many mainstream sports analysts (media and fans of all colors) to avoid being totally honest about black QBs.”
Yes. So Mr. Whitlock is saying here that there is a protective shell around black quarterbacks in the NFL and that the enablers here — the people that create this protective bubble — cause many sports analysts to avoid legitimate criticism of black quarterbacks because they will be called racist. So they don’t engage in legitimate criticism, and in fact end up coddling these quarterbacks, and that results in them not being adequately prepared to deal with adversity.
Hmmmmm!
“That’s how a career-killing information bubble is formed. White QBs don’t have to deal with this. In Kansas City, a group of fans paid for a banner to be flown over [Air]head Stadium that called for owner Clark Hunt to bench Matt Cassel. Kansas City’s backup quarterback is Brady Quinn, the Cleveland bust. He’s not a solution. But he was named the starter on Monday. Imagine,” writes Mr. Whitlock, “the uproar if Eagles fans took similar action against turnover-machine Michael Vick?”
And flew a banner over Lincoln Financial Field demanding that Vick be benched. “There would be riots in the streets. Philly fans would be labeled racist.” Mr. Whitlock says here that Cam Newton, quarterback for the Carolina Panthers “is being ruined. In the aftermath of Sunday’s loss to the Cowboys, Newton, once again, handled the postgame news conference horribly. He not-so-subtly criticized his coaching staff.
“He flippantly quipped that he wanted to bring a suggestion box into the news conference. He condescendingly called a female reporter ‘sweetheart.’ He sounded like a crybaby and a loser. The black information bubble immediately leaped to Cam’s defense, claiming Cam’s critique of the offensive strategy was accurate,” and any criticism of him was racist. And therefore there isn’t adequate proper criticism.
Therefore, Cam Newton is never gonna learn to deal with adversity. Therefore the bubble protecting him is actually harming, not helping. But the bottom line here is that Mr. Whitlock says… Well, what is he saying? He’s saying here that there’s a group of people in the media that… Uh, what? Don’t want criticism/truth said about black quarterbacks because it’s racist and it’s unfair, so there’s a protective bubble around ’em that might result in them being overrated and certainly not being able to learn to deal with adversity.
Because when helpful critique doesn’t happen because the person fears being called a racist and therefore shuts up, then there’s no progress.
Hmm.
Hmmmmm.
Hmmmmmmmm!