It was awkward but I think he was trying to say that hockey guys can fit right into normal society settings or at your kids school gathering. Basically because they are not 300 pound black linemen or 6'9" black power forwards.

What did he say?

By the way, with all the race/ethnic bashing that we partake in on this board, is it really consistent for us to call out others? Just thinking out loud.

Well, the forum in which it occurred is what made it so dumb rather than simply the dumb thing he said. It's one thing to race bait on an afternoon sports zoo or a message board. It's another to do it on PBS. I'm sure bernstein knows that.

Not sure Spiegs will be back anytime soon.

As I said in another post, why in the world would the Chicago Tonight people want Spiegel on their show?

As I said in another post, why in the world would the Chicago Tonight people want Spiegel on their show?

And how did they come up with a chair with no arms so quickly?

As I said in another post, why in the world would the Chicago Tonight people want Spiegel on their show?

Didn't Spiegs quit hit and run to spend more time with his family?

Indeed, by the standards of the Score, what Spiegel said on Chicago Tonight was really quite innocuous.

SIMON: And you know, I mean, you've got them for lots of people. Most of these are very good-natured, but more than once - and you mentioned Tiger Woods. I'm going to read a Tony Dungy entrance - entry to you, if I could.

(Reading) Beloved Colts coach who overcame the suicide of his son to become the first black coach to win the Super Bowl, despite not really being black, not really.

And you make that comment about a number of African-American athletes. And I'm puzzled, and I don't know what to make of it. On top of everything else, where do you get off deciding who's not black really and who is.

Mr. LEITCH: Well, certainly I would hardly call myself the arbiter of that, to say the least. There is an element of a quick joke to that, I will confess. But certainly I think that, you know - and Dungy's a bad example, too, because he - even if he has been quite the leader of men in a lot of ways, but certainly I think that, you know, I claim no moral authority on that, to say the least. [Ed.: wtf just happened here.] But I do think it's fair to point out, you know, there's a joke - there's an essay in the book where I talk about how literally the first black man my sister had ever seen was a Cardinal centerfielder.

And I think that's - in a lot of ways, there's a misunderstanding among a lot of mainstream sports fans, along with - and particularly in very rural communities, the only interaction they really have with African-Americans is through the world of sports. And I think sometimes that get skewed a little bit. But certainly, I will confess that may be an example of going to a cheaper joke than probably is fair.

SIMON: You know, I hate to keep coming back to this, but I just flipped a page. Gumbel Greg, Bryant's bushy haired brother, who somehow manages to be more boring and white than his sibling. You got a problem.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. LEITCH: I don't think so. But I suppose in that context, it might sound that way, yes.

I don't like the thread title

There was this one time on Weekend Edition where Scott Simon had Leitch on to talk about his new book, and Simon blindsided him with "this part where you said Tony Dungy isn't really black, now seriously, what's wrong with you?", and Leitch pretty much had nothing to come back with but a complete verbal pantsshitting.

EDIT: ah yes, here it is:



Calling someone out for gross racial coding and getting nothing but inscrutable stammering. It's like he posed the question to Dan and got the answer from Terry.

That's understandable. But I hate Catholic law. I want to be represented by a big-brained J-ew who dong-whips gentiles in court.

Change it to Matt Speigel: So dumb maybe he is Polish,it might make gd happy.

There are hockey players who are perfect gentlemen off the ice and then there are those who are total dickholes. It's the same as any sport, really.

I've obliquely touched on the "they're just 6'1'' white guys" thing as a possible reason as to why Bernstein drops his monocle on hockey fighting while fetishizing the armored black studs of the NFL: the contrivance of putting on a suit of armor, standing in lines, and running headfirst into each other so as to pass a computer-generated yellow line is so far removed from reality that even though it's a hundred times more dangerous than a silly hockey fight, you can't really find it threatening. In a hockey fight, you just have two (usually) white dudes whaling on each other because one guy called the other guy's mom a Caller Bob. This is something that could conceivably happen to you in real life, and thus makes you fearful on some instinctual level.

I think Matt is coming at this from the same place as Dan, which is a sense of resentment that a league that is not his favorite (MLB, NBA) is lauded, perhaps not truthfully, as having "the best guys." You know that just eats at Dan like battery acid. He rode the bus with the Raleigh Bullfrogs! He knows that basketball players are good guys! They cut each other's hair and drink coffee and eat pizza and have conversations, just like real human beings! People just don't realize it because they're black. But he saw it! He was there! They're not just a bunch of dumb white guys. Harumph.

Am I smart enough to be Jewish?

Change it to Matt Speigel: So dumb maybe he is Polish,it might make gd happy.