Who knew golfing, skydiving, and scuba diving were a “white” thing?
NBC seems to think they are in their piece “Scuba, skydiving and golf: Black adults embrace sports that defy stereotypes and bring joy.”
Those sports and others like them (tennis, skating, gymnastics) always struck me as a disposable income thing not a race thing, requiring as they do the purchase of expensive lessons and/or expensive equipment and/or expensive travel/venue time. Cash and sheer merit — never race — were always what I thought about when I thought about who participates or excels in these sports.
Evidently not NBC News. NBC wrote the entire piece on the premise that these sports “were once inaccessible” to blacks but are just now becoming accessible because, as one “expert” interviewed accidentally admitted, blacks are now “giving themselves” permission to pursue them.
The piece then quickly moved along, but that single admission early on kinda blew the narrative and begged the question: If these sports are something blacks can now freely give themselves, then how is it whitey’s fault? Why then even bring up the “once inaccessible” pre-civil rights era unless it’s just to cast a long victim/oppressor shadow?
NBC never proffered a single person who’d been recently hounded, harassed, or excluded from these pursuits. The article neither named nor interviewed a single black person rejected, snubbed, or otherwise turned away from golfing, skydiving, scuba diving, etc. They evidently couldn’t find a single one to interview, though I’ve no doubt they tried.
What did NBC offer? No societal barriers, but plenty of black psychological barriers. Prisons and prohibitions of blacks’ own making. No doubt due in large part to a parade of AWFL (Affluent White Female Liberal) K-thru-12-thru-college instructors who indoctrinated them into the victim/oppressor mindset.
The piece opens:
Tonya Parker was not looking to add another activity to her life. She traveled the world as a flight attendant and regularly practiced ballet and yoga. She was not searching for new friends, either. After attending Spelman College in Atlanta, she had plenty.
With two grown children who made her proud, Parker’s life was full — or so she thought.
The Covid-19 pandemic led her to a sport she had considered mundane: golf.
So what we have here is a college graduate who had the cash for ballet, yoga, and golf. So that’s a class thing, not a race thing. It was also, by her own admission, a free choice thing: Ms. Parker had not played golf all her life because she chose not to. She thought it “mundane.”
So how was this in any way whitey’s fault? What on earth does Ms. Parker thinking golf mundane have to do with the pre-civil rights era? Especially when one considers that Tiger Woods, hardly a pale-faced, pasty human, is currently the world’s most famous golfer?
‘I never thought that a Black woman like me, 63 years old, would ever find something that I just absolutely love at this point of my life,’ Parker said.
Ms. Parker must not have many white friends who are her age because they would have told her that she was experiencing, by her own admission, a very normal “at this point of my of life” thing, not a race thing; though she racialized it (“a black woman like me”).
The piece goes on about Ms. Parker:
She gets abundant satisfaction when her group of about 12 Black women in Atlanta — the Chocolate Chix With Stix, as they call themselves….
Alrighty then. To associate only with other black women was her choice. Freedom of association is a fundamental right. She exercised hers. But let’s be clear: so far as we know, no white person refused to golf with her. I’m confident Ms. Parker would have told the NBC writer had that ever happened. But it begs the question yet again: what does a black woman excluding whites have to do with the pre-civil rights era?
The piece goes on:
It’s not just Parker. Many Black people are finding joy in activities that were once inaccessible because of systemic racism or were not culturally traditional pursuits in Black communities. These forays have become emblematic of the ways Black people celebrate the freedom and flexibility they have, and how they are using it to escape the rigors of life — personally, socially and politically.
Again, NBC offered zero recent examples of “systemic racism,” but let’s not let a little thing like facts hold them up. NBC also appeared to be under the impression that it is unusual for blacks to use recreational sports “to escape the rigors of life — personally, socially and politically.”
It’s insane how not unusual it is.
One flick of the channel to ESPN tells us that. There are plenty of black athletes excelling in a wide, wide variety of sports, not just “white” ones. And how are elite athletes made? Of any race? It starts as children. Playing sports with other children. So clearly there are any number of black families out there with “access” to an entire range of sports who have gone on to produce athletic role models for us all. And exponentially more who have gone on to enjoy these sports as amateurs. Once again, I don’t know what NBC thought they were talking about, but let’s continue.
‘What these folks are doing is giving themselves not only something else to think about, but also giving additional meaning to their lives,’ said [Linda] Blount [president of the Black Women’s Health Imperative, which focuses on health and wellness for Black women]….
“Giving themselves” was the operative phrase here. It’s what financial stability brings: the opportunity, the freedom, to try new things. Once again, that’s a class thing not a race thing. Everyone who’s worked all their lives and saved a few nickels can appreciate that, not just black people.
The article goes on to describe Baudelaire Fleurant, an airplane mechanic who took up skydiving, and a young man, Jackson Henry and his mother, who took up scuba diving.
‘This is not just his joy for Jackson and for me,’ [Jackson] Henry[’s mother] said. ‘My parents and his grandparents are feeling this joy, too — three generations of joy…’
We were not told what Ms. Henry does for a living which helped her afford scuba for her and her son, but just the above quote told us pretty much everything. Young Jackson Henry appears to be the third in at least three generations of a stable family,which, as we know from multiple studies, is one of the single most important factors in becoming emotionally and financially secure. So, once again, this a life choices thing, a class thing, not a race thing.
None of that, none of it, was dependent upon or prohibited by race. None of it. None of it had anything whatsoever to do with pre-civil rights America, so why bring it up unless your intent is to cast a shadow over today?
Someone really ought to inform Tiger Woods, Nicholas Walker, Barrington “B.J.” Scott, Serena Williams, Gabby Douglas, Tai Babilonia, etc. that they are victims of institutional racism, not champions admired by countless Americans without regard to race. That they are so celebrated is indicative of a country that is post-racial, not “systemically racist” but the narrative must be kept, it seems.
Had NBC been genuinely interested in spreading some good news, they might have spread that the “success sequence” in life is to finish your education, work full time, then marry before you have children, in that order. If one does that, one has a 97% chance of avoiding poverty.
With odds like that, you’d think more “black leaders” would promote it, but alas, if Democrats aren’t causing problems, they and their media partners like NBC are perpetuating them in order to “solve” them (or profit from them), so until that stops, we won’t see a lot of young Jackson Henrys scuba diving.
M. Walter blogs at www.mwalterwriter.com where you can find The Lunatic Left Series, a daily snapshot of Democrat words and deeds so you can see what they’re up to without having to go hip-deep in their toxic brew. You’re welcome ;)
Image generated by ChatGPT.
