Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/201...se/?ref=sports
I thought it was a bit of an empty, bullshit, defensive response. And that's understandable. Grant Hill is a good person. But he's missing the fucking point. Jalen Rose is no genius. And I think he placed too much of the focus on the black players who have played for Duke. What he should have said is, Duke looks at white players first. Then, they look at elite black players who fit Coach K's mold. And that mold sure as hell is not urban, street, ghetto-type players (no matter what their grades). It's the same with most firms. Are you an Uncle Tom if you accept an offer at Wachtell* and you're the only black guy there? Of course not. But Wachtell isn't looking for black associates who aren't the absolute cream of the crop at the top of their Ivy league classes. They have the defense of saying, "We only recruit those types of associates," but we all know what that means. That means they know exactly what type of mix they're going to get and it's lilly white.
If Grant Hill had any fucking balls at all, he would question the number and type of black players that Coach K recruits. He could do that and still confirm the character of his teammates (whether we agree with him or not). But there is no way Grant Hill does that because it's easier to write a fluff piece that ignores Rose's underlying point. It's well-written, talks about family and his teammates, but avoids any criticism of self or school. And I hate to say it, but it's just the kind of piece that makes white people happy. He's one of the good ones, that Grant Hill.
TM
*And I'm using Wachtell as the generic SuperEliteBigLaw firm.
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This part:
"In his garbled but sweeping comment that Duke recruits only “black players that were ‘Uncle Toms,’ ” Jalen seems to change the usual meaning of those very vitriolic words into his own meaning, i.e., blacks from two-parent, middle-class families. He leaves us all guessing exactly what he believes today."
is disingenuous, and soft-pedals Hill's upbringing. Webber was from a two-parent, (lower-ish?) middle-class family, but obviously not a "uncle tom" in Jalen's eyes; Hill's parents went to Yale and Wellesley. Jalen was honest about how stupid he was when he was 19--like most 19-yos are--and was doing some simplistic, stupid demonizing of the "other" and rationalizing why *he* wasn't "good enough" for Duke.
Also, how does Hill get away with "guessing exactly what he believes today" when Jalen's said that Duke would probably recruit Jalen's kids--does Hill think that Jalen thinks his own kids are "uncle toms"?
