Obama Deserves No Pass for Insensitive Special Olympics Remark

In the midst of a coaches' teleconference about 10 years ago, Nolan Richardson proffered why the conference, the SEC, in which he coached the Arkansas basketball team, was so stout. It was located in the South, he said, ground zero for slavery, and, as a result, the many black players who were the stars of the SEC were the products of purposeful breeding by slave owners of "big black [men] with his big woman so he [slave owner] would have a big black kid."

Coach Richardson continued to coach without much criticism and any sanction for his historical hysteria. He wasn't tarred and feathered like Jimmy the Greek was so famously for making similar comments.

Coach Richardson was spared because, unlike The Greek, he is black. He was handed a pass because of the extra gravitas he carried as the second black coach to lead a team to a Final Four championship, and because we in the media -- especially commentators of color -- are particularly uncomfortable criticizing people of color for such transgressions and gaffes.

I was not then and have tried not to be during my career because I believe to do so dilutes criticism of others that we as black critics are quick to dole out. Double standards are doubly troubling.

This all came back to mind in the wake of President Obama's poor attempt at humor Thursday night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, when he likened his struggles at bowling to those of Special Olympians.

Barack the Entertainer was quick to apologize for Obama the President. The Special Olympics announced on its Web site Friday morning that Chairman Timothy Shriver received a phone call after the show from the President.

"President Obama called last night and expressed his regret and he apologized," the release read. "He said that he did not intend to humiliate Special Olympics athletes or people with intellectual disabilities. He was sincere and heartfelt, and said that he is a fan of our movement and is ready to work with our athletes to make the United States a more accepting and welcoming country for all people with special needs."

Barack the Entertainer escaped further criticism, however, not unlike Coach Richardson. Instead, rebuke was reserved for Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski for having perceived temerity in answering a question about Barack the Entertainer's televised NCAA Tournament picks that didn't predict Duke as champion.

"Somebody said we're not in President Obama's Final Four,'' Coach Krzyzewski responded lightheartedly at a Wednesday press conference as Duke prepared to face Binghamton in an East Regional first-round game in Greensboro, N.C. "As much as I respect what he's doing, really the economy is something he should focus on more than the brackets."

There was nothing Coach K said that was wrong; it just happened to echo a growing sentiment from the right.

There was nothing Barack the Entertainer on Leno said about the Special Olympics that was right, no matter what corner of the political spectrum you reside.

There appears, however, to be an invisible rule we are living under now that says the new President is beyond critique, negative, of course. For black critics it is more pronounced, not unlike the journalistic approach at the old Ebony and Jet that decided if you couldn't say anything good about someone of color you didn't say it at all. That is all flawed.



I would be as remiss now as I would've been over a decade ago with Coach Richardson if I didn't call out the President for being insensitive. The President doesn't deserve a pass on his Special Olympics' crack and his quick attempt to clean it up suggests as much. No one should be allowed to get away with such a misfire at humor. It seems forgotten suddenly that this is a president who purposefully sought to surround himself with people who would challenge him rather than dance in lockstep as his predecessor's confidants.

As the Special Olympics reminded Friday morning: "Words hurt and words matter. Words can cause pain and result in stereotypes that are unfair and damaging to people with intellectual disabilities. And using 'Special Olympics' in a negative or derogatory context can be a humiliating put-down to people with special needs.

"This is a teachable moment for our country. We are asking young people, parents and leaders from all walks of life to engage in conversation and help dispel negative caricatures about people with intellectual disabilities. We believe that it's only through open conversation and dialogue about how stereotypes can cause pain that we can begin to work together to create communities of acceptance and inclusion for all."

That is one good that hopefully will come from what happened Thursday night on Leno – a renewed respect for the Special Olympics and the people, especially kids, it helps, at least 2.5 million now in more than 180 countries. The success of employing sports to improve not just the motor skills and physical fitness of kids and adults with intellectual disabilities, but their self-confidence and self-image, is truly something to behold and not to belittle. A President who has been the target of such insensitivities, most recently the New York Post cartoon, knows as much, and so should those of us who have been so outraged by those incidents.

Unfortunately, this won't be the last time someone publically cracks wise -- or, in Coach Richardson and The Greek's instance, seriously -- and is so utterly wrong that they need to be corrected in public, too. It happens all the time, especially, it seems, in regards to sports. Al Campanis. John Rocker. Allen Iverson. Lenny Dykstra. Martina Hingis. Dusty Baker. Fuzzy Zoeller. Kelly Tilghman. Don Imus. Sean Avery. The list goes on and on.

The problem is that our public flogging of certain people for doing so, while all but ignoring another group for doing the same thing, diminishes our voice and threatens to turn us into people merely crying wolf.

Kevin B. Blackistone is a panelist on ESPN's Around the Horn, the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, and a frequent sports opinionist on other outlets. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Silver Spring, Md.