Originally Posted by
johnb
If we're going to go after 20-year-old basketball players for saying a few 'uhms' while they are still huffing from having performed magic on the court for 40 minutes, I'm going to ramp up my DBR post total by attacking every misspelling, grammatical error, run-on sentence, and awkward phrasing that is typed onto the board.
By the way, my spontaneous speech at work meetings is dramatically less 'correct' than my written paragraphs; I'm not sure how I would have sounded on ESPN when I was a teenager. Sure, I'm pleased when our players perform a fluent interview, and I notice players from other teams who use awkward syntax, but I find it more grating to hear professional sportscasters who repeat the boring and inaccurate truisms that have become part of modern sports commentary.
And finally, it is true that some highly-privileged, upper middle class men of European descent engage in drug deals and pool, but it is also true that few people from that demographic are stars on elite college basketball teams. When linking speech patterns, illicit behavior, and college basketball, it's reasonable to imagine that the writer is referring to young Black men. I don't believe that such a comment is tantamount to Klan membership, but it's fair to comment on the comment, especially if we are feeling friskily free to criticize the off-the-cuff remarks made by teenage athletes.