March 01, 2007
Broadcaster's Error Not as Bad as Apology
My friend over at Hoopstips.com wrote a smart piece about Celtics' radio commentator Cedric Maxwell's recent gaffe, where he cried, "Go back to the kitchen," after a call by NBA official Violet Palmer. He apparently didn't like the call. In fact, when his co-host tried to defuse him, he went on to rant: "Go back to the kitchen and cook me some bacon and eggs!"
Part of me wants to let such crap slide, but another part says nuh-uh. If we don't take a moment to point out the idiocy of it, how's it ever going to get better? Well, Maxwell apologized in his next broadcast, but maybe shouldn't have bothered.
I tried to e-mail the parent company of the radio station he broadcasts for, but interestingly, there was no address indicated anywhere on this 21st century media company's site. But I'm sure we the audience mean the world to them. So, I took a guess at a generic address, and sent the following e-mail, borrowing conceptually from the discussion on Hoopstips.
Hello Entercom,
Not sure if anyone will get this message as I am guessing at an address. There is no apparent way of contacting anyone from your company online. Even the "contact us" page is devoid of an ombudsman's or even generic e-mail address. Nor is there anything on your "community" page to allow anyone from the "community" to say hello or give you any feedback.
I wanted to let you know how disappointed I was in the apology offered by Cedric Maxwell in his broadcast last night regarding his rude comments in a previous broadcast about referee Violet Palmer. It was the most rote and insincere sounding apology I can imagine. Almost more insulting than the original comment in its dismissive irrelevance.
I have always been fond of Maxwell as a player and anouncer. Though I thought his comments dissing Violet Palmer for a perceived bad call by saying, "Go back to the kitchen" were stupid and obnoxious, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. People make mistakes and say dumb and insulting things that may not seem so dumb and insulting to them when they come out of their mouths. For all I know, Maxwell and Palmer are great pals and she frequently cooks him bacon and eggs. But it's totally inappropriate to say, "Go back to the kitchen and make me some bacon and eggs," or anything like that in a public forum. Unless perhaps her job just previous to being an NBA ref was as a cook and that fact were well known.
If you care about the community that you proudly claim to connect with and serve, you should make it known: that whatever people's benighted personal beliefs or bad taste in humor may be, they should not use your airwaves to spread ideas such as that certain types of people are not welcome in certain professions...
It's part of a referee's job to get criticized. Call them stupid, blind, biased, incompetent... those are, as a friend says, equal opportunity insults. Imagine other "minorities" that a ref might belong to, and conjure up equivalent derogatory "go back to the [fill in the blank]" remarks. I think they would sound pretty appalling.
I've heard that Maxwell was actually trying to imitate another notoriously ref-blasting anouncer when he made his comments... I could even buy that, since I'm familiar with the anouncer he was probably imitating. But, still, his apology should be a better recognition of how his "humor" may have been misinterpreted as representing his own real ideas or those of the people he represents. And that it could have hurt people beyond the ref in question. Would this have cost him so much?
His apology, “If I said anything that might have been insensitive or sexist in any way, then I apologize, because she has worked extremely hard to get where she is now,” being couched in the conditional, seems mostly to suggest that anyone offended by his telling a woman official to go back to the kitchen is being ridiculous. And he only apologizes IF he said "anything" (like he didn't know what it might have been?) that was insensitive or sexist. And all of that because Violet Palmer has worked hard. Not because it was a stupid thing to say or doesn't really represent his true feelings.
Something a little more substantive is in order. Not to punish Maxwell, because well, he's probably worked hard to get where he is now. And like Palmer, he does a great job with an occasional mistake. But to counter his ugly message with something that might be a useful antidote, maybe just a public service anouncement of some kind that would encourage women in sports careers. I'm reminded of a Nike ad from several years ago, which took as content statistics about girls in sports. It wasn't these stats exactly (these come from Women's Sports Jobs), but a positive message along these lines.
Girls who participate in sports get better grades and are more likely to graduate.
Girls who play sports are less likely to get pregnant at an early age.
Girls who participate in sports are less likely to use drugs or to stay in an abusive relationship.
Girls who participate in sports experience greater self-esteem, increased self confidence and a more positive body image.
Just a thought. Thanks for reading.
23:33 Posted in Basketball , Spectating , Television & Radio | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
February 12, 2007
The Trouble with Spectating
I have a guilty conscience.
I like sports. I like doing sports of all kinds—basketball, rowing, skiing, tennis, running, lifting, hiking, goofin’ around with any kind of equipment for the most part (excluding motors). I also like watching sports of all kinds—from young nephews’ Little League games to little-understood equestrian events on YouTube to the Celtics on TV (even their 18th consecutive loss). And much else besides, from Major League Baseball to the Olympic Games (the more obscure the sport the more fun) to the World’s Strongest Man competition, if the mood is right.
I find that most, probably upward of 90 percent, of the sports I watch are men’s sports. I obviously (or not obviously) am a resolute supporter of women’s sports. Not only do I think it is good and important for women for health and sociological reasons, I think it’s just plain good, even for spectating. I’m just as happy to watch Duke vs. UNC’s women’s teams play basketball as I am the men’s, if not more so. (See AP photo, left.) Likewise tennis. Soccer. Swimming. Curling. But where are they?
Truth is, I am not a devoted spectator. I’m lazy. If it’s on television right at the moment I feel like watching something, I’ll tune in. I don’t care enough about what’s on television in general to own or even desire TiVo or an equivalent, and with sports—unless you wanted to save a copy of a game for educational or sentimental purposes, like your kid was in it—watching an event after you know the outcome is bizarre. Even if you don’t know it but the rest of the world does. You can’t put your toe in the same river twice, right? You may be on the same spot on the riverbank, but the river has flowed by and changed. It has something to do with that.
The trouble with all of this is that, at any given time you can find men and boys doing sports on television. I mean that quite literally, I think, though haven’t subjected it to testing at 3:17 a.m., etc. (though I do believe that that is prime Strongest Man in the World time). But at any given time you cannot find women and girls doing sports on television. I’m not saying you don’t see it, or even that it’s impossible to find, but it is not at all ubiquitous. Often you can spin the whole dial, if you’ll pardon the anachronistic imagery, and not see a single women’s sporting event. If you’re really lucky, you might catch Violet Palmer reffing an NBA game.
I do wonder what percentage of sports programming covers women’s sports. Somebody must know this. Anybody? (I just checked the Women’s Sports Foundation site. Their listing of televised women’s sports is only as up-to-date as January, and here it is February 12. For January they listed the Australian Open, three days of Winter X Games (you caught that snowboarder X women’s qualifier at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday the 25th, didn’t you?) plus five college basketball games. I hope this merely speaks to the lameness of WSF listings.)So I think this state of affairs is bad and it makes me feel guilty that I just lazily go with it, because I’m not about to make the reform of ESPN a crusade or anything….But if I, a strong supporter of women’s sports, by my actions (or lack of actions) appear to just accept the implied secondary place for women as athletes, who else is going to care? How’s anything going to change?
23:35 Posted in Spectating , Sports , Television & Radio | Permalink | Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this