Steph and Alysha Curry have each encountered racial pushback — but not from whom you would expect. (AP photo — Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Recently 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman talked about sports how, in these troubled times of racial unrest, they can be an example for the rest of the country. That the locker room is a place where racial divisions are, at the very least, much less prominent.
“You kind of get lulled into the belief that everyone has torn down those stereotypes and those walls,” Sherman said. “And everyone is treating each other equally.”
But it is pretty clear that athletes are experiencing the same kinds of questions and problems with racial identity. In this week’s Press Democrat column we discuss the curious case of a talk show panelist, Rob Parker, who calls out Steph Curry for being a “Harlem Globetrotter,” not an NBA star.
Surely no modern NBA player would want to be tagged as a Harlem Globetrotter. That’s the old racial model for black players, happily touring the country, clowning around, and putting on a show.
The shaky part of this is that Parker has a history of this kind of thing.
Back in 2012, he took on then-Washington quarterback and NFL-player-of-the-moment, Robert Griffin III, asking if he was “a brother or a cornhole brother. Because, Parker said, “He’s not one of us. He’s black, but not really.”
Parker’s reasoning? Griffin was dating a white woman and there were rumors he was a Republican.
It doesn’t
About the Author: Insidethe49
