Comment Corner

Blackification of Basketball Recaps

Ever watched a sports show recently? If you’re watching in Canada, generally, they start off with the hockey highlights. At worst, they’ll usually point out that the Leafs have lost at home, Raycroft is a fucking sieve and Brian McCabe needs to learn to stop whining like a little bitch with skinned knees. But, the language never really strays too far from normal.

Next, onto another sport. Football. Perhaps they’ll say the QB ran it in himself for a touchdown, a receiver made a stunning catch and the QB got picked off or sacked a couple of times.

Now, wait for basketball. Suddenly, the whitest motherfucker sports-announcer discovers his inner Spike Lee and blacks it the fuck up. Suddenly, Chris Bosh is “slammin’ home the alley” or somebody else is “draining the tre.” Where else but during the actual fucking broadcast will you hear “Bosh drives hard for an ugly deuce”? If ESPN could cut away to three black guys wearing jerseys sitting on a couch standing up and saying “Daaaaaaaaaaaaayum!”, they would in half a fucking hearbeat.

Then, after the public humiliation of the sports announcer, they’ll go back to normal speech to explain that Vijay Singh just putted for birdie on the fifth hole.

What the hell is up with this? When did basketball become this BET def jam? It’s pathetic. Somehow, because basketball is often shown being played by black kids in the inner cities, it’s like their unique lingo needs to be carried forward to the broadcasts or there won’t be any authenticity; like somehow ESPN needs street cred or juice to be able to comment on basketball. Are the kids in New York City going elbow each other in the gut and say, “Wow, they sound like us! They must understand!”

And it's painful to listen to. Do you have that old guy at your office that would rather barbecue his penis than switch on a computer? The guy who's desperate to have younger people do everything with it because the last time they tried to type a report they electrocuted themselves? This is the same fucking hideous lurching mess of a problem. Much like fat people packaging themselves into pants 39 sizes too small, it should never have to happen.

There was an episode of South Park where Chef basically states that black people work hard at making an awesome culture, only to have it co-opted by lame white people. Once the culture’s subverted, black people are forced to come up with new coolness. It’s a vicious pattern.

In the end, white, corporate sports announcers should stick to covering basketball using language that’s native to them. Stick to terms like three-pointer, lay-up and shooting from the foul-line, not “tre-ball”, “easy tap-in” or “firing from the t-bar”. The last thing anybody wants is for this cycle to continue ad infinitum until a field goal is suddenly referred to as a “flippity-floppity” and New Jersey Nets are the “Boca Raton iPhones”. Also, Oprah should drop “You go girl”; fuck that’s worse than undiagnosed chlamydia.

It’s nauseating and just as stupid as calling Justin Timberlake’s terribly shitty music “music”.