Stephen A. Smith on Caitlin Clark and the racial bias of America

No matter how far we've advanced, no matter how far we've come, even when we had a black president a decade ago, even when we had a woman as the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States in the year 2016...  Even with all of these "advancements" per se in our society, Caitlin Clark is a reminder, as great as she is through no fault of her own, America is still more receptive to marketing white folks more so than anybody else.  It's what they've looked for and what they pray for and they're getting it [with Caitlin Clark].  That's the reality.

~ Stephen A. Smith, "Caitlin Clark stands against hate," The Stephen A. Smith Show, 8:15 mark, June 16, 2024

My response:

Ok, how about some proof, SAS?  Where are your receipts?

Here is the counter evidence: Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neill and Lebron James, arguably the three most marketable athletes in modern history.  According to Sportico, Lebron was the top paid athlete in endorsement deals last year at $80 million. 

Sorry, SAS, that can't happen in a systemically racist society.  The real racists are those clamoring for victim status claiming to fight racism.  It's the Oppression Olympics.  Can you understand how white males might get turned off by this incessant gaslighting?  Look at what happened to NBA ratings when the NBA decided to go full activism during the BLM protests.  Activism is not good for business.  If you keep it up, SAS, you'll learn that lesson the hard way.

Tom Woods defends Walter Block against cries of racism and sexism

By far the most prolific living libertarian is Walter Block, who has written countless books and close to 600 scholarly articles — an accomplishment I am uncertain if any academic in any discipline could match today, or ever.

Walter has also co-authored over 100 scholarly articles with students. That’s unheard of. What an extraordinary advantage that gives Walter’s students over their peers — how many students of other professors can say they published an article in an academic journal while they were undergraduates?

Loyola University, New Orleans, where Walter teaches, must be beaming with pride, right?

Well, a group of students are currently circulating a petition to get Walter fired on the grounds that — you’ll never guess — he is a “racist” and a “sexist.”

This is because, like Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell, Walter Block does not believe that “discrimination” is the universal, no-analysis-necessary explanation for the various disparities between blacks and whites, or men and women. And of course he is quite correct to take that position, since the “discrimination” view is ridiculous on its face to anyone familiar with the data. (Sowell’s overlooked book Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? dismantles the “discrimination” school.)

~ Tom Woods, "Now the Savages Are Trying to Take Down One of Our Own," LewRockwell.com, June 23, 2020

Tom Woods and Walter Block in chess duel

Scott Peck anticipates the victimology movement

When character-disordered individuals blame someone else - a spouse, a child, a friend, a parent, an employer - or something else - bad influences, the schools, the government, racism, sexism, society, the "system" - for their problems, these problems persist.  Nothing has been accomplished.  By casting away their responsibility they may feel comfortable with themselves, but they have ceased to solve the problems of living, have ceased to grow spiritually, and have become dead weight for society.  They have cast their pain on society.

~ M. Scott Peck, M.D., The Road Less Traveled (1978), p. 39