A New York Times sports columnist today recalls a 1991 football game in which Miami players engaged in "obscene gestures and taunts" and "received three consecutive penalties -- all for variations of unsportsmanlike conduct." They were "raucous," "boisterous and rowdy."
"Miami's performance that day was evidence of the Faustian pact entered into by big-time football programs when they began bringing black athletes -- not students or professors -- to campus by the truckload. They wanted black muscle, but not the attendant style and sensibilities that often accompanied muscle," the Times columnist writes.
The suggestion seems to be that "obscene gestures and taunts" and "unsportsmanlike conduct" are part of the "style and sensibilities" that accompany "black muscle."
Smartertimes.com would argue that there are plenty of non-black athletes who have over the years engaged in plenty of "obscene gestures and taunts" and "unsportsmanlike conduct." The Times columnist's effort to depict such behavior as some kind of racial trait is odd, and he doesn't give much evidence to back it up.