Sport
... white standards. Jackie Robinson was the leader in the movement for black equality in sports. Alone in a league filled with white players, Robinson was forced to become the face of every black athlete. It was he who was forced to outplay every white athlete just to prove he deserved to play on the same field as the ‘white athlete.’ Early pushes this fact, and stands up to say more than any sportswriter would dream of saying. Radio and sports pages don’t like to discuss race in an open forum because it’s an easy way to offend somebody and get yourself in trouble. Early brushes these fears aside and continues with a wonderful essay with few bad points. Early also illustrates that with blues music, blacks already contain the knowledge that to lose is to be human. The key to sports is losing. Nobody wants to lose, but in the end almost every team has lost and has only their dignity and love of the game to fall back on. Robinson fits into this argument perfectly, because he played in a time when people played for the thrill of the game, not for the money nor the championship trophy. By playing with the white majority, Robinson was already a winner in his own mind. He went to battle for the black population and he scored a decisive victory. The “postscript” shows that blacks in America are seemingly used to losing more than white America. Perhaps it’s because of their struggles for equality, but it’s definitely not because of any faults they have, genetic or mental. Early tells the reader that his barber is a boxer and recently fought the son of famous boxer, Leon Spinks. The barber becomes irritated when the seemingly ‘white’ St.Louis newspaper doesn’t print a story on his match. Early notes that the barber keeps a cool head on his shoulders and doesn’t seem genuinely furious over the situation. This further shows that ‘black America’ realizes more than ‘white America’ that losing is part of human nature. As it turned out, the paper wrote a story at the end of the week on his boxing match. The few problems in this essay showed that Early doesn’t have an extensive knowledge of sports other than baseball, basketball, and boxing. The last part of the essay was written powerfully, but it lacked one key point: boxing is a failing sport. Boxing has been a popular sport during the 20th century, but it has taken dive ever since Ali retired. Suspicion of fixed bouts, pay-per-view matches that last only two minutes, and a lack of white boxers have destroyed the sport. This is not a racially charged argument, only one of fact. It’s a known fact that more of the white population will pay $50 for a sporting event on pay-per-view. It’s also a sad fact that part of white America is tired of seeing nothing but black boxers. Perhaps it’s racism, perhaps it’s just a yearning for something diffe...