News-Record.com

Where do people come up with this stuff?

It's amazing how people go around every day of their lives and look for racism where it doesn't exist. Remember the "controversial" photo of the little black girl eating a piece of watermelon last summer?

I have seen many photos of Coach K and other ACC coaches over the years with the wild eyed look while aruguing with a ref.

Mr. Fuller & Mr. Hodge, please go try to do something useful for your community and quit chasing demons (or should I say blue devils) that don't exist in this instance.

At least it's a white ref that Skinner is unloading on. Maybe you guys can take a little comfort in this fact.

Hes not flaming. hes complaining. he also has his palm up and his arm out as if to ask, "Why didn't you call that foul? Did you see that?"

I dont see it but I'll go ahead and bite... let me flip the situation. Why does coach K have his eyes closed when he is hugging that player? and what is his other hand doing? and why is he hugging a player from another team? are his own players not good enough? this sends a sign to all players at duke that coach k doesnt care about them because he likes hugging WF players. (rolls eyes). some people need to get bopped on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and told to chill.

Give me a freakin' break! It seems to me like the ltte writer is the racist one for even imagining something like this!

(shaking head to self and asking what is this world coming to)

I'm laughing to hard to comment right now.

6strings, well said. I am amazed at this LTE. Maybe the writers just don't like Duke.

We can interpret many things to be insulting if we look hard enough. Wise people don't look for hidden insults or try to put their interpretation on what others say and do.

BTW, wasn't that an awesome game? Although I'm a State fan, I always pull for the NC team (even Carolina), but was really impressed by the talent of both teams.

Finally caught my breath. Greensboro is doomed to be forever stained and tainted as a racist town so long as there are people like the author's of this LTTE whom go out of their way to look for and cry about anything that could be construed as racism on the local level, no matter how absurd.

James Fuller and Johnny Hodge saw something different in the photos. They saw a black coach and a white coach. I saw two passionate college coaches doing what they do best, leading their teams.
If James and Johnny look hard enough they may see that Coach Krzyewski was trying to punch Gray in the stomach?
Lighten up guys.....it is basketball at its best and Coach Skinner and Coach K are two of the best.

The Farkers had fun with coach K a couple of years ago:

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=891319

"some people need to get bopped on the nose with a rolled up newspaper and told to chill."

Truer words are rarely spoken. Well said, 6stringsamurai.

I don't get it, they don't look like manufactured pictures. Does the letter writer think it is racist to take pictures of people showing their acutal reactions to things. We have pictures all the time of coaches of every color screaming at a ref.
Give us all a break James and Johnny. Quit trying to stir up a racial debate. Apparently neither of you have anything better to do with your time then to look for race related issues, and when you can't come up with any, you simply make them up.

This LTE shows that if you try hard enough, you can always find something that offends you in the daily paper. Sometimes, like in the circumstances that the writers speak about, you REALLY have to stretch past being simply off the wall to being flat out ridiculous.

Typical of the N&R and their race-baiting agenda. Seems as if the N&R will run every race baiting letter , picture and then write editorials on the subject for weeks just to keep junk stirred up. What a shame that the N&R continues to encourage such nonsense by publishing letters and pictures such as this.
Wonder why they didn't include the picture of Roy Williams and his rant at one of the officials? That's ok, no answer is necessary. Most already know the answer.

I looked up the names and it appears one of the Authors of this LTTE was a former A&T faculty member.

I hope he is retired and not teaching this form of racism to any young minds.

Seriously, I hear the pain and I hear the frustration. This just tells me that we are still working to get "there". With all respect, things are often in the eye of the beholder or in the bias of the beholder (not that they are always wrong). In this case, I like the approach of 6stringsamurai. Taking things a little bit further, if we want to normalize and ease ethnic relations, we have to be prepared for everyone, at some time, to be the "focus" of attention and take it as that and nothing more. In this picture, maybe the point is, the "Dukies" are the good guys and the "Deacs" are questionnable.

this reminds me of the picture test they used to give us in school years ago: if you looked one way you saw a beautiful girl and if you looked at a different time you saw an old hag. perception is reality. These two gentlemen saw what they saw. We see what we see. I disagree with the usage of racism as the reason for the pictures but this is what they saw. Peace

Dr. Hodge did lots for the community. He was the band director at Dudley and later a BOE member.
For one moment, become black. Now open your eyes and what do you see?
I see some steppin fetchit character, complete with white teeth looking like, "But Masser, I's gwanna do better!". Then there's the paternal pat on the back from the landed gentry. Folks, have some empathy for others.
Johnny Hodge went through his life seeing stereotypes just like this one. He ate at "Colored Only" lunch counters and had to sit in the Colored section of the theaters. Unless you had to do that, don't be so quick to soothe your own conscience.

DD, It's time for Dr. Hodge to swallow his bitterness and realize he is fostering racism with his uber sensitivity. This isn't the 1960's anymore and there hasn't been a segregated lunch counter in this town in over 40 years.

Like I said earlier, I hope that mentality isn't being taught to school kids anymore. Bad enough that some parents have to teach it to their kids.

This is bullsheet. Hodge needs to go back and look at the picture of Herb Sendek that was published during the tourney coverage. If he had compared Sendek's picture to Skinner's, he would have had to concede that the N&R was racist against white guys.

Wait a minute. Sendek and Skinner are both BALD. Maybe they have an agenda against bald guys. (BTW, I think Coach K is bald too but his hair piece fooled the N&R)

Question:
How does Coack K get food into that little hole?

While I'm on coach K, let me say he is the most foul mouthed coach I have ever heard! On several occasions, I have sat behind him when he let out with "F this" and "F'ing Bullsh_t" and the conference does nothing to stop it. If did that and had a losing record, I imagine Duke would stop him.

Coack K knows how to win, unlike WF...

DemonDeacon, I've followed much of your contributions but this last one, "...that little hole..." could have been left out--it has no relevance to the "issue of race" which you tried to defend a moment ago.

While I appreciate your empathy that some wounds heal slowly, we all need to let our eyes and heart see the positive changes that are taking place and not just impute negative judgment to anything that might appear the least bit questionnable. Sometimes we need to give each other a break. And as I said in the above, I sincerely see that we have more work to do.

Since Dr. Hodge is an educated man, I find his letter even more disturbing. You might think what he wrote, but wise people do not put such thoughts in print.

DD, your comments were way off base. What racist comments you made. Shame on you.

The mere fact that the letter was written offends me.

People are dumb, so what they took a picture of Al Skinner yelling at a referee.
Maybe if he hadn't been yelling he wouldn't have looked so stupid.

And just what is wrong with the second picture?

This LTE was witten by a sick mind. People with a racist agenda will find racisism in anything or nothing. What would have really been racist on the part of the N&R was if they refused to show the pictures of successful blacks. Then you might have a case. Idiot. Racist idiot!

Been out working all day and started reading through this thread. Glad to see everyone agreeing on a subject for a change only to get stopped at Deacons "Masser" post. I have to say I'm not surprised.

I have seen countless photos of college coaches with an animated look on their face. Coach K has a really good snarl with beady eyes and a flinched nose. This has nothing to do with racism.

I'm not a Duke fan, but I do respect what Coach K has done for the program. I also respect what Coach Skinner has achieved in his first year in the ACC.

I'm sure Deacon opposes snarling pictures of Condi Rice as well right? That would be racist after all.

Listen to Carol Dunn Deacon. She's on your side of the political spectrum however she has lots of common sense.

Go Heels.

"Dr. Hodge did lots for the community. He was the band director at Dudley and later a BOE member."

Thanks DD for letting me know just who this letter writer was. DD is correct that Mr. Hodge was a member of the Board of Education, what DD fails to mention is that while a member he would sleep during the meetings and the reason why he is no longer a member is because he failed to even win the primary. Which by reading this letter would seem to be a good thing for the children of Guilford County.

"I'm sure Deacon opposes snarling pictures of Condi Rice as well right? That would be racist after all."

Good point, Dan.

Where were Fuller, Hodge, and DD when the AP printed the doctored picture of Condi with the devilish enhancements? Or the digusting cartoon from Ted Rall, picturing Dr. Rice mouthing words parodying Butterfly McQueen's "I don' know nuthin' 'bout birthin' babies, Miz Scarlett" line from "Gone With The Wind"?

Somehow, I missed the outrage these folks expressed over those images.

Poor Hodge. Sounds as if he was discriminated against as a young man and turned into an old man that discriminates. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for years and has risen to an appropriate idol for Hodge since he seems to be looking for idols.

Correction to my last post: It was Jeff Danzinger, not Rall, who drew the disgusting cartoon about Dr. Rice.

Rall is responsible for the cartoon which had Condi Rice call herself a "House N----a".

There are numerous other examples from numerous sources to make my point, none of which came from Danish cartoonists.

Can any of you "OPEN MINDED" posters here not see a difference in the two pictures above! Be honest with yourself. Get beyond basketball and look at the two pictures!

I will not even try to defend Hodge as a BOE member, but I will say that he comes at this from a different experience than any of you who dismiss this.
Joe South said it best when he wrote, "Hey before you abuse, criticize or accuse, walk a mile in my shoes".

Dear Demon Deacon I want to be an "OPEN MINDED" poster. The answer to your question is "no" I do not see a difference in the photos and I am being honest. Yes, these coaches were caught at different points of the game by the camera, but no, it is coaching at its best and I resent an educated man (white or black) trying to characterize the coaches by this moment in time. To suggest Coach Skinner is shown as a "flaming, wild-eyed lunatic" is sick no matter how your childhood was!!

I agree with High Point on this one. I saw nothing racial about the pictures, but then again, I wasn't looking for a hidden agenda. Think those who were upset are really reaching for a reason to be upset.

A person sees what they want to see sometimes. In fact, most of the time. That can be said for all of us. I choose to see two coaches, at different times during the tournament, reacting differently. The fact that one is black and one is white is irrevelent to me. For I have seen most of the coaches react like the two pictured, like human beings with human responses.

DemonDeacon poses, I think, an excellent question--really the best question yet in this exchange: how does Coach K get food in that tiny piehole? I've wondered that for years. Straws?

As for his other point, it's simply a call for censorship of any images of African Americans that might somehow, someway be construed as racist. No yelling, visible white teeth, shoddy dress, larger than "normal" lips, watermelons (remember that one?), unkempt hair, large eyes, or any other visible feature that would recall racist iconography to anyone. Only pleasant looking, bourgeois, decorous, well-dressed, and calm black persons--persons who are a "credit to the race"--shall henceforth be serve as photographic subjects. It's an argument, but a bad one, not least because it suggests indirectly that being a credit to the race is being bourgeois and decorous like "the quality." The norm at work is a white norm.

After all, isn't it Skinner's fault for _looking_ like Stepin Fetchit? Shouldn't he have those teeth filed down and yellowed like Coach K's more patrician teeth? And if he insists on showing them in public, shouldn't the paper graciously avoid the embarrassing spectacle?

If people are going to work themselves into a lather over this photograph and the one of the girl eating watermelon, then let them: a picture is the least of their problems.

The black coach looks like a caricature of how blacks were depicted in the past.

I see where the writer is coming from.

The Disney cartoon depiction of blacks. If others would take the time to rent a few Disney movies from a time past or look at old news reels or people doing black face you will see and know what I believe the writer was trying to point to.

Sometimes it is not what is said, but what is seen.

You all see no harm in the photos, because you were never subjected viscerally to the stereotype of that kind of "look"