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White Is Oh So Wrong

BLee-ve It!

Whites "know how to tap into money?"

That sounds kind of ominous. Hispanics can pack 20 or 30 people into a house? That's the best gift he could come up with? And the connotation of Native Americans' sneaking up on people is obviously bad.

I'm glad at least that I got a good one. I'm creative and inventive. And I can make a toaster oven into a remote control. Oddly enough, the legislators and audience members laughed at White's remarks about Hispanics and Asians. Does that mean racism against those two groups is funny and less repulsive?

One Hispanic caller to Jim Rome's syndicated sports radio show lamented, "I'm abusing my gift from God. I only have two kids!"

To be perfectly honest, we all have our hang-ups, and we're probably all a little guilty of racism. CBS spokesperson Leslie Ann Wade, whose company had been expected to offer White a football commentator's position, said, "Every human being has some bias about something in their world because of their life experience. But those biases have no place in the broadcast booth or in the workplace at CBS."

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Marge Schott is still suspended from baseball for statements such as Hitler was "O.K. in the beginning." Various other sports figures such as Fuzzy Zoeller and former CBS commentator Jimmy the Greek have gotten in trouble for anti-black statements.

White gets off a lot easier. It's not clear that he wants to play football next year because he was pretty mediocre last season. And he only lost a job he didn't have yet.

He's still got lots of money because of football, even if Campbell's Soup and Nike pull the plug on White's endorsement deals.

But for White to go in front of a large audience and make such ignorant and insensitive remarks is truly stunning. He might be saying what he truly believes, but what he believes is wrong.

White didn't present those stereotypes as something he was struggling to overcome. He was fine with them. That's how he saw people. And that's why he's dead wrong.

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