What is up, peeps! It’s Thursday and you know what that means. ALMOST FRIDAY!! ARE YOU READY TO WORK FOR THE WEEKEND?! I know I am, although my money got messed up (mostly my fault, it not all my fault) it is still SLUMBER PARTAAAY time! First off, the Doucheology special will be up on Saturday, the brackets will be up Sunday to make room for the Countdown on Friday. Working, the Countdown and Douchebrawl all in the same day is quite the difficult. I will make it work, though.
It’s kind of rant time. As you all know, I am indifferent about homosexuals. Gay men make the world better for us (musicals, fashion, the elimination of my competition the enhance my chances of getting a woman to tolerate me) and lesbians are actually kind of cool aside from the whole man-hating thing that a subset have. Don’t be anti-man, be pro-woman. Unlike me, who is anti-everyone and pro-me. Now I am sure that you have (or have not, who cares) about John Amaechi coming out of the closet. Diana Ross style. You know, I am not gonna say I saw it coming (but we all know Steve Nash is next. If any NBA player likes man-sex it is SO Steve Nash’s hippie ass) but I was surprised that everyone is all shocked about it. Let’s face it, aside from gay sex, there is nothing gayer than sports at its bare bones aside from the military. Oh, and they are the two most homophobic areas of society. Aside from the South but they screw relatives which is a lot worse. I am totally annoyed by this because it is AFTER the fact. Quite simply it doesn’t matter. Now if Kevin Garnett or Dirk Nowitski came out of the closet that would be earth-shattering. Not because they are good (John Amaechi wasn’t a superstar by any means. He went to Penn State for Christ’s sake!) but they are the faces of the league.
Since John is retired it is an after the fact shock. Players that used to play with him are shocked but odds are will say that ‘I don’t mind playing with a gay player’ because they don’t play along side him anymore. They can say that because there isn’t a gay player in the locker room that they know of right now.
The true test of whether the league is ready for this is if a player comes out while still playing. I know that is tough, especially in the NBA which is full of Blacks. As I Black man I am shocked by the utter and complete hatred of homosexuals by the community. I will never accept the argument that the discrimination is the same (I guarantee that John faced more shit being mixed than being gay) because no one EVER has to know you are gay. I can’t hide being Black. Unless you count shoe polish but that gets expensive because I am fat. The fact is that in most ‘Locker Room Sports’ like football, basketball, hockey and maybe soccer a gay player would NOT be accepted. Sad but I believe it to be completely true. Sports like tennis and golf where you are going 1 on 1 or against a field is a little easier to be gay because you are left to your own devices but with a team sport sadly there are too many views that have to come together to form a TEAM. Look at what Terrell Owens did to his team by being a douche. And you can change being a douche, you can’t change gay (I guess, I have never tried).
People like to say it all comes down to wins and losses but that really aint going to be the case when (and it will) it happens that a player comes out while still active. Unlike being a jerk or screw up, being gay is something that is a moral issue. In terms of physical make up, there really hasn’t been a link to gays being any different in make-up than straight people. So any prejudices players have a based on their belief, nothing else. Beliefs are hard to break and at the end of the day, the backlash against the player that is insulting the homosexual player will be nothing compared to the homosexual player themselves. We are all understanding and open to other people until we have to deal with the issues. Quite simply it is great John came out because it will open dialog, but it won’t do anything to change the climate of homophobia in sports and especially contact sports.
Well, that is enough of the soapbox. Just had some things I wanted to get off my chest. I will be back tomorrow for the Chachi Top 20 Video Countdown. Tune in tomorrow!
Chachi Out.
