ESPN salutes black power

Earlier this month, ESPN awarded Tommie Smith and John Carlos the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs — the sports network’s equivalent of the Oscars — for their once infamous, and now famous, black power salutes from the medal platform at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

The stench of self-congratulation surrounding ESPN’s decision was thicker than the air in a locker room after double overtime.

“As the passage of time has given us the opportunity to put their actions into the proper context,” gloated USC professor Todd Boyd in an ESPN.com column, “their supporters can now feel vindicated while their detractors must eat their words.”

The argument that Smith’s and Carlos’ critics must dine on their denunciations rests on an inch-deep nostalgia and the triumph of celebrity culture.

Comments by ESPN sportscaster Stuart Scott typify the inanity of ESPN’s award. Scott, who was 3 years old in 1968, nonetheless told the Desert Sun newspaper that he remembers how “tense” the times were and how he remembers thinking, “Oh, that was cool for a black man to do that.”

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ESPN salutes black power
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review