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To: TrappedInLiberalHell
Is that the Larry Bird that Isiah called overrated because he was a white basketball player and just not a good player? THAT Larry Bird?
527 posted on 10/02/2003 3:18:02 AM PDT by Benrand
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To: Benrand
Is that the Larry Bird that Isiah called overrated because he was a white basketball player and just not a good player? THAT Larry Bird?

Yep, same one. Now, I, a rational person, can disagree with Isiah without calling his comment racist. I think Bird deserved his reputation. Compare the record of his team the year before he joined vs. the year after. He led the Celtics to three championships in the Magic Johnson/Dr. J/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar era. He was huge in postseason games. He once scored 60 points in a game. He once made an absurd number of consecutive free throws (50-70 I believe). And so on. Nobody ever said he could dunk or jump. And as for race, since I already stated my case for the larger issue of Bird not being overrated compared to his peers, my case also applies to blacks, which are a subset of 'his peers'.

So I can disagree with Isiah, but he wasn't being racist, and it doesn't mean he was wrong. An opinion can't be wrong. He was suggesting that others used race in judging Larry's stature relative to his peers. If it is racist merely to talk about racism, then the word racist should be banished from the dictionary, or nearly every last man, woman, and child (of sufficient age) will be guilty of it.

533 posted on 10/02/2003 4:01:22 AM PDT by TrappedInLiberalHell (Hillary walks into a bar. Let's hope it leaves a nice bump on her forehead.)
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