It doesn’t, does it (and we’re not talking about horseshoes here).As noted here, the NCAA currently has banned its regional basketball tournament from South Carolina because that state continues to display the confederate flag on the grounds of its statehouse.
And the “nobody cares” candidate for president Joe Biden has said that he would take the flag down if he served in the statehouse (and I’m sooo sure that good ol’ boys like Kenny Bob, Jimmy Wayne and Daddy Dale would actually give Biden the time of day). And the more-credible Chris Dodd has rightly said that the flag belongs in a museum.
And (as also noted in the story), the NCAA recently announced that it won’t expand its ban to other collegiate events such as baseball or football games (I mean, are you kidding? They can’t ban football, and lose all of that Saturday afternoon ad revenue in the fall?).
So basically, the NCAA has banned basketball, but not football (ka-ching!) or basketball.
So they’ve almost done the right thing, by almost protesting the shameful presence of a symbol of the confederacy, which, after all, led an armed secession against the United States that was almost successful and allowed racism to flourish in the South (though it has flourished throughout this country in varying degrees, varying forms, and in varying times).
Well, the NCAA should either ban all collegiate events as long as the flag is displayed to show that principle means more than revenue or someone’s sensibilities at a given moment (the right thing to do), or lift the ban on basketball entirely and show that the almighty dollar and the continued public display of a symbol of insurrection and revolt is more important than the cultural evolution of a region and our country as a whole.
And by the way, isn’t it particularly stupid that we are still arguing over this given the fact that Lovie Smith and Tony Dungy, the coaches of the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts who will compete in the Super Bowl, are both black?
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