Chris Myers apologizes for criticism of Katrina victims

[Blue_Tires]

Sports and politics. They don't mix; never have, never will. You think fans fight over Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s talent or Yankees vs. Red Sox? That's nothing compared to, say, an Obama-vs.-Tea Party throwdown. We turn to sports to get away from the problems of the real world, not vent about them.
So woe to the sports figures who do air their political beliefs, as Fox Sports' Chris Myers has learned, because no matter what you say, half the country's going to disagree with you. Myers, one of Fox's NASCAR announcers, was filling in for Dan Patrick on his radio show earlier this week when the discussion turned to the flood disaster in Nashville. Several NASCAR stars have helped out in relief efforts, and Myers made that point — and, unfortunately for his sake, took it a bit further:

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"It's a great country here. We have disasters issues when people pull together and help themselves and I thought the people in Tennessee, unlike — I'm not going to name names — when a natural disaster hits people weren't standing on a rooftop trying to blame the government, okay. They helped each other out through this.
And Mike Helton, president of NASCAR, Tony Stewart, among some drivers went from the race over to the middle Tennessee area where still a lot of hardworking, tax-paying, legal American citizens have been affected by the floods and are trying to rebuild their lives and they are helping out. And I think that other people around the country, of course the music industry in and around Nashville helping, without making a big deal out of it and I think that's a good thing."
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Oof. Now, certainly, some people can take offense at pretty much anything, and there are plenty of cases where a public figure has said something relatively innocent, some special-interest group has taken extreme umbrage, and said public figure has had to backpedal meekly. But there's not a whole lot of mistaking what he's talking about when he mentions people standing on rooftops, is there?

http://sports.yahoo.com/nascar/blog/from_the_marbles/post/Chris-Myers-apologizes-for-criticism-of-Katrina-?urn=nascar,242887

[NOLALady]

1. O My.

The comments are puke worthy.

[Brewman_Jax]

2. The insidiousness of privilege upends another white commentator

Bad events that happen to white people are often over-exaggerated, while bad events that happen to people of color are usually minimized. White people are normally never blamed while people of color are normally blamed for any and all consequences. As shown above, to put a flooded river in the same category as the aftermath of a Category 3 hurricane is willful ignorance at its worst.

Privilege doesn't mean never having to say you're sorry, it means never having to give a rat's ass in the first place.

The comments section says it all. :eyes: