If you’re still sitting around on a computer at 3 p.m. on this absolutely beautiful Friday, our condolences. We have some news that might cheer you up: The latest RandBites is up. Not good enough? Well, how about a discussion about what is racist, what is inappropriate and what is off limits to the mainstream media as opposed to bloggers? Sounds like fun, right? Well, maybe not. But it is an interesting topic, and Brandon kicked things off with this e-mail sent earlier today:

Not sure if you’ve read the full story, but apparently Yahoo blogger MJD recently wrote this about Keyshawn Johnson’s (pictured) wardrobe during the NFL draft:

“. . . This is what happens when you hand Michael Irvin a giant blunt that had been soaked in embalming fluid for about a month, and then you say to him, “Mike, I want you to take an hour, smoke that, and then pick what I’m going to wear for the draft tomorrow. And if you could make the area from my neck to my chest look like a cracked-open watermelon, I’d really appreciate it. . . “

Apparently the Yahoo editors didn’t like the observation, and quickly removed it. So, OK. End of story, right? Well, in the above linked story, FanHouse writer Michael David Smith seems to think the comment was offensive (and thus removed) because it was racially insensitive, or some such cockamamie presumption. [RandBall update: In fairness to Michael David Smith, he wrote only that Yahoo bosses thought it crossed the line. The more serious charges of racial insensitivity on MJD’s part are attributed to Boston Sports Media]. Now, Boston Sports Media, apparently possessing the thin-skinnedness of my grandmother, called it “dumb, stereotypical, hurtful and ignorant.”

I’ve been thinking about this for a full week since the story was first posted, and I still don’t understand the beef. Removing a joke due to its references to illegal drugs, fine. Lame, but fine. My question is: are people insinuating that, because MJD described a pink tie with black dots as looking like a watermelon, the comment was racist? Seriously, that’s what it’s come to? We’re that sensitive? Please, Rand, tell me I’m reading this wrong. Because at this point, I am absolutely baffled at this controversy. And more than a little annoyed.

We wrote this back to Brandon (in e-mails, we don’t use the royal we. Fun!): “Interesting … I hadn’t read that until now. One of the commenters on the AOL site pretty much summed up my sentiments: Inappropriate, but not racist. Not the watermelon part, but the blunt-smoking part. I’d say it crosses the line, though not way across the line. But another point is valid: If a mainstream media member had written /said that very thing instead of a blogger — and I mean mainstream in the sense of newspaper, magazine, TV or radio, even though Yahoo! is pretty mainstream in and of itself — there would have been a backlash. I do think from time to time that bloggers like to play things both ways in terms of ripping the MSM for crossing lines while crossing those same lines themselves. It’s one of the edges that will be smoothed out over time.”

To which Brandon replied:

I can’t even begin to imagine someone actually saying that on like ESPN or something. He’d be fired within the week, right?

So we ask you: What do you think of all this? Was MJD out of line, more than out of line, or just plain funny? Would you have had the same reaction if it was written by, say, Rick Reilly? Should that make a difference? Discuss.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 2:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.