I watched Bob Costas’ special town hall meeting for the second time this afternoon.  The bloggers went to town on Buzz Bissinger’s ridiculous rant against Will Leitch — a moment to make some great points that was lost in Bissinger’s decision to launch his candidacy for the Crazy Old Man Hall of Fame — but I’ve seen far less on Costas attempt to discuss race in sports, the most disappointing segment of the show.

You know, a white person whose heart is in the right place, when he or she addresses race and any aspect of the commentary involves something that decries something other than white racism and recognizes the complexity of the issue in 2008, we feel obliged to preface it with about five minutes worth of stipulations that prove that our heat is in the right place because it’s such a minefield.

That was the quote Bob Costas made toward the end of the discussion.  I’d tell you more about the beginning, except there wasn’t much to tell (and this was from a panel with two gifted commentators, Michael Wilbon and Jason Whitlock).
Here’s what I say to Costas and anyone else that thinks what he said was right on — stop telling me about your heart.  I don’t care about your heart.
Look, we all read people that might have bad hearts.  I work in this game.  I know more than a few people with bad hearts.  I don’t care much about that.
At least I don’t care about that in the media.  The problem with white people making points in columns about race is rarely about anyone’s heart.  It’s about their minds.
Most people in this country don’t know a damn thing about race.  To take this even further, most people in the media don’t know a damn thing about race.  That includes members of all races.
Black people are typically considered experts on race because…well, we’re black.  That’s really it.  Now, I’ve got credentials that should indicate to you that I know something about race.  Degrees and stuff, you know.  That said, when people have called me to talk about race and sports on television, it was because I’m black and little more.  I know this because, quite honestly, if people were looking for people to talk about race based upon their ability to deal with the topic in a substantial yet digestible way, I’d be on television a lot more talking about those things.  I wouldn’t be the fourteenth call when the brothers start talking crazy and the masses needed some translation.
Call that arrogance if you want, but I think anyone familiar with my background and familiar with my work would tell you that statement, at the very least, is informed.
Being a good sportswriter, regardless of where your heart is, doesn’t make you a capable commentator on race.  But I’ll be damned if every single black sportswriter can be expected to have some opinion of “race topics,” even though there’s little reason to assume black folks know more about race than white folks other than the fact that we’ve had a different vantage of racism.
So, when’s somebody going to give me the take on racism from the other side.  You know, when is someone going to be asked to come on television and tell me what white people think about something?  When is someone going to ask a white person to explain the thought process of someone that’s said something racially offensive?  When is someone going to give me the white perspective of racism?
And how come no one’s asking?
Which brings me to my original point about why heads, not hearts, are important in this discussion.  How many white media members have given serious thoughts to the depths of racism in this country?  Let’s go past saying racism is wrong — which, when you think about it, is the most notable thing that’s present now in society that was in short supply before — and start explaining the depths of an issue.  How many of my white colleagues can do that?
Those sportswriters that are supposedly reluctant to talk about race because it’s a “minefield,” I bet, have never backed off any other topic because they’re afraid of how they’ll be branded afterwards.  Perhaps this is a special concern for white people, seeing how being considered a racist is a serious faux pas these days.
I know this — I have never, not once, backed off a point when I knew what I was talking about.  That’s not to say I thought I was right, no matter what.  I’m saying that I was qualified and capable of discussing the topic, so I didn’t sweat the responses for a second.  The days I worry about readers are the days when I may have taken a step I shouldn’t have taken, which is a euphemistic way of saying that I wasn’t sure if I had any idea of whether I knew what I was talking about.

This is the part that Costas misses — there are a lot of people with good hearts that think faulty things.  That’s why I’m not sweating that.  I’m friends with people that harbor some racist views, because I do believe their hearts are good.  I wouldn’t read their columns, though, and that’s because they’re good to spit some stuff that just doesn’t make any sense.
The problem isn’t that these white writers are decrying something other than white racism.  The problem, most often, is they don’t know what they’re talking about.  Not even Secretariat had a heart big enough to obfuscate that, whether you’re black or white.
I just ask that people save me the sob story of having a good heart, the same way I need people to stop drilling me with talk about how people don’t mean any harm when they say offensive things.  This isn’t about your heart.  This is about addressing a powerful and pervasive system.  Bad people are as capable of doing that as good people.
But neither of them can do a thing unless they are smart, informed people.  That’s the only part that matters.