NFL looking into Rolle comment that official called him 'boy'. We learn in the body of the article that "Both Rolle and the official, identified in the NFL official guide as head linesman Phil McKinnely, are black."
There are probably three possibilities: Either boy is inherently offensive for any adult man to call any other adult man (but what about "girl"?), or it isn't offensive at all, or (my opinion) it's offensive only when the speaker is white and the addressee is black.
(By the way, I still remember the day Harry Caray was interviewing Shawon Dunston for a WGN pre-game feature and closed the segment with "You take care of yourself, boy." Until that moment, it had never occurred to me that the word "boy" could be offensive, yet at that moment the unfortunate connotations were crystal clear, regardless of whether that's what Harry had intended.)
Posted by Matt Bruce at December 4, 2007 12:13 PMAck, at least tell me your white vs. black condition is necessary but not sufficient. Is there anything that qualifies if the respective races are reversed?
How many generations are we removed from the genesis of these (formerly?) racist actions? Did Samari Rolle ever get taunted by people (white or even black, apparently) calling him "boy" when he was growing up, or did someone have to tell him that such behavior is offensive?
Posted by: ZD at December 4, 2007 01:25 PMNecessary but not sufficient (read "only when" as "only if" rather than iff). It's hard to find an exact race-reversed counterpart, mainly since blacks never enslaved whites, but the closest I can think of is "Opie."
I don't know whether anyone needed to tell Rolle anything, though I know nobody had to tell me to cringe at the Harry Caray reference.
(I'm surprised he reacted so harshly to hearing it from a black man, but I'm in no position to do anything other than say that this is less than news.)
Posted by: me at December 4, 2007 01:50 PM