What In The World is the Matter With John Moody?

Fox News executive John Moody wrote this bizarre piece http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2018/02/07/in-olympics-lets-focus-on-winner-race-not-race-winner.html complaining that the Washington Post had made too much of the fact that the Olympic team is more diverse than in the past.  Moody deems this approach to be replacing "Higher, Faster Stronger" with "Darker, Gayer, Different.'


First, to observe that there are more of a certain type of person involved in the Olympics than before does not state any sort of agenda.  "Hey, there are a lot more Asian programmers than in 1990!"  This is just a factual observation.  So what?  Even if I said, "Hey, look at all of the good white players emerging in basketball!  I like that because I am white!" is that really a reason to get angry?  That something is happening that I think is good?  Moody appears to be angry because black people and gay people are succeeding.  More precisely, that they are succeeding and that some people are happy about that.  Why should this concern him at all?


The only concern you should have about whether people you don't like (here blacks, Hispanics, gays) are succeeding is if they are not being judged upon their merit.  I see no evidence that American Olympians are not judged upon their merits.  I mean, we have tryouts and stuff.  There is no country in the world who cares more about Olympic medals than we do.  I doubt we are sending the second string to keep people happy.


What Moody's true agenda seems to be is that he does not care for black people or Hispanics or gays.  He is an executive at Fox News, so that almost goes without saying.  (Imagine, if you look at this piece by Moody, how ANGRY the management at Fox News must have been to be ruled by a dark-skinned guy for 8 years!!). 


But certainly there is some way to state this anti-gay and racist agenda in print while attempting to follow some sort of logic.  Here are some segments of his article:


1.    For the current USOC, a dream team should look more like the general population. So, while uncomfortable, the question probably needs to be asked: were our Olympians selected because they’re the best at what they do, or because they’re the best publicity for our current obsession with having one each from Column A, B and C?


OK, you asked the question.  They are Olympians.  They were selected b/c they were the best.  Not at all uncomfortable.  If you are going to ask your question, you have at least 200 examples of Olympians, do some research, find 1-2-3 straight white folks who were screwed.  If you are not willing to do that - shut up.  I mean, this is like me at age 23 standing in a Raleigh, NC bar and screaming out, "I have to ask you women - what the fuck is wrong with you that you don't want to get up on THIS!?!?!  Is it because all of you are lesbians!?!?" 




2.  Some breakthroughs in American sports were historic, none more so than Jackie Robinson’s in baseball. But Robinson didn’t make the Majors because he was black. His legendary career occurred in an age of outright racial discrimination, because he was better at the game than almost everyone around him.


I am really not sure what history of Jackie Robinson Moody has read.  But Jackie was selected somewhat for his baseball ability and somewhat for his educational pedigree and somewhat for the fact that he was going to be able to "take it."  It wasn't like he was the Wilt Chamberlain of baseball and was going to come in and hit .450 with 65 home runs so everyone said "OK, we have to let him play."  His signing was an extremely political move by Branch Rickey.


3.  As my Fox News colleague Ed Henry wrote in his excellent book, “42 Faith: The Rest of the Jackie Robinson Story,” Robinson was not a kvetcher. “Don’t complain, work harder,” was his approach to the game, and the game of life.


I have read several bios of Robinson - he hated the discrimination and was often very, very angry and didn't think he could withstand the abuse.  He just knew no one would care to listen to him.




4.  Jeremy Lin, who played basketball at Harvard before joining the New York Knicks, did not become a media hero – remember “Linsanity?” – due to his Chinese heritage, but because he almost single-handedly turned around the struggling Knicks in 2012, and had fans delirious over his graceful shots and calm under pressure.


Jeremy Lin was great in Mike D'Antoni's system for 19 games (he played 35 total).  He was an above average player for a team that was barely above .500.  Headlines at the time included "AmAsian!"   Floyd Mayweather stated that he was popular only because....he was Asian.  When Lin played in opposing arenas, many Asian fans would attend their first NBA games.  When Lin had a bad game, ESPN's on-line headline?  "Chink in the Armor."  A GREAT deal of Jeremy Lin's notoriety came because he was Asian.


5.  Back in 1993, when, it seems, America still had a sense of humor, the movie “Cool Runnings” portrayed a Jamaican bobsled team whose members willed themselves to compete in the 1988 Winter Olympics. Why was their feat noteworthy? Um … no snow in Jamaica, not racial prejudice.


First, it is really weird that the head of a NEWS organization (I know, but it is in the name) would rely upon a comedy movie for his understanding of the Jamaican Bobsled team.  This is like me talking about Milan's 1954 state title and starting with, "Like they showed in Hoosiers, Barbara Hershey really didn't care for the coach at first...." 


Second, if you are going to reference a John Candy movie, at least watch the movie.  One theme of the movie was that the International Bobsled Committee didn't like the Jamaicans BECAUSE THEY WERE DIFFERENT and BECAUSE THEY WERE BLACK. 


British Official:  We must also be concerned about the potential for embarrassment.
Irv: Oh, pardon me. I didn't realize that four black guys in a bobsled could make you blush.




6.  Insisting that sports bow to political correctness by assigning teams quotas for race, religion or sexuality is like saying that professional basketball goals will be worth four points if achieved by a minority in that sport – white guys, for instance –  instead of the two or three points awarded to black players, who make up 81 percent of the NBA. Any plans to fix that disparity? Didn’t think so.


In one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons, Lisa invents a grammar-correcting robot named Linguo who eventually blows up because the gangsters use such awful grammar.  If Lisa has a bad-logic-correcting robot, it would explode upon hearing this paragraph.


a) No one has ever insisted what he is suggesting - he has no evidence that they are - what he is basically saying here is "yeah, we love fags, give them all the spots, even if they cannot ski or skate, yeah!"  Um, no one is saying that.  No one is "insisting" it.  No one has imposed any such quota. 


b)  Moving on - let's assume someone was suggesting this idea ("Hooray for minorities and fuck everyone else!  No more white people in the Olympics!").  That is like saying that "professional basketball goals" for white guys should count 4 points (How old is this frigging guy?  100?  who uses the term "goals"?  It is basket.  If you are going to use the statistical nerdish term, you still cannot use "goals" it is then "field goals" (to differentiate from free throws)).


Wow.  OK - primary problem - it is nowhere near the same. The supposed agenda of "assigning team quotas" would not achieve anything at all similar to awarding white players 4 points.  It just logically is not the same.   White people are like 60% of the playing age population. To be the same, white players would need to be assigned 60% of the roster spots regardless of talent, not given some bizarre scoring advantage.  Is Moody suggesting that Asian figure skaters now start with 20-50 extra points in their long program at the pre-Olympic events?  See THAT would be an equivalent problem.


"Any plans to fix that disparity?  Didn't think so."  Where is he going here??  He is angry that he has a professional sports league that isn't mostly white.  So this needs to be "fixed"?  Why would that be? 
Is he concerned about fixing the NHL? 


Finally, what no one seems to want to address here is WHY the Winter Olympic teams are getting less super-boring-white.  In the past 12 years or so, the Winter Olympics have tried to piggyback off the X games and get weirder.  They want to make more money.  So now we have like 12 snowboarding and extreme snowboarding events.  We used to have 0.  We now have moguls and aerials and other crap designed to get younger people to watch sports they'd like to watch.  I went to the X Games.  I thought it would be the dregs of society watching - it was young affluent people in the crowd.  The folks participating were generally not from that social strata, but certainly any advertiser had to be VERY excited to see the 19-34 years olds with disposable income.  Anyway - if the scramble for ratings and money had resulted in a "Darker, Gayer, Different" demo, that is likely to continue, much to Mr. Moody's chagrin.