Compared to the hell Jackie Robinson went through, Jason Collins is getting a ticker tape parade.
Collins, a 12-year National Basketball Association player, recently wrote a column in which he announced that he is gay: “I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay (male) athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation.”
When comedian Ellen DeGeneres came out in 1997, she appeared on the cover of Time magazine with the earth-shattering headline, ‘Yep, I’m Gay.’ With a general population that surveys put at about 4 percent homosexual (although estimates run as high as 5 to 10 percent), is anyone surprised that, in a country of 10,000 or so pro athletes, gay male athletes exist? After all, the WNBA, the NBA’s sister league, features several openly gay players. When the league’s top draft pick, Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner, recently “came out,” the media and fans said “ho-hum.” But when Collins came out, he became front-page news as the first male to do so.
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7 comments:
It does take a certain amount of bravery to admit your perversion to the public.
I won't be watching any basketball thats for sure and if the NFL "comes out too, I won't be watching that either.
Did he get drafted by NBA team to play basketball or to play gay? Comparing this man to Jackie Robinson is ridiculous and absurd. Besides. Robinson was the best player of the game at the time. Collins doesn't even make it on team roster. Come On, man.
Who cares? Really? And contrary to popular belief, I don't regard you as a hero for 'coming out'. I don't think anyone is a hero, brave, special in any way, just for saying I play with the same sex organs that I possess.
You want to be a hero? Go rescue someone from a burning building. Take a bullet for someone and save their life. Give up your life so that someone else might live.
THAT'S what a hero is. It's NOT putting on a uniform, of any kind. It's NOT announcing to the world, who didn't ask to begin with, what your sexual preference is.
Go away. Keep it to yourself. Don't expect a pat on the back, or anywhere else.
ALL of you sports players make much more money than either one of you is worth. Give it to charity. Give it to the hungry. Give it to the homeless. Give it to the sick.
Do your 'jobs', go home and keep your mouths shut. You are no more wiser than anyone else. You just have more money than most.
You're still just another dumbass from the hood who got a big break and think you are special.
You are not.
That is flat out incorrect. Jackie Robinson was not the best player in either black or white baseball, he was the one who could put up with the crap that came along with being a black player in a white league. Check the stats for the negro league leading up to robinson playing for the mlb.
I agree with 7:19.
I think he came out just for sympathy. He know his time with NBA will soon be up. I think his trying to extend his basketball game with the NBA. I hope no team picks him up. If they do, I too will stop watching the NBA. I think he is a fake. To play in the league this long in the closet, he should have just stayed in the closet. We are not watching basketball for his sexual perference. We pay to watch them play the game of basketball.
Bravo! Bravo!
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