ABSTRACT
Prominent white Americans, in both the private and the government sectors, have periodically revealed negative feelings and views about African Americans and other Americans of color in their public statements. In the late 1980s television sports personality Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder’s public statement that African American success in sports was genetic led to his dismissal by a major network. African Americans were successful as athletes, Snyder had argued, because long ago they had been bred for physical prowess by slaveholders. Later, Los Angeles Dodgers official Al Campanis explained the absence of black Americans in the administration of baseball teams with the argument that they lacked the “necessities” to do well in management positions.1 These widely noted comments by Snyder and
Campanis prompted a U.S. News & World Report journalist to ask: “Has it come to this: Are titillating racist jokes a new coin of mirth in Ronald Reagan’s America these days? Was CBS-TV commentator Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder giving public voice to the silent beliefs of many whites?”2
