RUSH: To the audio sound bites. Bernard Hopkins — former world middleweight champeen, Bernard Hopkins — in Philadelphia last Tuesday at his training gym spoke to reporters and had a comment about the Washington Redskins quarterback Donovan McNabb.
HOPKINS: McNabb is the guy in the house while everybody else is on the field. He the one that got the extra coat, the extra servings — “You our boy” — and then McNabb felt betrayed because he wanted to be, and he thought he was, one of them. He got a suntan, that’s all.
RUSH: This is just the latest in what has been a long line of attacks on Donovan McNabb from black individuals and organizations. There’s a black preacher in Philadelphia that dumped all over McNabb for not being black enough. I think the local NAALCP chapter in Philadelphia might have weighed in at some point. Now this guy, Bernard Hopkins, says McNabb’s not black enough — and you know what the argument is? Here’s what it is. They have accused — and I can’t use the term. It’s a purely totally unacceptable term, but they refer to McNabb by using the N-word, and they say he’s a sellout; that McNabb befriends the white power brokers of the Eagles.
When he was with the Eagles and now he’s with the Redskins, they say that he’s not down for the struggle with the players; that he ingratiates himself with the powers that be. They also, this guy Bernard Hopkins, got mad at McNabb’s parents for raising him in an unconventional way, meaning not the traditional ‘hood way — and in the final line here, “He got a suntan, that’s all.” He’s not really black. He just “got a suntan,” and another controversy has arisen, this time out of Washington, and it’s kind of big in the DC sports media. Apparently, last season the coach of the Redskins, Mike Shanahan, wanted McNabb to wear a list of plays on a wrist bracelet. Tom Brady of the Patriots wears one. Roethlisberger of the Steelers wears one.
A lot of quarterbacks wear a wristband, large wristband that has all the plays on it. So the coach calls in the play on the helmet radio, the quarterback looks it up here, figures out what it is and transmits it to the rest of the team in the huddle. Now, the story is that McNabb refused to wear this play bracelet because he said that he was afraid it would make him look stupid. So he didn’t wear it. Meanwhile, Shanahan once took McNabb out of a game, saying publicly, “He didn’t know our two-minute offense.” So Shanahan said, “Yeah, he didn’t know the plays.” Well, he wasn’t wearing the wristband that had the plays on it.
The DC media is all up to snuff on this because the Redskins owner, Daniel Snyder, is said to be livid when he found out about this — at the coach, at Shanahan — for not making McNabb wear the wristband. Wouldn’t you be mad at McNabb rather than the coach? Anyway, McNabb can’t catch a break here — and, of course, all this ends up being discussed on ESPN. Bob Ley. Yesterday afternoon on ESPN’s Outside the Lines, they had the ESPN senior NFL writer Michael Smith on and they had a discussion about the Bernard Hopkins remarks that McNabb is not down to the struggle, he’s not black enough. By the way, they said the same thing about Obama. Liberal blacks in the media during the 2008 presidential campaign said the same thing about Obama. That’s what the “Magic Negro” column in the LA Times is all about.
So they bring in Michael Smith. Bob Ley and Michael Smith have this conversation about Bernard Hopkins’ comments on McNabb.
LEY: There’s so much to talk about it, Michael —
SMITH: Yeah.
LEY: — but what was your reaction? You were sitting knee to knee with him w-w-w-w-when Donovan McNabb — who has been dragged I think reluctantly to talk about things. You think about the Rush Limbaugh incident —
SMITH: Yeah.
LEY: — and — and the — the entire team melodrama.
SMITH: Donovan McNabb is one of the few, if only, African-American quarterbacks to really walk in both worlds as a bona fide franchise quarterback: Drafted second overall, given the $100 million contract, an endorsement guy, the face of a franchise. You look at other African-American quarterbacks, traditionally they have been either journeymen or had to struggle to get to that point. McNabb tried to walk in both worlds between being one of the fellows — and one of the brothers, if you will — and the face of the franchise, which was — which is traditionally the extension of a head coach.
RUSH: Yeah, and didn’t pull off being “one of the brothers,” apparently. That’s what all this means. He didn’t succeed in being one of the brothers. Now, CBS… CBS… (laughs) Bernard Hopkins, the boxer, got all this started Tuesday. CBS described Bernard Hopkins’ rant this way. Quote: “In fact, this was more of a Rush Limbaugh-style rant.” No! I said nothing close to what Bernard Hopkins was saying! I never said a word about McNabb and blackness or African-Americans. I was talking about the media, from start to finish — as you all know. “A Rush Limbaugh-style rant.” That was the season that I “hijacked,” by the way. Ralph Wiley — a great, great sportswriter at Sports Illustrated and number of other places, now deceased (I became somewhat friendly with him via e-mail during that ill-fated season) laughingly…
Well, I don’t know if he was laughing at other people. In e-mails to me he was laughingly accusing me of hijacking the NFL season that year with my comments on ESPN about McNabb. But this poor guy cannot catch a break, and it’s disgruntled African-Americans that are jumping on his case — and about the way he was raised? His parents are out there… (interruption) It is horrible. It is! It’s distasteful, horrible. His parents are out there having to defend the way they raised him, and all they tried to do was give him opportunity, after opportunity and expose him to various things — he and his brother to various things — in life. That is just amazing to watch this. (interruption) I don’t know if… See, this is how my trusted and loyal staff… See, it’s never their names in these media tweak stories. It’s always me.
So they’re asking me now if McNabb is as black as Bill Clinton.
I don’t know.
I’m not the guy to ask.
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