From: ph111-bx@violet.berkeley.edu (;;;;7202)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Jack Kemp and Bill Bradley
Date: 4 Sep 1992 06:32:47 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: violet.berkeley.edu

Sorry, I just got to this.

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[NEWSWEEK: AUGUST 17, 1992]
NATIONAL AFFAIRS
Sports, Race and Politics
What  Jack  Kemp and Bill Bradley learned from playing pro  ball  with 
black teammates

Jack  Kemp had just emerged from the airport terminal in  New  Orleans 
when  a  6-foot-3,  255-pound black man came up  to  him,  bowing  and 
shuffling  his  feet, his head tilted down in deference.   "Mr.  Kemp, 
sir, is it all right for us, sir, to ride in your cab?" the man asked.  
The  year  was 1965 and Kemp, then quarterback for the  Buffalo  Bills 
football  team, recognized the sarcasm of his friend  Carlton  Chester 
(Cookie)  Gilchrist, the team's star fullback.  "Quit  kiddin',"  Kemp 
said.  The cabby, Gilchrist explained, said he wouldn't take him as  a 
passenger unless he was with Kemp's group of white mem and they didn't 
mind  sitting  with  a  black.  "He  was  very  innocent  and  naive," 
Gilchrist  remembers  of  Kemp, now secretary  of  housing  and  urban 
development.  "He was stunned."

President  Bust  hasn't always been a big fan of Kemp's,  but  he  has 
agreed  to allow the HUD secretary to speak in prime time during  next 
week's   Republican  convention.   The Democrats  featured  Sen.  Bill 
Bradley,  a  former pro basketball player, as a keynote  speaker  last 
month  at their convention.  That both parties turned  to  ex-athletes 
would  be mere human interest but for the particular role each man  is 
playing:   designated hitter on the issue of race.  Bradley had  drawn 
attention with a series of impassioned speeches  demanding the  nation 
address  racial  justice  with  greater  urgency.   The  White   House 
mobilized Kemp after the L.A. riots, when the administration  realized 
he  was  the  only white GOP figure  with  credibility  among  blacks.  
Although  the party won't be emphasizing racial harmony as a  campaign 
theme,  aides hope that Kemp, a free-market enthusiast, can appeal  to 
conservatives and minorities at the same time.  "I could not live with 
myself  as HUD secretary, and go back and face my friends Ernie  Ladd, 
Cookie Gilchrist or Tippy Day or all the black football players I know 
and lived with and lost and won with, if I were not their voice in the 
cabinet," Kemp says.  "It is my way of redeeming my existence on  this 
earth."

What  is it about sports that seems to help knock down  racial  walls?  
Kemp  and  Bradley  built  interracial  friendships  that  many  white 
politicians don't have.  Both have heard their black friends  describe 
discrimination,  and both have witnessed some.  Kemp recalls that  the 
San Diego Chargers couldn't stay in the posh Shamrock Hilton in Dallas 
in the early 1960s because the hotel wouldn't take black  guests--even 
though the team was owned by Barron Hilton, who also owned the  hotel.  
Bradley  remembers  when star guard Earl Monroe got into  a  fistfight 
with  whites  who harassed him outside Madison  Square  Garden.   "Two 
hours  after Earl thrills 20,000 people with his skill,"  Bradley  has 
written, "he is just another `nigger' to part of white America--even a 
half  block from center court."  Other encounters were more comic:   a 
fan  once sat next to the Knicks' Dick Barnett on a plane  and  asked, 
"Why do you colored fellas wear all those funny hats?"

Just  as  important, though were the moments that  were  not  racially 
tinged.   "The  huddle  is colorblind," says  John  Mackey,  a  former 
Baltimore Colt and a friend of Kemp's.  Gilchrist says his  friendship 
with  Kemp  grew because he kept his teammate from getting  mauled  by 
bloodthirsty  linebackers.   Sports has had plenty  of  problems  with 
racism   over  the  years,  but  it  has  one  advantage  over   other 
occupations:  competence can be measured easily.  It is one of the few 
areas  blacks  and whites both consider meritocratic, with  each  race 
being judged by the same standards.

'Looking in':  Sports also forces players to take an immersion  course 
in  the language of the other race.  "If someone tells [Kemp]  he's  a 
`bad  M.F.'  he  knows that's a compliment,"  says  Mackey.   Teammate 
Thomas (Tippy) Day used to call Kemp "Jackson--just to put some  black 
in  him."  But Bradley says he also learned that there were limits  to 
how much he could understand about being black.  Teammate Walt Frazier 
has described Bradley as the "least prejudiced player I've ever  met," 
but  added that "particularly with the black players, he seemed to  be 
on the outside looking in."  Ironically, this sense of isolation  gave 
Bradley  something else in common with African-Americans:  as a  white 
on a majority-black team, Bradley felt like a minority.  "It was  kind 
of lonely," he says now.

The  future  of  race  relations obviously  does  not  depend  on  all 
Americans   developing  a  good  jump  shot.   What  lessons  can   be 
transferred  from  sports  to  other  settings?   On  one  level,  the 
experiences   of  Bradley  and  Kemp  seem  to  argue  for   agressive 
integration  of housing, schools and work so that the races  will  mix 
more.  But their cases also teach that racial understanding grows best 
when there is no suspicion of favoritism, which is perhaps an argument 
against some forms of affirmative action.

Kemp  and  Bradley have processed their  racial  lessons  differently.  
Bradley  emphasizes increased federal spending on cities,  while  Kemp 
pushes  free-market solutions like enterprise zones  and  tenant-owned 
low-income  housing.   While he is proud of how sports made  him  more 
sensitive, Kemp also speaks with some regret about not playing a  role 
in  earlier civil-rights battles.  "I wasn't there with Rosa Parks  or 
Dr. King or John Lewis," he says.  "But I am here now."
Steven Waldman and Clara Bingham
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american