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Originally Posted by miraja2
Why do you say that? I'm not saying you're wrong, I've just never heard that accusation leveled at him before.
As for Wilbon's comments on the show, I didn't see this episode but in years past I always get the feeling that every time the TC season rolls around, Kornheiser acts like he really cares about horse racing, and Wilbon acts like he hates it. My guess is that it is just part of their schtick, and neither really cares, although I don't really know.
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Wilbon may not be racist in an overall context, but when he discusses racing -- going back to Kornheiser having including Secretariat in his Top 10 of the Greatest Athletes of the 20th Century Poll -- his rhetoric is tinged with an obvious view of horse racing as a bastion of white, elitist privilege. He has no cultural tie to the game and obviously no interest in its' gambling aspect, so he simply relies on his instinct to dislike the sport because of who and what it historically represents in his mind. I doubt he knows much about how the game was dominated by afro-american trainers and riders during from the post-Civil War until the Gambling Blackout (1908-1910).
That's fine. At this point it's become a schtick on PTI, and every time he says anything about the sport, he just displays a small-mindedness. I stopped watching the show in 2006 when I started doing ATR full time 4-7pm, and even though I'm available to watch now, the two of them have become such caricatures of themselves that I find it difficult to sit through.