Barry Bonds: SF Chronicle Reporters' Attempt at Dismissing Bonds Comments About Racism are Culturally Insensitive

The news about the new book "Game of Shadows," which reportedly presents evidence of San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds use of steroids includes some comments that should be reviewed and removed. The one I'm focused on now is this excerpt from the book, and which I obtained at www.cnnsi.com

"As he sometimes did when he was in a particularly bleak mood, Bonds was channeling racial attitudes picked up from his father, the former Giants star Bobby Bonds, and his godfather, the great Willie Mays, both African-American ballplayers who had experienced virulent racism while starting their professional careers in the Jim Crow South. Barry Bonds himself had never seen anything remotely like that: He had grown up in an affluent white suburb of San Francisco, and his best boyhood friend, his first wife and his present girlfriend all were white. When Bonds railed about McGwire, he didn't articulate who "they" were, or how the supposed conspiracy to rig the home run record was being carried out. "

This underscores what I think is the real motivating factor behind the production of the book: a dislike for Barry as one who's "arrogantly black." Just because the reporters -- Mark Fairanu-Wada and Lance Williams -- are both not black, is no real excuse for them to write that garbage above.

I, like many African Americans, have grown up in schools that were mostly white, dated European American women, and have friends who are not black. But that does not mean we don't experience racism. Racism is a form of rejection. It doesn't have to be expressed by someone calling a black person a name, but by simply being excluded. It could come in the form of someone walking past you to ask somone white for directions. It could rise when a person moves away from you immediately as you sit down next to them at a public transit stop.

There are countless examples.

That may have been what Barry was trying to explain to his girlfriend, who may have been too culturally immature to understand what he was explaining. Moreover, the Chronicle's reporters didn't bother to report that his girlfriend was white, and they didn't attempt to dig to determine her understanding of what he was saying. This reads like a smear job.

But what hurts so much is to see the reporters obvious insentivity toward the problems faced by African American placed in the black and white of a major book.

For me, it further taints their work.