Schwoeffermann Strikes Back
Well, it’s 4 am, I can’t sleep, and apparently Ty Schwoeffermann is writing again… just what I needed.
Having disappeared from the Emerald after his now-infamous “Watch out for Jungle Fever” column, Ty is back with a guest commentary entitled “Athletics should offer more to higher education.” Whereas “Jungle Fever” was unrelentingly, overbearingly, crushingly stupid, the latest opus is more mildly confused with just a dash of the famous Schwoeffermann crazy.
The piece begins:
The majority of students are grateful for the opportunity to attend such a high-caliber school, and if your family is wealthy (the average University of Oregon student’s family income is $100,000 per year), then a quality education is implied.
The rest is of about the same quality, except for this little nugget:
Financial assistance along with many other supplements can change the racial and class disparities at this school. The Athletic Department is not causing racism and economic inequality, but it is not advocating against it. By not actively working to fix these problems, the department is only facilitating the inequality by putting student athletes to work on the plantation fields.
So let’s recap: Schwoefferman railing against interracial dating is not racist, but the Athletic Department’s lack of advocacy is. C’mon Ty, don’t athletes get academic support and residence options that aren’t available to the average student? Do you really think anyone takes charges of racism seriously from someone who thinks interracial dating “isn’t right”? Don’t you think it’s a little bit insulting to the memory of the survivors of slavery to compare their ordeal to collegiate athletes in the 21st Century? And I thought the Commentator was desperate for content…
