HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel has exhibited a few constants over the years: a warm welcome from Gumbel, a familiar jingle, interesting looks at obscure stories in sports, and the reporting from Bernard Goldberg. The latter part came to an end earlier this year when Goldberg announced he was leaving the show. In a Monday column on his eponymous website, Goldberg delved further into why he left.
“I told the show’s host, Bryant Gumbel, that I recently tuned in to watch a National Hockey League playoff game and heard a player, at a pre-game ceremony, say that, “racism is everywhere.”
I told Gumbel that since I didn’t tune in to get a lecture on what a racist country America is, I changed the channel. To which Bryant replied: ‘Racism is everywhere.'”
Goldberg also spoke of recent comments made by comedian Kevin Hart regarding white power and privilege. He said he took umbrage with Gumbel’s phrasing that he believed made a lot of individuals culpable than Goldberg hoped he intended.
“In fact, as bad as things were, racism was never everywhere, not in this country anyway. It was never in the hearts of the abolitionists. Never in the hearts of those brave Americans who challenged Jim Crow and fought, often at great peril, for civil rights. I know it’s not everywhere because it’s not in my house. It’s not in the homes of my closest friends. Does racism still exist in America, a country of more than 300 million people? Unfortunately, yes, in some dark places. But, despite Bryant Gumbel’s contention … it’s not everywhere.”
The 14-time Emmy winner whose political affiliations have always been a point of viewer contention, believes the politics of some of his coworkers at HBO led to seemingly uncomfortable silence. The confrontation and dispute eventually was enough to make Goldberg believe a parting of ways was the best course of action.
“That year-end “Real Sports” show was my last. A few weeks later I walked away after 22 years as a correspondent. I didn’t want to be part of a team whose most prominent voice thinks that, “racism is everywhere,” and where the other 5 correspondents — whose politics range from liberal to hard-left progressive – just sat there and said nothing.
Maybe Bryant didn’t mean it the way it came out. Maybe he meant that there are remnants of racism that still infect American culture – not that out-and-out racism is everywhere. But if that’s what he meant, he should have said it.”
