Remember Joe Louis whenever race card is played

	Joe Louis dealt with racism in an age when black athletes weren't accepted at all. AP

Aside from the fact that it is evil in and of itself, racism is so pernicious that it can often obscure or distort other important issues. We can, I believe, see that in a couple of current sports controversies.

In the matter, first, of the Duke lacrosse team: It appears now that the spectacular charges of gang rape are dubious. But because of the accompanying accusations of racism, we've missed a broader point -- the illustration, once again, of how our scholarship college teams across the country so often feel entitled and arrogant.

The Duke lacrosse players may not be guilty of the horrendous crime and cover-up they were so publicly saddled with. But what came out was the team's regular haughty misbehavior -- just one more glaring example of recruited student-athletes who isolate themselves, then, feeling impervious, acting badly.

I also find it revealing that the Duke president canceled the lacrosse season. I wonder if any university president at any big-time athletic school would dare cancel a football or basketball season simply because of unsubstantiated accusations of a scandal involving the players. So-called revenue sports get a little more leeway, don't they now?

Then there are the desperate defenders of Barry Bonds, who are trying to make a martyr out of their hero, claiming that the well-documented charges of his illegal drug use are founded in racism. White fans are supposed to be unable to tolerate that he will soon pass Babe Ruth's home run total of 714. Please. Once the Babe's record was eclipsed, it was lost as a totem. There is only one home run career record that matters anymore, and that is held by the man who passed Ruth: Henry Aaron.

The estimable Mr. Aaron is a black man. He is, moreover, a decent and gracious gentleman. The reason good people do not wish Bonds to become the home run champion has nothing to do with race. It has to do with honor.

Those who would, as the dreadful expression goes, play the race card in sports would be better advised today to pay tribute to another black athlete, long gone. Early Wednesday morning at Arlington National Cemetery, just down from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, on the 25th anniversary of his death, a wreath was laid upon the grave of Joe Louis.

Racism? Louis was born in segregated Alabama, raised in the Negro ghetto of Detroit. Even when he was champion of the world, in much of America he would not be served a meal nor allowed to stay the night. Before there was Jackie Robinson, there was Joe Louis. Before there was Martin Luther King Jr., there was Joe Louis.

Of course racism remains in sport. We didn't need the Duke lacrosse team to remind us of that. Of course Bonds and all African-American celebrities get hate mail, but beyond the lunatic fringe, where there was once only one Brown Bomber, there are now black athletes in every sport, black coaches and executives.

Both those who practice racism and those who exploit it in sport are descending, and the fresh wreath that lies upon Louis' grave today speaks as much for his legacy as for his memory.