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 Hooray for White Chocolate
Posted: Wednesday May 05, 1999 01:16 PM
My surname, Deford, is an unusual one -- in most cases the result of a bland anglicization of the more lyrical French Dufour. I was amazed then to discover, years ago, that the first performer ever to appear on the Grand Ole Opry radio show was a harmonica player with the first name of Deford -- spelled exactly as mine, right down to the uncapitalized F. His name was Deford Bailey, born exactly a century ago in Carthage, Tenn. What was even more odd about this oddly named hillbilly musician was that he was black.
It's a long story why Deford fell into white music, instead of the Negro blues that was all around him, but it certainly is fair to say that nobody would get upset if I said that my namesake didn't fit the stereotype of the country artist. (They always call themselves "artists" in Nashville.) Today basketball, at its highest level, in the NBA, is almost as black as the Grand Ole Opry is white. This is hardly a controversial statement; evidence of this declaration may be found with the naked eye. A black boy, born in America, is 40 times more likely to make the NBA than is a white boy. That's the way it is. But racial stereotypes in sports always strike a more sensitive nerve. So it is now that a Caucasian rookie named Jason Williams, who led his Sacramento team into the playoffs for the first time in years, has become something of a cause célèbre, because, it is said, Williams "plays black," and because, in recognition of this, he has been nicknamed "White Chocolate." Unlike most insipid modern sports nicknames, I think it's very clever -- and, by the by, it was bestowed on him by an African-American woman. But now, it seems, everybody is worried that somehow, in the vernacular, the sobriquet White Chocolate sends the wrong message. For reasons that elude me, although it is perfectly all right -- I was going to say "kosher," but I was afraid that would upset some folks -- to acknowledge that there are black forms of music and art, even preaching and comedy, it is politically incorrect to suggest that there is any particular predominant black sport style. And in basketball, of course there is. A glorious and thrilling style it is. And the young white man, Jason Williams, plays it every bit as well as Deford Bailey played white hillbilly music. African-Americans began to lead the way in basketball way back in the fifties. It's instructive that the greatest compliment given the young Bill Bradley was that he was christened "The White O" by blacks, in honor of Oscar Robertson, "The Big O." Understand this was 40 years before White Chocolate. Basketball was already being played best then by those blacks who were given the opportunity. What's the big deal in sport? America has always profited by the unique contributions offered up by different types of immigrants, by region and religion, as well as by race. Black players have advanced basketball to a higher form, and everybody in the know knows it. Rather than pretending, we ought to celebrate that racial contribution. Hooray for White Chocolate -- the player and the name. We always say that the ideal is to be colorblind. Well, not always. Sometimes, when we are colorblind, we are simply, foolishly ... brain blind. These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNN/SI.
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