The Color Of Speed

Rodney King> Why can't you simply appreciate Jeremy's talent and ignore his race? It's truly sad that so many people on
this site get hung up on skin color.

On a red polyurethane oval in the heart of Texas, a young man is running counterclockwise loops today. He has been on national TV for, oh, maybe seven or eight minutes in his life, just long enough to do something no white man from the U.S. had done in the Olympics in 40 years. Just long enough to annihilate all sorts of assumptions about the color, physique and age required for an American male to win a sprint gold medal. But not all the assumptions.

He came out of nowhere, a blank slate, and he blurred lines that people had grown accustomed to. He was an invitation to everyone to fill in that blank and draw their own lines.

I wish I could tell you a remarkable story about the 20-year-old who just did this remarkable thing, but there isn't one, so I can't. The story here is us.

RE: Why isn't Jeremy Wariner more popular?

............> Race has less to do with it than "tribal" affiliation;�a black Kenyan is not the same as a black Sudanese. Likewise a white Slav is not the same as a white Englishman. Read the journals.

Youngton> ... the guy hangs out with a black coach and black company. That may explain his success.

mitz> I'm black and I think he is hot....

pappas> his coach is white

lobo> ...Our two other black finalists could have been on the juice rather than Jeremy.