On Manhattan’s Communist Daily Worker, sportwriters are expected to toe the party line as carefully as reporters and editorial writers. Last spring, Sport Columnist Lester Rodney publicly apologized for a misstep: he had been guilty of subtle “white chauvinism” in failing to condemn New York Giants Manager Leo Durocher for his Polo Grounds row with a Puerto Rican fan (TIME, May 16).
Columnist Rodney was obviously in need of a brush-up course in subtle chauvinism. Last week he apologized again, this time for quoting San Francisco University Basketball Coach Pete Newell’s description of Substitute Willie Wong as “exceptionally fast, intelligent and a good shot.” Lamented Rodney: “The inclusion of ‘intelligent’ was a subtle form of chauvinism … I had thought of it as part of the reason why a player of only 5-4 could make a college team . . . Looking back . . . it is clear enough that the SF mentor was expressing … so called white superiority over those with darker skins, [by implying] that there is something newsworthy in a Chinese-American being ‘intelligent.’ “
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