In an episode of the show unlike any other, JK opens up about his experience of being black in America and talks about the recent twitter kerfuffle in which his “blackness” was questioned by some. The conversation extends to include the role of black people in racing, and to a larger discussion of race and sports in the country as well.
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JK, Great hearing you talk about the subject of race on inthemoneypodcast. I’ve been a great admirer of yours since I started listening to you and PTF when you guys were on DRF. As a person of color myself I was very pleased to see a Black man in an industry that doesn’t have a lot of Black people representing. You are an awesome handicapper and you’ve probably forgotten more about trainers, jockeys and tracks than I know. Your boyish enthusiasm for the game is very refreshing, don’t lose that. I know you didn’t want to be put in the position to be a spokesman especially in this setting, however, I feel you did a beautiful job. I have to admit when you started this conversation I was holding my breath. Many of us have tried to explain what the problem is with race in America but it’s not easy and many have failed because we either dance around the problem or try not to hurt other people’s feelings. You hit the nail right on the head when you brought up structural racism. The fact is that our entire social system both politically and economically is built on white supremacy. It’s a minor miracle that some of us are able to navigate the system and achieve some kind of success. Unfortunately, we often leave many our brothers and sisters behind through no fault of their own. When we do attain success there is always a small percentage of our people who feel we have sold out or think we are whitewashed. You have got to ignore that and keep on moving forward. When I moved out of East LA and into a more affluent (and whiter) zip code some of my friends said I was abandoning the neighborhood and by extension abandoning the Raza. All I wanted was to live in a neighborhood with good schools for my kids, plenty of services and with home values that would appreciate nicely. Nothing wrong with that. I have never forgotten were I came from. Anyway JK it was great to hear from you on this subject and don’t get too upset if you get some blowback. Just keep blocking those trolls.
Ed
Love it. I am from the UK and I believe whole heartedly believe that Black people in our society have all the opportunities that any other British citizen has. If there is no black person in an organisation I think usually that is simply as there is just no suitable black candidate. In the UK black people only make up 3% of the population so there will be many areas and positions where there a re no black people in the upper echelons of the business or sector of the economy. I do not believe in things like forcing people to employ black people no matter if they are the most suitable candidate or not. I would hate that situation if I was black. How on earth do you deal with people in the job if they know you received your position not through ability but due to your colour. I truly believe that is moving backwards it is positive discrimination and that is not democratic and it is discriminatory. Nobody ever solved a problem buy expanding the problem to include other groups. It is a negative process. Good on you JK the problems today in my country anyway are more to do with appearance than substance.
I don’t speak for JK in this and while I’ve lived in the UK I don’t have enough knowledge knowledge about what life is like on an institutional level to comment on your country but I will say that I believe affirmative-action does work in the USA. It is not a perfect solution, but it is a way to try to fairly distribute opportunity after our long history of racial discrimination.
Anyway, this is probably a longer conversation and it’s a busy day here but I did not want to delete your post and i did want to go on record defending one of the few solutions to race inequality in the country that I believe has worked to a significant degree.
JK is an intelligent, classy individual.