Ron DeSantis pushes racist tropes in latest comments about basketball and baseball players

Ron DeSantis isn't telling the truth. He knows when he uses a racist dog whistle in speaking about basketball players − not a dog whistle actually, a bullhorn ... wait, not a bullhorn, stadium speakers − that he's being purposefully misleading. Someone who went to Harvard and Yale cannot be this dumb, so yes, he is doing something else, and it's an attempt to appeal to the worst instincts of some of his followers. This is what I mean.

DeSantis did an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network and one of the topics was baseball. The interviewer called it a "thinking man's game" (another dog whistle/bullhorn/stadium speaker) then asked the Florida governor and presidential hopeful his thoughts on the sport.

"So I think that there's kind of a place for everybody on a baseball team if you're willing to work hard, if you're willing to practice, and if you're willing to hone your skills," DeSantis said. "I kind of thought it was always a very democratic game, a very meritocratic game.

"Whereas I kind of viewed like basketball as like these guys are just freaks of nature. They're just incredible athletes. In baseball, you know, you have some guys that might not necessarily be the best athletes, but maybe they've got you know that slider that nobody can hit, or they have the skills that allow them to compete at the highest level."

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DeSantis' words caused a mini-firestorm on social media, and his followers did the predictable, saying dumb liberals were reading too much into his words, and all DeSantis was doing was being complimentary of basketball players' athleticism. That, of course, isn't what DeSantis was doing at all.

DeSantis was essentially talking about two leagues, and how the mostly Black one, the NBA, is full of freaky athletes with fast-twitch muscles and apparently not as democratic or meritocratic or whatever-cratic as baseball players.

Then, according to DeSantis, there's baseball, or the MLB, the mostly white sport, full of OK athletes but gosh darn, do they work hard, and form democracies and meritocratic-ocracies-republics. They're not freaks at all. They're real Americans.

No, this isn't Jimmy the Greek level racism, but it's close.

DeSantis is playing on an old stereotype of the Black athlete as the physical freak, who doesn't work hard, and the white one in baseball as the steady, hard worker who gets ahead despite not having that athleticism. And also apparently forms democracies.

This is why I say DeSantis is being knowingly misleading. DeSantis played high school baseball and also played baseball at Yale. He knows the level of athleticism it takes to make it just to college, let alone the pros. He knows that baseball players are, without question, some of the best pure athletes on the planet. Baseball history is full of remarkable athletes from Willie Mays to Roberto Clemente to Shohei Ohtani. The latter throws 100 mph and hits baseballs 400 feet. That is supreme athleticism.

Also, the work ethic of NBA players is second to none. You don't think LeBron James works hard? Or Steph Curry? Curry turned himself into one of the best shooters of all time because of a remarkable work ethic. Michael Jordan got the way he did because of his competitiveness. He wasn't born dunking a basketball.

And basketball is as much of a "thinking man's game" as any other sport.

DeSantis knows all of this but he must play dumb for a base that likes to see Black Americans denigrated. And make no mistake, DeSantis bringing up the NBA, when not asked about it, was strategic. The right has long targeted the league because of its activism, with one of the biggest moments being Fox host Laura Ingraham telling James to shut up and dribble.

Also, to be clear, it's not just that he used the word freaks in itself. It's the total context. I've used the phrase before. I no longer do because I don't like what it implies. And, again, he uses it in the context of baseball players as normal worker bees and NBA players as freaks.

DeSantis doesn't get the benefit of the doubt here. He's been misleading many times before when it comes to race. In fact, DeSantis is one of the most prominent anti-Black politicians alive. The NAACP even issued a travel advisory warning Black Americans about going to the state because of DeSantis' policies.

He's misled about critical race theory saying it teaches children to hate America. He's misled about wokeness, saying it's a threat. He said America wasn't built on stolen land. Anyone who lives on Earth 1 knows it was.

So, yes, DeSantis knows exactly what he's doing.

And it's terrible.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Ron DeSantis dog whistles in interview with sports metaphors