Monkey Butts

I listen to Calvin Murphy on the way home, mostly because I don't care for music on the radio and I like to have something to keep me company on the commute. Generally, I like Calvin as a basketball analyst - he knows the game well. However, his show often will traverse topics that are not necessarily sports related.

Today, Calvin made mention of the basketball players for team USA playing in China - I don't think I can say the quote verbatim due to memory, but the gist of the interchange went like this: someone made mention that the restaurants would not serve blacks or Mongolians, and Mr. Murphy stated if that's the case, then they should bring their monkey butts home. A caller took offense to this, which resulted in a several-minute conversation between the offended caller and Mr. Murphy. Essentially, what the caller was pointing out was that in the context, people could take offense to the phrase "monkey butts" in reference to the basketball players, relating the situation here to the Don Imus situation.

Calvin Murphy in his explanation noted that he's used the phrase monkey butts all the time with reference to people of every race and creed (this is important because with the exception of Jason Kidd, who is of African American descent, all players on Team USA are black) and that he meant nothing by it. Mr. Murphy explained that this was completely different from the Imus situation because there is no way to use the phrase "nappy headed ho" to refer to anyone other than black women (which is a specious argument as you can refer to anyone as nappy-headed theoretically, but his idea is on point). One of the assistant guys noted that Howard Cosell was fired after saying "the little monkey can run," even though he used the phrase little monkey to refer to his own children, not just the black Miami Dolphin Running Back.

I'm not weighing in on the use of the phrase - I'm not familiar with the term "monkey butts." I'm not saying what Mr. Murphy's intentions were with using the phrase - it could be completely benign as he explained. What concerns me - and this is what I see constantly from Mr. Murphy, is the indignant attitude he expressed in explaining it. There's a legitimate concern that this phrase could be misconstrued, particularly given the makeup of the team, and Calvin is aware of that, now. What he should have done is admitted that what he said could be taken in a negative manner and apologized for any misunderstanding after explaining his position. Instead, Calvin decided to attack the person who took offense to his statement, by stating that the caller should not have invoked Don Imus's situation as they were, in Calvin's mind, apples and oranges. Again, that could be the case, but the fact is that someone drew the line and he likely wasn't the only one and for the potential for inflammatory results, Calvin should have apologized. But he didn't.

I think ESPN Radio lost a listener between 5 and 6 because of Calvin's inability to recognize when an apology is warranted for a statement he made.