Fred Mitchell of the Chicago Tribune discusses race and athletics with students Monday night.

Does the media place a biased emphasis on sports scandals involving African-Americans? Are black professional athletes essentially “slaves” to their predominately white managers and owners? And are inner-city black children being taught that their only path to college lies in athletics?

Not everyone agrees on the answers, which led to lively debate at “Black Athletes in the Media,” a panel discussion at the Northwestern African American Student Affairs building on Monday night, as part of their Black History Month celebration.

“Money for the white man”

The “slave” characterization of black athletes, famously made in 1999 by then-Knicks forward Larry Johnson, sparked a heated debate.

“When you use the word ‘slave’, and these guys are making millions of dollars, that’s kind of hard,” said Evanston resident Johnny Devould. “So I’m not seeing it clearly as to exactly what they want.”

Bernard Murray, a visiting graduate of Howard University, responded that the label was accurate because of the lack of blacks in sports’ upper management.

“It’s not about money, it’s about the mentality that ‘you’ll always be my worker,’” he said. “They’re always making money for the white man.”

The discussion, sponsored by the National Association of Black Journalists, the Black Student Athlete Association, and the university’s African American Student Affairs, attracted about 20 people varying in both race and age. Most stayed through the entire hour-and-a-half event, intrigued by a passionate, and occasionally loud, discussion.

Northwestern junior Nicole Pressley argued that black people have been and, still are being, used as mere entertainers for whites.

“Once a black body is positioned into any capitalist structure, you can’t divorce it from that because the idea is already there,” she argued.

Later, the discussion teetered on the edge of a shouting match when Pressley asserted that black athletes were encouraging prostitution by “exploiting [their] bodies”—which didn’t sit well with the three past and present Northwestern football players in the room.

“I don’t ‘exploit my body,’” declared sophomore wide receiver Sidney Stewart, who added that kids from poor origins may have better chances at college if they focus on athletics. “It’s not necessarily exploiting your body. It’s just understanding your surroundings.”

“Chicken of the day”

Also in attendance was Chicago Tribune columnist Fred Mitchell, who voiced a plea for less focus on the stories of controversial black athletes like Michael Vick, Barry Bonds, and Marion Jones.

Instead, Mitchell said, the media should do more with stories like that of Bob Love, a former guard for the Chicago Bulls who battled through a stuttering problem to become the team’s director of community affairs. “That’s a tremendous, tremendous story,” Mitchell said. “That’s the kind of story we need to celebrate.”

Another local resident, Dale Greenwell, agreed, saying that the media prefers scandal and tragedy to uplifting stories. “I think a good negative race story is always something that intrigues society,” he said. “People want to hear about Michael Vick… It’s like the chicken of the day.”

Agreeing, Mitchell pointed out that at the Tribune, stories of misbehavior dominate the “most read” and “most e-mailed” categories.

Closer to home, Shawna Cooper-Gibson took offense with a Jan. 28 Daily Northwestern article that discussed the disproportionally high percentage of blacks in Northwestern athletics compared to percentage of the student body.

“You know what, Northwestern does graduate these athletes, and they do on to do bigger and better things than sports—and that wasn’t answered,” said Cooper-Gibson, who is director of African American Student Affairs. “It kind of ticked me off, this concentration on the negative aspects.”

End so soon?

The night’s moderator, Tedd Vanadilok, managed to keep the discussion civil through the end—though many weren’t ready to drop the topics yet.

Vanadilok liked the sound of that. “Anytime when you have a hard time getting the discussion to end, it’s going well,” he said. “If it was just people agreeing with each other, it wouldn’t be very fruitful.

“It was meant to be a very intellectual discussion, and I think we achieved that.”