Cam Newton is a black college football player who has been in the news for several months because his father "shopped him" around various universities, and had him sign for the highest bidder, which is not supposed to happen in college athletics, but of course happens all the time.
"A lot of the criticism he's receiving is unfortunate and racially based," Moon said. "I thought we were all past this. I don't see other quarterbacks in the draft being criticized by the media or fans about their smile or called a phony. He's being held to different standards from white quarterbacks. I thought we were past all this stuff about African-American quarterbacks, but I guess we're not.
"Of course there is racism in every walk of society. We've made a lot of progress in this country. But racism is still there. I just thought in the sports arena we were beyond it. I think the way Cam is being treated shows we're not."
Moon added: "The thing that makes me laugh is the question of can he [Newton] come out of the spread offense? Can he run a pro offense? Colt McCoy came out of the spread offense and very few people raised that issue about him. So did Sam Bradford. Same thing. Very few questions asking if Bradford could run a pro offense. Some of these questions about Cam are more about his intellect. It's blatant racism, some of it.
It seems that Moon doesn't want the real issues to be addressed. So he's deflecting things. How did McCoy and Bradford perform academicaly while they were in colege? How did Newton perform? Based on that, can one wonder about his ability based on facts?
And of course there's the fact that racism exists in all cultures and among all people, which Moon, and everyone else who ever uses the R-word, refuses to accept.
Meantime, where was Moon a couple of years ago when Tim Tebow, the highest profile pick in that draft, was picked on mercilessly? But since Tebow is white, of course that wasn't racially motivated.
And the fact, to take a leap, that Rush Limbaugh has been criticizing Democratic presidents and politicians for 20 years means that when he criticizes Barack obama - also a Democrat - why, he's just being racist!
Meantime, we've got black students who drop out of high school at an extremely high rate. They then apply to be police officers in various cities, fail the entrance exams, so the Justice Department orders that the passing grade be lowered so these black candidates can get in. Is this not racism? Is this not telling the African-American community that they don't have to be any good at what they do, they just have to be black? And if the quality of the policing suffers, well, that's just too bad.
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