Rex Chapman: UK discouraged interracial dating


EB

Well-Known Member
I had second thoughts of post this since it could be taken as a he said he said type of article. Then a lot of stories in sports are like that.

Note that Chapman was a huge star at Kentucky.

Click on the link for the full story.
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Updated: May 16, 2005, 9:43 PM ET

Chapman: 'Most preferred that I keep it confidential'

Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Former Kentucky star Rex Chapman told a newspaper that school officials tried to stop him from dating black women or at least "hide it" rather than inflame fans.

"There were certain aspects of my time there that were really ugly," Chapman, who is white, said in a story published by The Courier-Journal on Monday. "I don't know how it is today, but that's how it was 20 years ago."

Chapman said scrutiny of his private life by athletic department officials, boosters and others hastened his departure from Kentucky. He left after two seasons and entered the NBA draft in 1988.

Once, someone took a key and scrawled a racial epithet on his car door, he said. He said he was also the subject of obscene jokes.

"It's the climate of how things were," he was quoted as saying. "People were bothered by the fact that sometimes I dated black girls. Most preferred that I keep it confidential and hide it.

"I was being asked to lead a lifestyle that was absolutely wrong, simply for the fact that some people didn't like that I dated somebody of a different race," Chapman told the paper. "I mean, what is that? Is that America?"

The 37-year-old Chapman is now director of basketball operations for the Phoenix Suns and is working as a television analyst during the NBA playoffs.

.....
 
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I saw this on the news last night, and though it was somewhat shocking, it wasn't surprising. That was pretty much the climate of the entire south back then, and I'm sure Kentucky wasn't the only school like that back then.

NICE
 
D-NICE said:
I saw this on the news last night, and though it was somewhat shocking, it wasn't surprising. That was pretty much the climate of the entire south back then, and I'm sure Kentucky wasn't the only school like that back then.

NICE
Not in the least.
 
D-NICE said:
I saw this on the news last night, and though it was somewhat shocking, it wasn't surprising. That was pretty much the climate of the entire south back then, and I'm sure Kentucky wasn't the only school like that back then.

NICE
What do you mean back then. This thinking still exist today. I can't recall seeing a top White athlete dating a Black woman or a top White female athlete with a Black male. Chatman always looked as if he belonged at Louisville than UK. He wasn't your normal shooting guard from Kentucky. The guy could could blow past you and slam.
 
D-NICE said:
I saw this on the news last night, and though it was somewhat shocking, it wasn't surprising. That was pretty much the climate of the entire south back then, and I'm sure Kentucky wasn't the only school like that back then.

NICE

Ain't nothin' changed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The bamboozlement I tellz ya.
 
enswaclopedia, I'm sure it still exist today, and I won't dispute that, but it's not as discouraging today as it was in the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Society as a whole is changing. You're starting to see more, and more white men openly date black women, and you're seeing more, and more white kids in general accepting black culture, so much so that they're even talking in "Ebonics."

As far as the star white man (American), dating a black woman, it's still rare, with Robert DeNiro being the exception, but it's not taboo as it once was. Just like homosexuality has slowly been accepted in American society, so has interracial dating. That's all I'm saying.

Kentucky was no different than any other school in the south that probably discouraged that, it's just that Rex Chapman was the first white athlete to come forward with his story, but I'm sure he's not the only white athlete to be discouraged from openly dating sisters, just like there are numerous black athlete's who were paid to not date white women while in school. It came with the territory.

NICE
 
I just got finished reading the story a few minutes ago. I am not surprised or shocked by this revelation. I am sure that the discouragement still exists today when it comes to interracial dating at all schools; especially in the SEC. There were probably a lot of other white athletes like Chapman that went through the same thing. I think the whole gist of the story though was that he was trying to show that race may have played a part in how Steve Nash was chosen as this year's MVP by the NBA. This is just another example of how no matter what we do as a whole, we still can't get over the hump of racial disparities to play a role in some situation.

On another note, what I really thought interesting in the article was that it mentioned interracial dating with the black athletes and white women were given a pass. I am convinced that is totally true even to this day. I remember when Alabama came down to play Bama State this year and I'll never forget that I saw quite a few white female faces waiting outside of the locker room at the end of the game for some of those Crimson Tide players and they certainly weren't team trainers or managers!
 
You know the saying guys: The more things change, the more they stay the same. :lecture:

In the words of Gomer Pyle: SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE. Not really.
 
Its funny you mentioned Stve Nash because he was dating one of my wife's girlfriends who is AA. They were pretty much pressured into breaking up because of the social conflict it caused.
 
Let's flip the thing...Is there anyone out there who was discouraged from dating someone who was not black while attending an HBCU for the same reasons (or others) that Rex Chapman encountered?
 
dacontinent said:
Let's flip the thing...Is there anyone out there who was discouraged from dating someone who was not black while attending an HBCU for the same reasons (or others) that Rex Chapman encountered?

Good question dac, but of course, I can't answer it...lol

It has been my experience, however, that a great many black women have a problem with black men dating white women.
 
Having lived through another piece of the cultural spectrum, I can offer this perspective.

I was at William and Mary in the late sixties and have remained close to the football program ever since. In my sophomore year, W&M signed several black players. They were the first at the College and they faced intense scrutiny from every side. Sigma Nu was the football frat, and two of them joined. Unfortunately we couldn't initiate them because Sigma Nu had a national policy excluding them. (Despite intense opposition from many southern chapters, especially Ole Miss, we changed that at the national convention in '68 and initiated the first black members of Sigma Nu that year.) If either had dated a white girl back then, I'm sure there would have been repercussions, and even some of our "welcoming" frat members would have been unhappy.

By the eighties, the situation at W&M had changed dramatically. Inter-racial dating among athletes was, and is, common. The situation that to this day draws the most reaction is when a white man is with a black woman. I have one white friend who is married to a black woman and a black female employee who is married to a white man, and they draw more "attention" than the white women I know who are with black men. I don't know why this is (maybe because it seems to be less common), but the reaction to Chapman doesn't surprise me.
 
Tribe4SF said:
Having lived through another piece of the cultural spectrum, I can offer this perspective.

I was at William and Mary in the late sixties and have remained close to the football program ever since. In my sophomore year, W&M signed several black players. They were the first at the College and they faced intense scrutiny from every side. Sigma Nu was the football frat, and two of them joined. Unfortunately we couldn't initiate them because Sigma Nu had a national policy excluding them. (Despite intense opposition from many southern chapters, especially Ole Miss, we changed that at the national convention in '68 and initiated the first black members of Sigma Nu that year.) If either had dated a white girl back then, I'm sure there would have been repercussions, and even some of our "welcoming" frat members would have been unhappy.

By the eighties, the situation at W&M had changed dramatically. Inter-racial dating among athletes was, and is, common. The situation that to this day draws the most reaction is when a white man is with a black woman. I have one white friend who is married to a black woman and a black female employee who is married to a white man, and they draw more "attention" than the white women I know who are with black men. I don't know why this is (maybe because it seems to be less common), but the reaction to Chapman doesn't surprise me.

........interesting
 
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