Source for the statistics about the announcers: https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/562133-nba-commentators-racial-bias-is-showing-according-to/
Why is it that most of the players in the league are black but most of the voices commentating on the games over the airways are white?
It’s because we have a bias toward white voices and white-sounding people. We don’t want a “black-sounding voice” commentating on our basketball even though that would be more representative of the league today. Most of the black people who commentate games are color commentators rather than play-by-play. They provide the “basketball knowledge” while the white play-by-play man is the voice we want on the big moments. For some reason, the voices of Kevin Harlan, Mike Breen, and Marv Albert feel right to us. We say that they just have the “right voice for announcing.” But do we realize that when we imagine the “right voice for announcing” it’s basically always a white cis-man’s voice in our head? That’s what represents gravitas and dignity for us. Even black announcers like Mark Jones clearly have to whitewash their voices in order to be fit for the American airways
I think we would all benefit if we were more mindful of this disparity and found ways to give more of the radio and television jobs to black people, until the distribution matches that of the league.
I think it would be interesting to see the percentage of black people going into broadcasting majors compared to white people.
Also, not fair to say Mark Jones “clearly has to whitewash” his voice. Did he admit to that? Is that on record somewhere? To me, he sounds like Mark Jones and no one in the industry sounds like him.
He sounds the same when speaking off camera or off the job. He didn’t codeswitch when he was on a “black” podcast. He sounded like Mark Jones.
What the hell does “black” sound like anyways? If someone doesn’t sound like your idea of black does that make them less black or whitewashed?