Colorless American Olympians

I'm an Olympics nerd.

But my whole family is too. When we were kids, our parents, especially my mom would make us watch both Olympics from opening to closing ceremony with every event, competition, game, routine and match-up in between. She insisted that we needed to appreciate the athletes and out country.

One winter Olympics I remember was 22 years ago: Calgary 1988. The star of those games was an ice skater and her name was Debbie Thomas. She was the first American woman to be a gold medal contender in years bringing athleticism and power to a sport that had been heretofore dancy, flippy, dramatic and almost silly. To make it more exciting, she had an archrival in Katarine Witt, the product of the evil communist East German sports machine.

Debbie Thomas is black. I didn't realize that at the time. Not that I didn't know. I just didn't care. It just didn't matter. She was American. She was ours.

OK- don't get me wrong I don't hold myself up as a model of racial harmony. My sentiment is not a reflection of me but rather the times. No one made a big deal out of Debbie Thomas being black or minority or African American. No one profiled her from that angle. Dick Button didn't ask about the additional pressure of being black and a skater... it just didn't matter.

This Olympics, 22 years later, every time NBC shows Shani Davis the speed skater, Bob Costas and crew comment on his color. For them, it is not enough that he is a top American athlete representing our nation. No, for NBC, Shani is an African American athlete. And for some reason that's different. At least in their eyes.

I think in 22 years we've gone backwards and we are worse off than before. When Chris Matthews remarked after President Obama's State of the Union "I forgot he was black tonight", he revealed a much deeper, divisive and rather sinister undercurrent of thought. Does that mean that on a regular day he always sees President Obama as black? Odd... because I think most people just see him as President. Sure I see him as a bad, bad President but... not because he's black. Neither was Carter.

I will be routing for Shani tonight in his 1500 meter event and hope he gets another gold. But not because he's black. Because he's an American Olympian. I think that's reason enough.