Intentional Foul » Pearlz N The Hood

Pearlz N The Hood

September 25th, 2009 at 9:51 am
By Chris

Bruce Pearl gets mad love in the hood, as well as the state of Tennessee. Although, that love apparently dries out when Pearl is making jokes about a group of people known for white robes and hoods; a group founded in Tennessee. What happened was Pearl was talking about who difficult it can be to mesh the different personalities on his team because his players are from different areas. Some are from inner-city area — the hood — while others are from rural areas, or, places that have people who wear hoods. Now, to me, this is a harmless way of saying his team is diverse in a racial sense and getting these players to bond in a team chemistry environment isn’t necessarily easy.

However, because Pearl used the word “hood,” the content of his message has been completely disregarded.

Instead, the words are now more important than the message they were sending. And now, Pearl is having to issue apologies for his comments, which apparently offended folks who thought Pearl was saying Grainger County was full of KKK members.

Sigh. GoVolsExtra.com has Pearl’s statement:

“This morning while speaking at a private kick-off event for a great organization that benefits many local charities, I made a statement in jest to describe the diverse group our staff recruits year-in and year-out.

“Unfortunately while I was trying to excite the crowd and encourage employees to give, I made an inappropriate joke. I certainly did not intend to offend anyone and I apologize to everyone, especially the people of Grainger County.”

I mean, it’s not like Pearl doesn’t have history on his side, seeing how the Klan was founded in the rural counties of Tennessee. Nevertheless, the heads of the politically correct have scored another victory; this time for white folks whose level of sensitivity is probably a little too high. I’m guessing having a sense of humor — albeit, one that doesn’t lose sight of the historical significance — about your state’s past is too much to ask.

For those Volunteer fans who might be distraught over this, Busted Coverage has just the thing to cheer you up: