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Boxer Bernard Hopkins Questions Donovan McNabb’s Blackness. Why? You Got Us.

Nothing about this makes sense to us. 46-year-old boxer Bernard Hopkins has a title bout coming up against a fighter 17 years his junior, Jean Pascal. A championship-level fight like this warrants extreme dedication, so when Hopkins spoke with reporters recently, what did he talk about? His strategy for preparing? What it would mean to be the oldest major boxing champion?

If you’d thought, “No, no, forget boxing: he’s just going to focus on questioning Donovan McNabb’s blackness,” you would have been correct. You also would have been the only person in the world to be correct, because, well, why the hell is Bernard Hopkins questioning Donovan McNabb’s blackness?

Forget the fact that they play different sports, which would make Hopkins an unlikely candidate to comment on McNabb to begin with. Consider also that, as far as we can tell, the degree of Donovan McNabb’s blackness is not a sticking point for anyone on the planet except Bernard Hopkins. Before we go any further, and to give our addled brains a much-needed rest, here’s some of what Hopkins said:

“Forget this,” Hopkins said, pointing to his own dark skin. “He’s got a suntan. That’s all.”

[...]

“Why do you think McNabb felt he was betrayed [when the Eagles traded him]? Because McNabb is the guy in the house, while everybody else is on the field. He’s the one who got the extra coat. The extra servings. ‘You’re our boy,’ ” Hopkins said, patting a reporter on the back in illustration. “He thought he was one of them.”

You mean the guy who once said that black quarterbacks are treated differently from white quarterbacks thought he was “one of them”? The guy who possibly held that opinion because he was once, Black Sports Online’s Marcas Grant noted, thrust into the middle of a “quarterbacks and race” controversy by Rush Limbaugh? That’s who thinks he’s “one of them”?

Such strange statements make one wonder where the venom comes from on Hopkins’ part. Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Daily News provides some context:

Hopkins has acknowledged he felt snubbed by McNabb when Hopkins visited the Eagles practice facilities. Since the snub, McNabb squarely has been in Hopkins’ sights.

Ah. Well, we can’t be totally sure if McNabb really meant to snub Hopkins or not, but given the level of rationality Hopkins exhibited with the above comments, we have a guess. And if indeed it’s all in Hopkins’ head, we guess we can’t completely blame elite athletes for exaggerating or flat-out inventing slights and using them as fuel, never letting them go – not unless we want to stop enjoying the greatness of Michael Jordan, anyway.

But we feel bad for McNabb, because he doesn’t deserve this stuff being said about him. Grant begins his piece as follows:

For a guy who generally goes about his own business and rarely says much about other people, Donovan McNabb catches a lot of hate.

Exactly. When did McNabb become this controversial figure? Never, it seems, in the mind of anyone but Hopkins. CBS Sports’ Mike Freeman voiced his (strong) objections in a series of tweets, some of which read:

Bernard Hopkins says Donovan McNabb isn’t black enough. Shut up, Bernard Hopkins.

Some of these dumbasses don’t know themselves what it means to be black.

Hopkins called McNabb a house negro. Show me one instance where that’s true. ONE!

I expect this to cross the AP wire any moment. Bernard Hopkins: Martin Luther King wasn’t black enough.

Hayes from the Philadelphia Daily News didn’t get it either, sarcastically referring to the “issue” of McNabb’s relative blackness “what really matters.” No one, it seems, gets it – except Hopkins. And McNabb’s not talking, so we won’t know his thoughts.

But we don’t need to. McNabb goes about his business the way he sees fit. He happens to be black. Last season’s disappointments notwithstanding, he’s had plenty of success over the years doing things his way. No sane person would begrudge him that…but if there’s anything his latest rant taught us, it’s that “sanity” isn’t something we ought to associate with Bernard Hopkins.