Bill Maher on “Utah Racism” and Rudy Gobert

On the latest episode of Bill Maher's podcast "Club Random" he talked about former Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert doing an interview with The New York Times after he was traded from the Jazz. Maher's podcast often touches on race and politics and when he brought up Gobert my ears perked up (even though he was mispronouncing Gobert's name).

Here's what he said.

Maher: "...[Gobert] is French and Black, so he played in Utah for years for the Jazz and he got traded and there was a New York Times article and the headline was something like, you know, ‘Rudy Gobert on the playoffs and the NBA and racism in Utah.’ And I thought okay here it comes because Utah, very white of course, and they get to the question: ‘Rudy what about the racism in Utah?’ And Rudy goes: ‘oh no everybody was awesome there. Everybody was great to me and my family.’ And you could almost feel the New York Times reporter being disappointed…That’s the type of [bleep] that makes me see red."

(It starts at 1:22:20)

I think Maher has the same frustration that a lot of Jazz fans have. That because Utah is a majority white state that it wouldn't be a good place for black NBA players. We've heard this narrative for a hundred years. Maher is saying that the NYT reporter was probably disappointed by Gobert's "unexpected answer" that he loved Utah.

I'm happy Gobert has good things to say about Utah just like most of former Jazz players do regardless of their race.