Jalen Rose stands by his Duke comments: ‘I’ve never seen Coach K in Detroit’

Video below of an appearance by Jalen Rose and Jimmy King on ESPN’s First Take this morning, explaining their earlier comments about Duke’s recruiting methods, and the term “Uncle Tom,” which Rose leveled at black Duke players during filming of ESPN’s Fab Five documentary. It’s an interesting give-and-take, but unfortunately marked with the unwillingness of Skip Bayless to ask the pertinent question of Rose: “Do you THINK TODAY that Duke’s black players are Uncle Toms?”

Because Rose dances around that question with every interview. He always falls back on the “That’s what I thought when I was 17″ line, but never reveals if he thinks that now. Then he typically launches into all the reasons that Duke today doesn’t recruit “B level” black players from poorer backgrounds.

Rose: “Now I understand what [the Duke] program represents. … I get all that. But the bottom line is that they do recruit only a certain kind of player.”

Uncle Toms?

“That’s what I thought when I was 17 …” (Repeat as necessary).

Then, toward the end: “I haven’t seen Coach K in Detroit. But that’s just me.”

Kerosene, meet fire. Anyway, here’s the interview (if video isn’t working, see the interview at this link):

The Rose quote which most sticks with me is this: “The term Uncle Tom, in essence, if you look it up, the definition is a person who is subservient to whites.” Interestingly, while most dictionaries indeed define Uncle Tom as a servile black man and that’s how most would define it today, that’s not how the author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote the character in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe’s Uncle Tom is in reality a noble character who stands up for what he believes and is admired by everyone. People who have read the book know that.

Call it the Fab Four Magical Bitterness Tour. I’m sure there’s more to come.

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Standing by comments about Duke? [ESPN First Take]