Since former Ole Miss star Michael Oher revealed recently that his life depicted in the movie and book “The Blind Side” is much different than reality, and that’s led to some old comments for author of the book Michael Lewis to resurface.
Lewis, who is a friend of the Tuohy family who brought in Oher, had a revealing and controversial interview with Google around the time his book was coming out 16 years ago, which has now resurfaced.
Lewis had some unflattering words about Oher’s intelligence and the use of black athletes in college athletics.
“Google him now, he’s on the dean’s list at Ole Miss, which says a lot about the dean’s list at Ole Miss,” Lewis said, leading to laughs from the Mountain View audience.
Then Lewis added: “There are schools like Ole Miss, and Ole Miss isn’t even the best example, they seem mainly to exist to sustain a football team. And then they take these kids, many of whom are from the underclass — poor black kids from ghettos around America — and let them into the school. … And then they make a track for them inside the school — and the track is not designed for them to get an education or even to engage with the school outside the football team.”
Lewis accused black athletes of majoring in criminal justice because it’s an easy degree saying “all the poor black kids are majoring in criminal justice,” but tried to praise Oher later in the conversation for engaging in his studies. Oher would go on and receive his degree from Ole Miss.
{Google}
