A Dose Of Stereotypes, Courtesy Of Mark Belling

During the first hour of his show Thursday afternoon on 1130 WISN-AM, conservative talker Mark Belling talked about this evening's National Football League draft.

One topic: will Auburn's quarterback Cam Newton be the #1 pick. Belling said yes, and opined that Newton should have a good career, though Belling added Newton could end up like Dante Culpepper, also a physically-large quarterback with the Vikings, who couldn't take the pounding, or perhaps like the Titans Vince Young, another big guy at quarterback who has had his ups and downs and has been told by management he will not be brought back in 2012.

Then Paul, the program's screener, says he saw or heard an interview where the interviewer said Newton was too dumb to play quarterback.

Belling then launched into a discussion of smarts and other NFL quarterbacks: Donovan McNabb, dumb, yes, but who still had a good career, and Michael Vick - - dumb off the field and sometimes on the field with play selection, too, Belling observed.

All these quarterbacks are black.

I heard no mention, unless it came after I turned off the radio, of quarterbacks who were white and had been dumb.

Gee - - Brett Favre, off the field, and sometimes on it comes pretty easily to mind.

Or Gus Frerotte, the Washington quarterback, who celebrated a touchdown by head-butting a concrete wall and sat out with a concussion.

Most of the NFL's quarterbacks are white, and I'll bet there's barely been a week in the history of the league that some quarterback (likely white) - - even a star or superstar - - didn't mismanage the clock or throw an ugly interception or fumble the ball to lose the game.

And why is it that the quarterbacks Belling compared Cam Newton to physically were also black? There are plenty of big, strong white quarterbacks.

On this point, Belling is not alone: you hear these same-race comparisons made often by sports announcers. Ask yourself when you last heard a while athlete - - say at the moment he hit a key home run or stole a base or scored a touchdown - - compared on the spot by an announcer to a black athlete and an identical achievement?

Compare skills, statistics, or aesthetics, or attitudes.  But make it race-neutral.