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By Ben Fowlkes

Here’s what I learned watching BET’s “Iron Ring” on Tuesday night: 1) Contrary to what you might think, rappers like T.I. and Lil Jon don’t really know much about fighting, and 2) Black people and white people do things differently, though the end result is usually pretty similar.

Maybe I’m oversimplifying this.  Maybe I’ve watched too much “Comic View” lately, where approximately sixty percent of the jokes make reference to the differences between white people and black people.  And while, yes, it is hilarious to imagine how a black Pope would do things much differently than a white one (would the Pope-mobile have spinners and a dope sound system? yeah, but they wouldn’t mess with the bulletproof glass), it may or may not be relevant here.

The first two episodes (though they were a half-hour each and ran back-to-back, thus forming one hour-long episode) of “Iron Ring” focused on assembling the respective teams, all of which feature celebrity “owners”.  Some of the owners seemed to take more of an interest in their teams than others. Ludacris, for example, was fairly hands on. T.I.?  Man, just call him fifteen minutes before the fights start and he and his posse, including “Krazy Horse” Bennett, will get there when they get there.

Much of the show focused on the chaotic tryout process, which featured a lot of yelling and a lot of exercises and drills that seemed if they were being made up on the spot.  Being a white dude, just watching these segments made me confused and anxious.

Why does everyone have to yell, I wondered.  Why can’t we all just do this in an orderly fashion?  I have an idea, let’s give everyone a number that we’ll write on their arm in magic marker, then we’ll call out numbers 1-15 first, then 15-30, and so on, and we’ll all keep detailed notes and Steve, you bring notebooks for everyone and Marty, you bring the magic markers, and…

You see what happened there?  Damn, I’m white.