Why would the phrase "clown show" make you think "black"?
If he said "I would put KNuth on stage even if he wanted to launch a clown show", it doesn't sound like a mocking statement, but one of unconditional approval.
If he said "I would put KNuth on stage even if he wanted to launch a clown show", it doesn't sound like a mocking statement, but one of unconditional approval.
I'd put Knuth on stage, because, he's Knuth. You know he'd have something interesting to say that would be relevant to your audience, assuming your audience was the typical reader of this site, of course.
My wife is an avid cook. If she attended a conference on cooking and the organizer put Knuth on stage because he wanted greater representation on cooking from the programming community, even if Knuth was secretly a brilliant cook, the audience would dismiss him.
This is, obviously, further complicated by the fact that putting a person on stage because of an attribute that no person has control over is an unacceptable bias. I'm not saying that's what happened (clearly it's not because the guy had been successful in the past), I'm just putting into context how a statement like that is perceived.
"In the documentary, which airs November 13, Arrington talked about his difficulties finding African-American entrepreneurs to launch their ventures at his TechCrunch Disrupt conference -- and suggested he would accept almost any black entrepreneur, regardless of merit."
Read the article for the full context. It's pretty clear what he's saying. http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/27/technology/silicon_valley_di...