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Sports,
the games we play, the national pastimes, mirror our greater
polarized society and offer a selfie of who and what we are –
our “isms” become undeniable.
Last
week, Urban Meyer, a noted collegiate gridiron coach, recently
welcomed into the NFL country club as a Head Coach of the
Jacksonville Jaguars franchise/plantation, almost immediately
displayed his disconnection to the mainstream court of black public
opinion by hiring Chris Doyle, an identified and tagged Neanderthal
who is arguably unfit to work with Black men as a “strength and
conditioning coach.” Last year, while a college coach, Doyle
was forced out because of his comments and observations which
insulted, slighted and offended Black men and other marginalized
groups in this culturally polarized climate that is the United States
of America. Over a dozen former players stepped up and backed the
claims. He should have been out of a breadwinner gig for years in a
more enlightened wide world of sports. But no, Meyer disregarded the
obvious conflict of interest and arrogantly hired a man into a league
that is 70% Afro-American.
The
National Football League has a long history of reflecting the racism
and bigotry deeply embedded within American culture. Black Americans
have been discriminated against, treated differently and in an
inferior manner, in virtually all facets and aspects of the game
since the league’s inception a century ago. Discrimination on
the field and off - it’s the American, all-American way of
doing business. Capitalism, uncut, cutthroat capitalism practiced to
perfection by a cartel of small “a” aristocrats who are
content pimping and exploiting usually young, poor, and vastly
under-educated Black men – paying most hundreds of thousands
and some millions, while they pocket even more millions of dollars,
made off players’ blood, sweat, and tears – it’s a
beautiful, beautiful... beautiful game, baby.
How
can that be in a league that has been dominated by Black men for
decades now?
Because
franchise ownership, beyond resembling a Donald Trump support group,
is a white male country club with a Tobacco or cotton plantation
feel, flavor, taste, and texture to it – it smells like a sugar
plantation. As well, the fan base/paying customer is historically,
predominantly white men… whose, and this is critical –
political sentiments, beliefs, and opinions tilt “Right,”
far right, Trumpian Right. Owners, fans, players, coaches, and
support staff are sectors that are rife with individuals whose basic
perspective is “shut the (blank) up and run… boy.”
Oh,
forgive me, I can’t speak the ex small “p”
president’s name... “he
who must not be named” is
much more fitting, no?
Because
the players aren’t solidified as a labor source – they
weren’t willing (didn’t have the testicles/backbone) to
shut down the game when they branded and exiled Colin Kaepernick nor
do they shut down operations after an offseason such as we’ve
already witnessed, where overqualified Black men are rejected as head
coaches in favor of barely qualified young Great White Hopes who have
that Dr. Doolittle touch and communicate with the manimals
on the team.
Negro-whisperers
who can “talk to the animals.”
If,
if… if pigs could fly and snakes had hips – in a more
perfect world, the NFL players would walk out, not play in the pure
for-profit “pre-season” games... the round table of
redneck owners might sit up and smell the black coffee brewing.
However, as previously noted, that type of labor solidarity requires
testicles, brains, hearts, and spines – these big-time
“professional” big-cat gladiators don’t seem to
have the iron-stomach to sit down, to stand up for what’s
right.
Ain’t
that a...?
But
beyond the inside-the-pigskin-game
possibilities motivating this arrogant move, this type of blatant
disregard for Black players and coaches totally reflects the deeply
embedded disrespect held by so much of White America.
If
we step over to music, another world, another classic cultural
battlefield that reflects the actual, non-fictional “real
world,” we can examine the championing of country and western
singer Morgan Wallen, who now, after being busted, and after
apologizing for using America’s most endearing term for Black
folks, “Nigger,” his releases are atop the charts. It’s
highly unlikely he’s being elevated because he apologized but
rather because he’s being patted on the back, excused for his
“slipping” and saying what he really meant. His racist
insult is being neutralized, rationalized, minimized and justified by
the world of Country n’ Western music, an arena dominated and
predominated by “real” Americans, akin to NASCAR and
Pro-Wrestling. This is the cultural battlefield that is America; the
nation’s pastimes are interjected and soaked with the volatile
and combustible issue of race. There’s a segment of US society
that is determined to offset the righteous and just backlash to
Wallen’s words.
Counter-canceled.
I’m
telling you, it won’t be too long before somebody White is
strategically and tactically employing words like “Nigger,”
“Spear-chucker,” “Sambo,” and “Coon”
because those historical names are on the tip of Trump’s
America’s tongue. Coupled with the anger and frustration
appearing to be at the boiling point, it won’t be long. Behind
closed doors, those derogatory words are used today... like they were
yesteryear. Of course they are – the sentiments, attitudes,
opinions, and viewpoints that accompany those disrespectful terms are
obviously omnipresent.
There’s
a level of animosity and contempt for Black folks which is, I
believe, unbelievable and far beyond what Black Americans want to
“entertain.”
America
loved docile Joe Louis, Floyd Patterson, George Foreman, and Smokin’
Joe Frazier - Black gladiators who didn’t step out of their
lane, out-of their “place” and offer contradictory
viewpoints to master.
That same America despised “uppity” boxers like Jack
Johnson and Ali. It’s neither deep nor complex. You see it in
sports where the White fan base just wants Black guys to shut
up and run,
nigger.
Additionally, league ownership is arguably still working to undermine
the rise of the Black Quarterback - Cam Newton, Deshaun Watson,
Russell Wilson – it’s almost as if league-wide ownership
has decided these field Generals won’t be a part of balanced,
powerhouse teams, as if the league understands
the vast majority of their mainstream established (white) fan-base is
unwelcoming of Black Signal Callers and Head Coaches as the faces of
the franchise.
All
this results in the never-ending quest we see for illegitimate Great
White Hope
coaches and Quarterbacks around which to build a franchise.
Well-seasoned 50-year-old Black coaches can’t get a head
coaching job, yet White, unqualified 32-year-old boy geniuses are
hired every year.
No
different than the overall reception Black folks receive in the land
of freedom, liberty, and equality.
In Trump’s USA, Latino neighbors, Muslim classmates for their
children, a female boss, and Black in-laws are the nightmare they
fear. Black football coaches, superstar golden boy quarterbacks are
like having a Black President, and we all know what a nightmare that
was for this colorblind nation, no?
Nonetheless,
thank the gridiron Gods Eric Bieniemy didn’t get hired by the
Bengals, Jets, or Lions – where failure is preordained, where
coaches and players go to die.
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