Two great football games were played on Sunday. Two teams are left to play for the Super Bowl. The winner is world champ!! These teams, like all football teams, have head coaches. The two coaches happen to be black. These are the first 2 black head coaches ever in the Super Bowl. That is a good thing, however, the media needs to leave it at that. I listened last night to ESPN News and heard the biggest pile of crap announced. Imagine that a Sports channel has digressed into the morass of reporting racism.
Bill Parcels resigned as the Head Coach of the Dallas Cowboys yesterday. The first ESPN report indicated that he chose his announcement time to move the "spotlight", not from the Super Bowl, but from the 2 African American Head coaches in it. What a load!! The reporter went on to state that Bill Cowher's resignation, as well, was timed to take away from these 2 mens' accomplishments. Hogwash!!
I have been around football since I played in elementary school. Parcels' resignation was announced so that the public would know the facts, and that Dallas could get a replacement to the Senior Bowl game this weekend to evaluate talent. Cowher resigned after the season. Unfortunately, this comes during the playoffs. If correct, it was during the first week of said playoffs when Chicago had a bye and Indy was playing, along with 3 other teams. Those teams are coached by white men. No mention of showing them up, just of the 2 black coaches.
I am tired of the media dredging up inane arguments to keep the chasm of racism alive and well. We are all Americans- period. We are not Latino-Americans, Latvian-Americans, African-Americans, and/or whatever type of ethnicity one was derived from. This country was established as a great melting pot from all other countries. As a people, we are nothing more than what we allow ourseves to be. If we continue to let the press tell us that people are different[based on skin color], then guess what, they will be different always. Accept a man for what he is and what he stands for, not because he or she is "whatever".
I think that ESPN owes these 2 coaches an apology for demeaning them. I know that neither man wants to be in the spotlight, and that both want the attention focused on the game and their teams. Its too bad that announcers can comment on opinion, stating it as fact, without regard to the consequences. I wonder what would have happened if "Jimmy the Greek" were still alive and referred to these men derogatorily. There would be hell to pay - Bank on it!! But an announcer that is a minority can spew his vile venom of racism and it is accepted. I think that this is deplorable and should be changed immediately.
Sorry for this rant.
Ed --- Reid beat me to this point so I'll just offer a post-script: Out of one side of their mouths, the media, PC-dogooders, politicians, and of course Jesse and Al tell us that we should be a color-blind society, that we should look beyond the color of a man's skin(or gender, orientation, handicap, creed, or nationality) and recognize his accomplishments as stand-alone qualifications for praise. Then, out of the other side, they insult accomplished minorities by qualifying their achievments in the context of arbitrary statistics like skin color. By making a fuss about coach Dungy and Smith's skin color, ESPN is conveying the insulting message that a black man achieving greatness in his field is somehow unexpected and therefor noteworthy. If a man should not be criticized because of his skin color, then why should a man be praised because of his skin color? ESPN should treat coaches Dungy and Smith as equals with other coaches by not obsessing over their race, and give them credit for achieving greatness as football coaches, not black football coaches.
ESPN(and PC society) demand that all men be treated as equals while paradoxically celebrating their differences.
12 comments:
You two white boys don't know what it's like for a black man to reach a level in his profession previously unattained. They deserve credit and their race should be celebrated.
Their race should be mentioned, briefly. Unless their race had something to do with winning, then it should not be anything more than a footnote on their careers as coaches.
Billb: I am sorry that "us 2 white boys" offended you. However, the response you wrote is not exactly correct. Every year the Super Bowl has 2 teams participating. Each team consists of coaches, players, trainers, etc. This will be Super Bowl game #41. That means that some 60-70 different head coaches have participated in the game, therefore, thes guys are not the first coaches to get there, nor are they te first black coaches to work the game - just the first black head coaches. No one talked about the first "black" player to play in this game, 'cause it happened the first time. When did the first black trainer get there - no one knows, and most do not take the time to care. There is always a first at something. This person, hopefully acts with high class and diplomacy, and therefore makes the path easier for the next person to travel.
I feel that these 2 men are well qualified for the job, and have done their jobs well. The point, however, is that I don't think it should accepted by society for anyone to try to force 2 dissimilar events together to create a racial issue. I want to move on.
When asked what he felt his greatest accomplishment was, Jackie Robinson simply answered " I played the game as 1 of the best". He could have climbed on a soapbox, but, instead chose the high road. I feel that Dungy and Smith will do the same. Hopefully we all can.
I think that black coaches have been hired, and more importantly fired, without fanfare is the best testament to true racial equality and color-blindness in the NFL.
Black guys are getting hired because of their abilities, just like the white guys. Black guys are getting fired for their lack of winning just like white guys. What's more equal than that?
Dupree: Great answer. I wish I had been as eloquent and succinct as your comment.
Reid, some people(BillB) reflexively fall into old racial diatribes regardless of the facts of progress.
No matter what is given, it's never enough to people like that. They don't know any other way to think.
If they acknowledge progress, it's with the understanding that more still needs to be done.
People like that have no joy or contentment in their lives. Their white guilt won't allow it.
Dupree, white guilt has nothing to do with seeing the world as it is rather than how guys like you, and the authors of this blog, like to think it is.
As a microcosm, professional sports in America exist in various states of employment-apartheid. The majority of the workers are black, while the sport is largely controlled by rich white men. The ratios are disproportional to the overall population ratios.
Anytime you have a racial minority set themselves up as the wealthy ruling class over the poor majority working class, you essentially have an apartheid situation. It's only sports and not the whole country, but it indicates a level of racism that exists in sports. That's why it's important to celebrate the accomplishments of these two coaches in the context of their race.
To billb: I have sat aside and read thru the various comments til now. As another black man, I find your stance to be somewhat old fashioned. I grew up in the north and chose to move to Alabama to live. This is a good place with good people (for the most part). All areas have bottom feeders that give it a bad name. I digressed. The sports industry is nothing close to apartheid, and if you understood the conceptual difference, you would see that all professional sports allow its players to make enormous sums of money for performing a game task. Most people are envious of the skill levels and athletic abilities. You on the other hand are trying to create a situation comparing a people that had no rights, no income, and no voice in any matters to wealthy, if not rich atheletes. The USA allows all people the right to voice their opinion and to better themselves, if they so choose. Get your mind out of the 19th century and look at the present. If we, as black people ant to see professional sprors teams owned and managed by blacks, then we had better start singling out those potential wealthy peole and asking them to get into the fray. If we want to see more black political leaders, then we had better start educating the kids. The biggest problem faced by blacks today is that we hurt ourselves by our actions. I am nt a sell out, I am a rational man trying to raise kids to see a world full of color. Color should be okay. Judge a man by his actions, not his skin.
I understand the differences between "employment-apartheid" and actual apartheid. I chose the phrase to illustrate the disparity between those controlling the sport and those doing the work.
But isnt the disparity of ownership vs. labor present in all forms of labor. I notice that the Booker T. Washington Insurance Co. in Birmingham, a black owned company, has executives making large sums of money and also employees making minimum levels. I guess thats okay when all parties involved are black. No one gives credit to the owner, who has a huge amount of risk and extremely large fixed costs day in and day out, only grief. Let's be fair and equitable when shoveling blame and tossing around verbage to try to illcit sympathetic resonses.
This discussion is drifting. I repeat my original point, coaches Smith and Dungy should be celebrated as people of color achieving greatness in their white-dominated profession.
Coaches Smith and Dungy should be given the accolades for coaching their respective teams to the Super Bowl. The person with the race problem seems to be you billb not the rest of those who have chosen to weigh in on this issue.
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