The NFL can't seem to decide if it's racist or not.
See here’s the think, folks. Sometimes it’s difficult writing humorous takes on the news of the week. Gathering and reporting hard facts is already an arduous task for news outlets whose primary goal is gathering and reporting hard facts. Imagine putting a satirical spin on those facts for…not quite a living per se, but an existence meager enough to keep the bad thoughts around but also at bay. And then, the universe floats an absolute gift right down the middle of the plate just as you’re hitting your hot streak.
The NFL has come to a settlement with a mess of former players of the African American persuasion regarding race-norming; a racist practice wherein racist doctors say some really racist things in their racist reports about black patients they probably had a hard time not being racist to as they’re checking their breathing, blood pressure, and heartrate. It involves giving black players a lower cognitive baseline for measuring the disastrous effects of concussions. They were basically saying brain injuries have less effect on black players because they’re stupider. Can we all just shudder and shake that one out of our system before we continue reading?
At this point, can we also stop saying “It’s (insert year), why are we still dealing with racism?!”. In the year 2525 (if man is still alive, if woman can survive), I imagine people will still have a problem with being racist because people are people and people are a sinful, wretched lot. Do these doctors and Roger Goodell sit in their darkened lairs, cackle and slap each other on the backs as they paint the walls with Elliott’s White Veneer, scrub up for a meal with Pears Soap, enjoy Aunt Jemima syrup on Uncle Ben’s rice, exclusively hire and cruelly boss Latino maids, and maybe sing One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians just so they can run the gamut of offensive rich, powerful, white guy stereotypes? I don’t believe in group identity, but I mean COME ON! I’m not sure I want to hang around in the same earth as these guys anymore.
And that’s the thing about the NFL. I wrote earlier this week about how doing the work once you’ve been canceled for bad opinions gives you the chance to sermonize at others who are guilty of the same social crime. I think we should assign the NFL more homework before they start doing this. WHOOPS! Dr. Harry Edwards’ Keep Moving the Sticks on racial equality commercial has definitely set that train to sale. Does Dr. Harry get to make commercials in conjunction with the NFL so long as he wears a bowtie and demurely serves drinks at their swanky banquets and remains sullenly quiet, wishing he could retort when Goodell remarks to someone at his table about how he would have never thought growing up in the 60’s and 70’s that he’d someday see black quarterbacks throwing the ball to white wide receivers while occasionally trading secretive and potentially explosive texts with Jon Gruden?
It’s no secret that conscious projection is a thing. Cheaters accuse their lovers of cheating because their own untrustworthiness makes them suspicious. The Good Book tells you to get the beam out of your own eye before you pull the mote out of your brother’s eye (i.e. don’t be a hypocrite about something you’re guilty of). The children’s apothegm of having three fingers pointing back at you when you point one at someone else also comes to mind.
And that’s maybe what’s going on here. The NFL got in bed with BLM and other racially active groups and started calling out racists like we’re back in second grade tattling to the teacher about Timmy Thompson tipping over our tin of pencils; possibly to distract attention from the fact that they still have phrenologists on staff, measuring skull shapes and espousing to the Mormon church’s erstwhile belief that blacks were descended from a crispy-critter Cain after God burnt his skin for murdering Abel. This sort of back-and-forth relationship the NFL has with racist ways makes me pine for the eggshell-walking days of my bipolar ex-girlfriend who might just break down sobbing and cut herself when I got her flowers (I wish that was a joke).
I will say again that I don’t believe in group identity. I think we are all individuals and are better suited to be judged as such. But my goodness, black people as a group have forgiven a lot. I’ve joked now and again about Democrats deviously testing the utter limits of black peoples’ patience for their paternalistic condescension and insulting manner of discussing them. Even though the NFL isn’t politics, they are definitely a powerful and influential entity; at least glancingly part of the system. To that point, I’d bring up a glaring contradiction from my book (linked below) about the people who decry “the system” as inherently and systemically racist being the same who want to vote in those who would make the system more overreaching and powerful. I’d bang my head against the wall trying to make sense of that one if I weren’t so busy sticking my head in a microwave trying to make sense of that one.
When will this all stop being one big joke? Upon the Lord’s return, I’d wager.
Hey there, beloved reader! Don’t stop reading yet. I enjoy writing and creating content for you. Recently, I took on the Herculean task of fixing America and wrote a book on the subject; the very literal-titled “I’ll Fix America Tonight”. There is a a link where you can conveniently add the book to your Amazon cart (if you’re flush with about $20 in cash right now) or your wish list (if around $20 in cash is a little too much right now, but hypothetically not too much in the near future). Buy it, and help end poverty (namely my poverty). Thanks for reading!
Image taken from:
https://www.profootballnetwork.com/nfl-logo-shield-history-design-meaning/