It's Not About Race...Unless It Is
Last week on The Lavallee Sports Take Podcast Chris had a great take on an issue that seems to keep coming up in our discussions about sports, please listen for context, but I'll summarize:
Essentially the conversation was regarding some not-so-subtle indicators by Bleacher Report's Mike Freeman that future NFL first round pick Nick Bosa is a racist because he said these 3 things on his Twitter Page:
1. Black Panther is the worst Marvel Movie
2. Beyonce's Music is Trash
3. Colin Kaepernick is a Clown.
I'm not going to repeat Chris' argument, listen to the pod, but it does open the door to a subject that I feel like we need to discuss.
I'm a 28 year old White Male. I realize that this doesn't give me much of a soapbox, and maybe this won't be well received but honestly I don't care. I stand for equality whenever I have the opportunity and I don't feel the need to qualify myself as a 'non-racist' as many people of my skin color do.
The First Amendment gives me as much a right to talk about race as anyone and I'm going to get into it here.
We live in a country not that far removed from segregation and slavery. It will take generations to heal the damage that has been done by the ignorant and shameless unto an entire race of people. Racism is still rampant in many corners of this country and in many cases it doesn't even hide in the shadows (hello, Mr. President).
With so many black athletes, entrepreneurs, broadcasters, actresses and actors using their platform to speak out against inequality we are able to have a much more informed dialogue than we had even 15 years ago, but sometimes I feel that the conversation takes an unfortunate turn.
In the case of Mike Freeman, who implicated Nick Bosa but refused to come right out and say that he believed Bosa was exhibiting some racist tendencies, we see a black media member fishing for racism where there is none.
I don't know Nick Bosa, maybe he is a racist, but to imply that he is racist because he doesn't like Black Panther (which was a solid, not great superhero movie) or because he doesn't like Beyonce's music (I don't either, I think she's auto-tuned trash just like Kanye, Gaga and the rest of the Billboard Chart Sellouts) and Kaepernick, well thats a deeper subject.
When Colin started taking a knee during the anthem to say that he doesn't feel proud of what this country has come to represent I fully supported him. I said it, argued it, tweeted it, wrote about it. I still love that he did it, athletes should absolutely use their platform to speak out against gun violence, police brutality, workplace inequality and racism.
I applaud NBA players like Demar Derozan and Kevin Love for sharing their stories to raise awareness about mental illness. I applauded every damn NFL player on a knee or with a fist in the air during the anthem this past NFL season and truthfully, I wanted to be right there on a knee with them, but I'm not a professional athlete. I'm just a guy with a computer and a propensity for speaking my mind.
What Colin Kaepernick has done with his platform since that moment is where I draw a line and lean towards Nick Bosa's opinion that he is, in fact, a clown.
Kaepernick has taken the issue of race and of his outspoken nature and turned it into an excuse for his poor performance at his job as a football player. Kaep doesn't have a job because he isn't one of the best 64 quarterbacks in the NFL. He isn't on a practice squad because he is a 30 year old quarterback whose last two seasons in the league were marred by poor performances.
His stats in 2016 weren't horrible, but if you watched him play, it was clear he had lost all of his confidence which cannot be measured in statistics but is critical to performance at the highest level.
He has taken his platform and used it to whine, make excuses and sue the league for collusion. Sounds like an employee who screwed up his career and wants someone to blame.
And that is exactly the problem. We are always looking for a white guy to blame for a black guys struggles. The media does it constantly, like Mike Freeman raising a question about Steve Kerr calling Kevin Durant the 'ultimate luxury'. He is, because as an athlete, you are what you do, not what you say.
You are a set of skills, just like I am a set of skills as a bartender, just like a writer is a set of skills to a media outlet or a publisher. We are all assets, regardless of our race and when we become devalued, as Kaep has done through his play, not his political stance, we can expect the employer to look for another more valuable or perhaps more promising asset.
This all leads me to my greater point, which is that when a black media member headhunts for racism or paints a portrait of racism where there isn't any, it sets us back just as far as the white guy who doesn't realize that his comments are racist. The enemy here isn't racism, it is general ignorance.
Ignorance, a plight that we must all combat together, united as one unit against idiocy and cave-man ideology, is the reason that we are having a conversation about racism just because a white dude doesn't like Black Panther, Beyonce and thinks Colin Kaepernick is a clown, which as I chronicled above, is entirely true.
You cannot say that you want equality and then immediately turn around and use race or political affiliation or gender as the reason that your life isn't going the way you want it to... unless it is.
If you are the victim of racism, sexism, or targeting for your political stance then by all means fight like hell. Unleash the fire of a dozen generations of oppression and destroy the people who dared do that to you but before you go out there calling people a racist, before you cry collusion and sue the NFL, maybe have a little time to be introspective. Maybe take the time to say, 'man maybe I'm just not good enough', talk to people who have a different perspective from you.
I'm so damn tired of hearing about how everything is racist, everyone is god-damn offended by something. If you see real discrimination then fight, but we as a society have to stop being ready to swing every time we don't like something that someone thinks or says. So Nick Bosa doesn't like Black Panther, or Beyonce or Kaep, so Steve Kerr sees KD as the ultimate luxury, that's a far cry from discrimination.
You want to progress the cause, raise more awareness, change more opinions, enlighten people, lead a movement into the future so that our grandchildren stop seeing things as issues of race and only see them as human action? Then stop propagating false racism every time a white guy doesn't like something a black guy does or says.
Be a voice or reason, not a voice of rage.
Matthew Danieluk
Editor- The Sideline
