BLACK & WHITE ISSUE
Goodell actions amplify, rather than quell, NFL’s misguided social issues
AT ROUGHLY $40 million per, the NFL employs more than a mere commissioner. In Roger Goodell, the league also contracts a social engineer, the kind who cowardly chooses to ignore those problems he should fix — the increasing criminality of NFL players comes to mind — in favor of fixing what’s not broken.
To that end, this season Goodell’s plan is to include two pregame national anthems at marquee events — the traditional one, which I guess now is explained as the “white” anthem, and the new addition and largely unknown “black” national anthem.
To think that Goodell is dense enough to believe that such a separate-but-equal public relations scheme will promote good will as opposed to divisiveness.
What will happen this season? Should black fans stay seated during the “white” anthem? After all, Goodell has implied that the standard version is not for blacks.
Should white customers remain seated during the “black” anthem? Goodell has clearly indicated that it’s not being played for the NFL’s white fans.
And what to do with those misguided souls, black and white, who might still feel as if we should all be united under just one anthem? Should they seek race counseling? Will group sessions be segregated?
Will there be enough security at games willing to break up race-based brawls?
Why doesn’t Goodell have NFL stadiums further divide by race? Have race-specific entrances, water fountains, concession stands, parking lots, rest rooms? His anthem plan resurrects such long-gone racist history.
Only a pandering boob who exercises no foresight would even consider such a plan, let alone enact it. But Goodell has allowed
attending or watching an NFL game to become a political exercise, an avenue to express and stress racial discord as opposed to watching a football game.
And as a white minority — I’m also a Jew — who was raised to recognize wrong from right and never black from white — I’m tired, make that sick and tired, of being tacitly condemned as a racist by sports commissioners who work in mortal fear of being called racist by the selectively blind, outraged, wishful and politically ambitious.
If Goodell truly believes that the NFL’s white fans are in need of a racial awakening and makeover, just say that, rather than install repugnant reminders, starting with separate national anthems.