Doyel: Ironic ... and ridiculous
There is no racism in America. None, zippo, not an ounce of it.
It doesn't exist. Gone is the 'R' word. We all hold hands and make love with our interracial faces and sing bi-racial songs of multiracial joy while snuggled safely in our Cabalanasian Womb of Harmony. Halle-racial-lujah.
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| Remember, the Eagles were sorry before Donovan arrived. (AP) |
Or in response to McNabb fans will say -- and I always love this one -- why do you people talk so much about race? (Based on some of the e-mail I receive, sometimes I think "You People" is my first name.) The notion that only African-Americans raise issues of race or do so disproportionately is the biggest of all lies. Whites discuss racial issues as much as blacks or any other ethnicity. (See: Clay Travis.)
But let's not forget there is no racism in America. Not a damn drop.
I've always liked McNabb and I appreciate him even more now. Good for him. Good for not doing what so many star black athletes do, which is make their millions while losing their soul, their ethnicity and their grasp on reality (see: Tiger Woods).
Good for McNabb, although, of course, as we all know, racism is a figment of the imagination. McNabb told HBO that African-American quarterbacks are held to a higher standard and face more pressure than white quarterbacks due to their scarcity. He added there are still people who don't want blacks playing the position.
Well, duh.
The issue of race and quarterbacks has received a thorough vetting over the past decades but this kind of refreshing honesty from an athlete makes me all warm inside.
Read carefully what McNabb is saying. He is not talking about NFL teams being biased. He is not saying athletes don't get booed or should not be held to a higher standard. McNabb is saying something entirely different.
"There's not that many African-American quarterbacks, so we have to do a little bit extra," McNabb tells HBO. "Because the percentage of us playing this position, which people didn't want us to play ... is low, so we do a little extra.
"I pass for 300 yards. Our team wins by seven, [mimicking] 'Ah, he could've made this throw, they would have scored if he did this,' " McNabb states.
Again, dead on. And so is McNabb's notion that the media is tougher on black quarterbacks than on players like Carson Palmer and Peyton Manning. "Let me start by saying I love those guys," McNabb said. "But they don't get criticized as much as we do. They don't."
Both players are great examples of McNabb's point. Until last year, Manning was a perennial playoff loser but still the recipient of love notes from most football writers and columnists.
I'm not saying Manning was never criticized. He was. It's that the criticism was rarely accompanied with the kind of venom and harshness that McNabb receives despite the fact Manning's choke jobs -- with far better talent around him -- were notorious and historical.
Palmer, despite an anemic playoff background, has received the kind of magnanimous love from the media I have rarely seen. Excuses are made for Palmer's lack of playoff appearances while hatchets are buried into the back of McNabb and some other black throwers who possess more success.
There are lots of nuances and tertiary cracks and crevices to this story. One of them is how some black quarterbacks like McNabb and Daunte Culpepper (when he was in Minnesota) are seen as too close to management while Brett Favre, Manning and others are not.
One of the greater double standards was the Jacksonville Jaguars at one point asking their former quarterback Byron Leftwich to take speech therapy lessons. I have seen plenty of white throwers who don't properly conjugate but are not asked to be linguists for the United Nations.
I love these kinds of stories because they shatter the false and even dangerous image that our country is some sort of racial utopia. Blacks and whites can look at the same portrait and see two totally different things. This issue is no different.
I know Ron Jaworski was also booed in Philadelphia, but if his name were Ron McNabb, the booing would have been fiercer. I know that brave pioneers like James Harris were treated far worse than McNabb, but that still does not negate McNabb's point.
Sometimes I hear the criticism of McNabb and you would think his name was Donovan Grossman. That is the core of McNabb's argument. That he sometimes gets a little extra shot to the sternum from fans and some in the media because of the color of his skin.
There is a biography of Condoleezza Rice called Twice As Good. The title refers to a common saying throughout the history of African-Americans. Blacks have to work twice as hard to be the equal of whites -- in the eyes of whites.
That is also McNabb's message. A bad throw by McNabb is seen as doubly errant to some whites.
Or the fact that the Eagles were one of the sorriest teams in football B.M. -- Before McNabb -- and is now a league power is more quickly forgotten.
But I'm wrong. We're a colorblind society. So never mind. My bad.
The following is what we will now hear in the wake of this story.
The blacks won't be happy until all quarterbacks are black. All blacks do is play the race card. Maybe if African-Americans pulled up their droopy pants there would be more black quarterbacks. Mike Freeman is part of the black KKK.
Did I miss anything?
Of course, I'm wrong.
Because there is no racism in America.
Not an ounce of it.
