Race, Sport and "Character Issues:" A Study in Hypocrisy

Race, Sport and “Character Issues: A Study in Hypocrisy

By: Matthew C. Stelly, Director

Uhuru Sasa Research Institute

Character issues. That’s what these sports pundits call someone who has made it into the professional ranks (or who has the potential to do so) who may have run afoul of the law or gotten into trouble some other way.

The current talk is of the New England Patriots, a team that is supposed to be the “model” of how to draft and recruit players of “high caliber.” Tight end Aaron Hernandez has been arrested for murder (and possible drug dealing). the starting cornerback, (Dennard) been arrested for a DUI in, of all places, hick-ass Lincoln, Nebraska (undoubtedly chasing some white woman ala Mike Rozier back in the day) and before that supposedly “assaulting a police officer.” As a black man, I know that this type of charge is usually a bullshit one, akin to “obstructing justice.” These are tags that these cops place on us after they try to manhandle one of us and end up getting their asses kicked. It may not even be physical; they might try to crack a joke or insult a brutha and he ends up sounding “uppity” and he gets handcuffed, a club upside the head (known as a “tune up”) and then charged as if HE was the one who INSULTED the cop.

Back to character issues. These white men who make decisions to pay all these money out to these bruthas to dunk, run touchdowns and hit home runs for them don’t give a shit about “character.” Broadcasters talk about how team after team passed on drafting Hernandez because they said he was “trouble” and that Bill Bellichek and the Patriots took a chance on him and picked him up in the fourth round of the draft. “They took a chance on him.” White men don’t “take chances” on black people and I’m going to explain why I say this.

Bellichek is not an idiot. If he heard that Hernandez was a thug, hung out with a gang or sold ‘erbs on campus, he had a decision to make: how much money can I make off this guy before he finally goes over the deep end and begins working toward kingpin status in the real world? Because believe me, they know it’s coming. So it’s not like they didn’t know. These men don’t give a shit about character. They knew Randy Moss liked to smoke dope but they bought him in anyway. Ayub Kalib pistol whipped some brother who was messing with his sister,, and he’s still on the team. I have more proof.

Look at Ron Artest, now known as Meta World Peace. This guy has bipolar issues, has charged into the stands when he played for Indiana (and rightfully so) to kick some white boys’ ass for calling him a nigger. The Lakers bought him in and he helped them to a championship. And it goes on and on.

Here’s my point.

Who is the white man to talk about someone having “character issues” after the kid has skipped through classes in college, screwed women with no sense of compunction, gotten passed through classes, had term papers done for him, and still never graduated? Even the ones that did graduate do so having committed the unethical actions I’ve outlined. I taught at the University of Nebraska and was a grad student who wrote term papers for the football team back in 1985-86 – so I KNOW what I’m talking about.

“Character issues” my ass. They’re being drafted and treated like slaves for what they can do with their bodies. There was a photo that used to circulate back in the days of enslavement of a white man standing next to a muscular black man in chains. The black man, however, had no head. The caption underneath the picture read, “the ideal slave.” This is the perfect way to describe these professional gladiators who you see with diamond earrings, multi million dollar homes and extravagant cars and lifestyles. “Character issues”? All this money and “stuff” is the reward for what they do on the field. If the white man were so concerned about character issues, why does he promote activities and philosophies that show a blatant lack of character.

You hear it in basketball: “rough him up,” “put your hands on him,” “if he comes to the basket, hack him” and so on. Promoting black on black atrocies. What about football? Remember the “bounty” that Sean Payton had for his players if they put an opposing player out of the game? Do you really think that this is the first time it happened? How about sliding into second base in baseball, spikes high in an attempt to “break up” the double play? When Jackie Robinson was playing they came in with spikes to try to hurt him. And even today, pitchers throw 90-mile an hour fastballs at batters on purpose. What about the “base brawls” that break out from time to time? And I won’t even talk about hockey because it is legitimized violence with the addition of sticks and flying pucks.

Character issues? How can you have bad character if you’re in a den of thieves? How can you have character issues when the people who own the stadiums and the team got their money through unethical means in the first place and who, at one point, agreed with the racial segregation that permeated this country. Wasn’t that the ultimate form of “bad character,” the act of legally separating human beings based on the color of their skin?

If you want to get philosophical and universalist about the issue, I’ll tell you this: everybody in America who is a part of this system has a character issue of some kind – mostly in the “lacking” department. How can you not? You work for a system that is hated the world over, that has instigated and participated in war after war, most of them against people of color, that denied women the right to vote in this, a so-called democracy for almost 200 years, enslaved an entire race of people based on a suggestion from a Catholic priest and, oh, let us not even deal with what those Catholic priests are doing to young boys or what Baptist ministers are doing to their congregations and the women of those congregations.

When it comes to women, they are no better. They have been forced to fend for themselves and the gender bias that they have been victims of for all these years has led to a deep-seated contempt for men. They may not say it, or even realize it, but this whole thing about “independence” has devolved from freedom to actualize themselves to “I don’t need no man.” The ranks of “bisexual relationships (no such thing) have increased, the rise in female headed households has led to more “dating” and “friends with benefits” and the myth that marriage is “the only way.” Women have become more about business and finances than about the bullshit that men have fed them all these years about “courtin’ and sparkin’.”

Character issues – or the lack of character? Look at the behaviors and attitudes of the children. I had never heard a kid tell his mother to “fuck herself” or “get the hell away from me” until I started having white friends when I was in elementary school. White kids have always been fucked up – they were the original juvenile delinquents. They were the ones who became beatniks and, clad in black leather coats, would have “rumbles” with other white boys and of course, it they could catch one of us alone, beat the shit out of us. Their mobocracy mentality is inherited from the lynch mob mentality of their ancestors.

What is the basis of these “character issues” that black athletes have imposed on them but nobody else seems to believe in or practice? In America, “the man with the gold makes the rules.” And this is way it has always been. Education was open only to wealthy white males at the outset, and public access was open only to white folks. This is the mentality that continues to exist in this country. You can’t say “no niggers allowed” legally, but you can create a situation by creating scenarios where black people and others cannot afford to get into a social setting, live in a particular area or for that matter, even attend certain meetings at the job because it’s only open to “upper management” which, in most cases, excludes people of color (the niggerologist jobs like Affirmative Action officer, Diversity Specialist and Minority Affairs Director aren’t even tied to the organization chart, let alone considered “upper management”).

“Character issues,” you say? These white men who recruit and “draft” these black men to play ball for them could care less about character. They are more concerned about police records and whether or not you’re “on paper,” as they say. If you’re a thug, but you have a minor arrest record, then that’s okay. There are guys being drafted who did the crime but were able to plead out to a reduced charge. Remember Lawrence Phillips the running back from the University of Nebraska? That muthafucka climbed up the side of a white girls apartment building and then sexually assaulted her. Tom Osborne, the coach, continued to defend him. He nevertheless got drafted, went to the professional ranks and continued fucking up. He was traded a couple of times and then faded away in relative obscurity.

But those making the decisions saw him on television playing for Nebraska and were under the assumption that if you play for Tom Osborne, then you might be able to be “rehabilitated.” But what they didn’t know is that Osborne was out of the loop and brothers were running through downtown Lincoln doing what they wanted to do, including bar fights, sexual assaults and even break ins. Osborne didn’t do shit, except take the problem and arrange for them to get in the pro draft and pass the problem on to somebody else.

Character issues? The white man’s “win at all costs” is at the basis of all of these pro sports and the gamblers in Las Vegas and Atlantic City benefit from this. The stadiums generate money, ticket sales generate money, the bruthas don’t get any of the money from those posters that whitey sells. Where is the character of these people? Where is Nike’s character? How about Adidas and Converse? They spend tens of millions on commercials marketing to young people, implying that the shoe will make them better athletes. Is that ethical?

A corrupt system that taps into America’s lust for violence is at the core of professional sports. The college level is like a “farm club” where the black athlete supposedly “learns” about the game and prepares to get paid. Of course, he gets paid in college too, but the coaches, athletic directors and others lie and keep the money on the downlow. And yet they are responsible for letting the people at the next level (professional ranks) know whether or not the kid is “of good character” or not.

Voltaire De Cleyre, poet and essayist from way back in the day, is quoted as having said, “To me any dependence, any thing which destroys the complete selfhood of the individual, is in the line of slavery.” In my view, to talk of and/or speak out about, “character issues” when it comes to professional athletes, the back room rules of any athletic event or league, or when it comes to college athletes, is like speaking out against prostitution while you buy booty from hos downtown. ”