Post by TheShadow on Dec 8, 2003 19:42:02 GMT -5
www.oaklandtribune.com
by Art Spander
It should have been as obvious as black and white. The way some Raiders players responded to what they construed as the questioning of their football intelligence.
Even though that wasn't the intent at all. We know Bill Callahan, when he insisted his football team must be the dumbest in America in terms of playing the game, meant nothing more than that.
But if you're an African-American there may be a more personal interpretation. You're being advised you're not very bright, even though no individuals were named.
That's understandable when you've grown up hearing people say blacks couldn't play quarterback or play center or be a head coach because they didn't have what whites had, meaning smarts. The half-cocked idea was disproved long ago.
Still you hear whispers. And so a black athlete's reaction to an incident is apt to be different from the reaction of a white athlete.
"I don't want any man to call me stupid or dumb," Charles Woodson said. "I can't believe that another grown man called another grown man dumb."
Specifically, Callahan didn't do that. He called his team dumb. But Woodson, an African American, could infer that his coach was talking about certain people.
Only a few weeks ago Rush Limbaugh, out of his element, was on national television making a comment about Donovan McNabb, a black quarterback, which never would have been uttered if McNabb were white.
And just the other evening, on ESPN Classics, there was a reshowing of the painful evening in 1987 when during a discussion of Jackie Robinson, his onetime roommate, Dodgers executive Al Campanis, was asked by ABC-TV's Ted Koppel why there are so few African-Americans in positions of baseball leadership.
"They lack the necessities," Campanis began, and then proceeded to enmesh himself into a position from which extrication was impossible.
Even though everyone who knew Campanis would contend he was the farthest thing from a racist. Even though Harry Edwards, the black sociologist, argued Campanis was only vocalizing beliefs then commonly held. Words.
As kids we're told they never can hurt you. But we learn they very well are able to hurt, both the subject and the speaker.
Bill Callahan was so frustrated and angered by the way the Raiders performed last week he said immediately after the game, "We've got to be the dumbest team in America in terms of playing the game."
Some of us shrugged it off as criticism well deserved. And others did not, especially African-American players who took the comment to heart.
It was almost as if they cried out, "Who are you calling dumb?" When it gets down to questions of intelligence how often in the past did a coach say, "This guy's a better athlete, and this other guy does it with his brains"?
And we knew full well he was implying the white kid if not as impressive with his hands or feet, compensated with his head.
Go back to a Sports Illustrated headline about Larry Bird a couple of years after he entered the NBA: "Gifts that God Didn't Give."
Sure, Bird wasn't as talented as those guys, those black guys, right? So he had to develop a game, had to outthink the others. As if Magic Johnson didn't think. As if Oscar Robertson never thought.
It isn't so much what is written or stated, but how it is accepted. An individual who's had to battle the system is going to be considerably more sensitive to criticism. As is Dusty Baker. Dusty's moves when he managed the Giants frequently were questioned.
Didn't send a pinch hitter up for Mark Gardner? They were all over Dusty for that. Dusty battled back. He told us he knew the game, he knew his players.
What he really meant was, "Don't think because I'm African-American I'm not as clever as the rest of them."
Bill Callahan was trying to get the Raiders to make fewer mistakes. Yet in doing so, he also made a mistake. He didn't take into account what a single word might mean.
by Art Spander
It should have been as obvious as black and white. The way some Raiders players responded to what they construed as the questioning of their football intelligence.
Even though that wasn't the intent at all. We know Bill Callahan, when he insisted his football team must be the dumbest in America in terms of playing the game, meant nothing more than that.
But if you're an African-American there may be a more personal interpretation. You're being advised you're not very bright, even though no individuals were named.
That's understandable when you've grown up hearing people say blacks couldn't play quarterback or play center or be a head coach because they didn't have what whites had, meaning smarts. The half-cocked idea was disproved long ago.
Still you hear whispers. And so a black athlete's reaction to an incident is apt to be different from the reaction of a white athlete.
"I don't want any man to call me stupid or dumb," Charles Woodson said. "I can't believe that another grown man called another grown man dumb."
Specifically, Callahan didn't do that. He called his team dumb. But Woodson, an African American, could infer that his coach was talking about certain people.
Only a few weeks ago Rush Limbaugh, out of his element, was on national television making a comment about Donovan McNabb, a black quarterback, which never would have been uttered if McNabb were white.
And just the other evening, on ESPN Classics, there was a reshowing of the painful evening in 1987 when during a discussion of Jackie Robinson, his onetime roommate, Dodgers executive Al Campanis, was asked by ABC-TV's Ted Koppel why there are so few African-Americans in positions of baseball leadership.
"They lack the necessities," Campanis began, and then proceeded to enmesh himself into a position from which extrication was impossible.
Even though everyone who knew Campanis would contend he was the farthest thing from a racist. Even though Harry Edwards, the black sociologist, argued Campanis was only vocalizing beliefs then commonly held. Words.
As kids we're told they never can hurt you. But we learn they very well are able to hurt, both the subject and the speaker.
Bill Callahan was so frustrated and angered by the way the Raiders performed last week he said immediately after the game, "We've got to be the dumbest team in America in terms of playing the game."
Some of us shrugged it off as criticism well deserved. And others did not, especially African-American players who took the comment to heart.
It was almost as if they cried out, "Who are you calling dumb?" When it gets down to questions of intelligence how often in the past did a coach say, "This guy's a better athlete, and this other guy does it with his brains"?
And we knew full well he was implying the white kid if not as impressive with his hands or feet, compensated with his head.
Go back to a Sports Illustrated headline about Larry Bird a couple of years after he entered the NBA: "Gifts that God Didn't Give."
Sure, Bird wasn't as talented as those guys, those black guys, right? So he had to develop a game, had to outthink the others. As if Magic Johnson didn't think. As if Oscar Robertson never thought.
It isn't so much what is written or stated, but how it is accepted. An individual who's had to battle the system is going to be considerably more sensitive to criticism. As is Dusty Baker. Dusty's moves when he managed the Giants frequently were questioned.
Didn't send a pinch hitter up for Mark Gardner? They were all over Dusty for that. Dusty battled back. He told us he knew the game, he knew his players.
What he really meant was, "Don't think because I'm African-American I'm not as clever as the rest of them."
Bill Callahan was trying to get the Raiders to make fewer mistakes. Yet in doing so, he also made a mistake. He didn't take into account what a single word might mean.