(Todd A. Smith)
Social media can give a person a real pulse of the world.
For some reason, people seemingly feel more comfortable voicing their ignorance on social media than they would if they confronted a person or a situation face-to-face.
It seems that a decent amount of the White population has a problem with President Joe Biden limiting his Supreme Court appointment to African-American female candidates.
But it seems that a decent amount of the White population has no problem with the National Football League (NFL) team owners limiting their head coaching candidates to White males.
Make it make sense because it does not to me.
It only represents the hypocrisy that exists in the world in which people are O.K. with “discrimination” or “affirmative action” when it benefits White people.
But when it helps African-Americans, all you know what breaks loose with calls of so-called reverse racism.
Former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores shocked the world on Feb. 1 when he announced a class action lawsuit claiming racial discrimination in the NFL’s hiring process for head coaches.
Flores alleged that the Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered him $100,000 per loss so that the team could secure a better draft pick.
The actual owner of the team wanted his African-American head coach to lose games on purpose to secure a better draft pick.
If Flores had gone along with Ross’ plan it would be almost guaranteed that he would have eventually gotten fired by Ross for losing too much.
Furthermore, other NFL owners would have been hesitant to hire him as a head coach because he would have had more losses on his resume.
Flores eventually got fired from the Dolphins because he is allegedly hard to work with.
Talk about a Catch-22.
Additionally, Flores alleged that the front office for the Denver Broncos arrived at his interview late, while looking disheveled and intoxicated.
Flores also has a text message from New England Patriots head coach/general manager Bill Belichik, which indicates that the New York Giants had already decided to hire a White man in Brian Daboll as head coach three days before they interviewed Flores.
Because of the Rooney Rule in the NFL, which aims to give minority head coaching aspirants more opportunities, NFL teams must interview at least one minority (a woman or person of color) candidate for head coaching openings.
Almost immediately, other former Black head coaches like Hue Jackson and Marvin Lewis co-signed Flores’ allegations, with Jackson even stating he had proof to back up Flores’ claims of some owners paying coaches to lose.
While some have said that Flores’ class action lawsuit will have the same impact on sports as Curt Flood’s baseball free agency lawsuit, one only needs the eye test to see that the NFL is racist.
And although the NFL allows players to have slogans on the back of their helmets that encourage people to “stop hate” and “end racism” it is still a very racist league led by White supremacists.
And when I say White supremacists, some White people must realize that a person does not need to belong to a hate group and wear a white sheet to be a White supremacist.
A person only must belief that White people should have all or most of the power and people of color should remain under them and subordinate.
White people on top and people of color under them is the image of White supremacy.
That belief is what made many join hate groups and wear white sheets in the first place.
However, some who subscribe to the ideology of White supremacy chose business suits and boardrooms over beating African-Americans to death in the streets.
The fact that the NFL has only one African-American head coach out of 32 teams is proof of systemic racism within a league in which approximately 70 percent of the players are African-American.
Racists might say that African-American head coaching aspirants do not have the qualifications to land those coveted head coaching spots.
My response to that is that many White head coaching candidates do not have the qualifications to be considered for head coaching jobs either.
However, they still receive those jobs over more qualified African-American applicants.
Case in point is the rumor that former NFL quarterback Josh McCown will become the new head coach of the Houston Texans with no NFL or college coaching experience at all.
The only coaching experience on McCown’s resume is coaching his son’s high school team.
A White coach can go from the high school sidelines to the NFL sidelines.
However, an African-American coach can have two decades of experience as an assistant NFL coach, have a winning record in the NFL as a head coach two years in a row and still possibly lose out on the job to a White high school coach.
Flores is a candidate for the Houston Texans head coaching vacancy.
Get the heck out of here if you do not see the racism in that scenario.
Remember, this is the same league that blackballed Colin Kaepernick for protesting police brutality and systemic racism before NFL games, during the national anthem.
Remember, this is the same league that saw Jon Gruden lose his job as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders when racist, sexist and homophobic messages surfaced.
And this is the same league that has regressed when it comes to hiring African-American head coaches over the last two decades.
When the league implemented the Rooney Rule, the NFL had three head coaches.
Now, it has only one African-American head coach, Mike Tomlin of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
But to prove that they are an ally in the African-American struggle, the league allows an African-American singer to perform the Negro national anthem before games.
They make all the right comments in public about being committed to diversity.
But behind closed-doors it is the same good ole boy network that keeps the coaching fraternity almost exclusively White.
