With a Bang
Yesterday was the first day Black History Month. These collection of news stories were bound to happen, but it is still amazing nonetheless. The first one is one you all know well. The backlash against the 1619 Project and so-called critical race theory has been ongoing. In the midst of all that chaos, numerous states have chosen to limit what teachers can teach their students during this month. For instance, we can talk about Jackie Robinson, but we can’t talk about why there was a color barrier in the first place. We can talk about Martin Luther King Jr, but we can’t delve too deeply.
The end result is that multiple generations of Americans believe MLK had a dream. They’ll quote the dream and even misquote it in order to pretend that he would support policies that further subjugate people. Meanwhile, we have students that think he freed the slaves, was the first black president, and a precious few seem to think he was related to Martin Luther.
It’s in this backdrop that the second news story makes even more sense. Former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores started a class action lawsuit against the NFL charging systemic racism and racist practices. While it certainly wasn’t the most shocking revelation, the fact that Bill Belichek accidentally texted him and congratulated him for getting the Giants job (thinking he was Brian Daboll) before he interviewed. His interview was simply to comply with the Rooney Rule that mandates at least two interviews with minority candidates.
A league that has a 70 percent African American player population has one black head coach for 32 teams. There are three minority coaches combined amongst those 32. That’s impossible to defend. I’m sure teams like the Giants, Dolphins, and Broncos (who were specifically named in the suit) can somehow defend their hires and their decisions. I’m sure most teams can. That’s the difference between systemic racism and overt racism.
Hardly anyone comes right out and says it anymore. We are all too smart and too sophisticated for that. However, when the vast majority of the owners are white then they will hire white executives most of the time. Those executives will hire people that they know and have worked with. They turn out to be white most of the time. Head coaches hire assistants they’ve worked with before and they turn out to be white most of the time. I think everyone knows the score.
Ultimately, we don’t grow if we don’t force ourselves to acknowledge some painful truths. We can argue about intention until we are blue in the face. We can assert that we don’t hate anyone because of their race, ethnicity, country of origin, or religion. We can argue vehemently that we aren’t racist and even believe it down to our core.
Many of us can do so with a straight face. Yet, it’s hard to look around and not see the results of a society that has been systematically unfair for decades. Now, many of us are barred from pointing that out. We don’t want kids to feel bad. There’s a fine line between assigning blame in the present day or simply being aware that a discrepancy exists. We didn’t cause the discrepancy, but if we don’t acknowledge it we can’t move on. Then, it will be our fault.
…And therein lies the heart of Mindfulness and Radical Acceptance in therapy. One has to see that a thing exists before one can change it.
1I was on a hiring committee a while back. The position had two candidates: one a female PoC who was highly qualified and another who was male, white and less qualified. The conversation kept turning toward the white man being a “better fit” culturally, and there was too much speculation about what the female applicant’s husband thought. No mention of the other applicant’s wife, if he had one.
I called them on it (carefully!), and they eventually offered the job to the woman (who unfortunately turned it down). I don’t know what happened after that because the committee was disbanded and I was not invited to participate after that.
We know that the hiring managers were told to include us women for diversity reasons. We were not welcome. But if we hadn’t been there, yet another less-qualified white dude would have been hired without anyone knowing it could have been different. No doubt it continues today. I don’t get invited to a whole lot of hiring committees anymore.
2The evidence that the Giants had already picked Daboll (and communicated it to some) before interviewing Flores will be strong evidence in the lawsuit. The Giants are saying they decided against Flores in 11th hour. Unfortunately for them, that was the hour before they held their sham interview. Wonder how the players will take this news?
3And when it comes to systematic racism, look no further than repugnanticans in congress.
https://www.rawstory.com/gop-senator-thinks-bidens-scotus-pick-wont-know-a-law-book-from-a-j-crew-catalog/
And this is my favorite quote from the article. Racism with a side of sexism:
4“No. 1, I want a nominee who knows a law book from a J.Crew catalog,” Kennedy told Politico Tuesday after meeting with the GOP leaders. “No. 2, I want a nominee who’s not going to try to rewrite the Constitution every other Thursday to try to advance a ‘woke agenda.'”
I got my masters in school counseling more than 15 years ago. When I first got it and was certified I applied for an open position on my campus. Mind you, I was the only applicant that was certified. One of our assistant principals hand wrote a note to me thanking me for my interest and for my interview, but they had decided to go in another direction. The note was dated before my interview.
All of this coming from a white guy means next to nothing. Yet, I am a minority in this rarified profession. When I served as a counselor for a few years in another district, I was shocked to find out I was the only man even though there were 20 or 30 counselors in the district.
I say all that to say I have an inkling of what Flores was feeling when he took that Giants interview. It was a gut punch not because I didn’t get it. I knew I was a longshot even as the only certified applicant. It was a gut punch because it didn’t matter what I said in that interview. I can’t imagine people of color will perform well in interviews when they know they aren’t a serious candidate. It all seems to perpetuate itself.
5And Cruz said aloud that Biden’s Black woman nominee would only please 6% of the people (Black female population) and offend the other 94%. I’m sure Ron Johnson is trying to think of something even more stupid.
6The NFL is congratulating itself today because the Washington team no longer has a racist name. That’s treating cancer with an aspirin.
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