Tag Archives: diversity

Diversity in the NFL

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In the Eddie Murphy movie Trading Places, there is a scene when Randolph Duke asks his brother Mortimer if they should retain Murphy’s character as the managing director:

You mean keep Valentine on, as Managing Director?

Do you really believe I would have a nigger run our family business, Randolph?

Of course not. Neither would I.

It is not a stretch to imagine a similar conversation taking place in the executive offices of NFL franchises among owners. Today on the first day of Black History Month, there is exactly one African American head coach employed by NFL franchises. Houston fired head coach David Culley after one season despite being universally praised for the Texans overachieving with a roster bereft of NFL talent. Brian Flores hired by the Miami Dolphins three years ago, right before management decided to sell off most of their talent in a blatant attempt to tank the season. Flores held the locker room together during that turbulent season and produced two winning seasons after that first season. Eric Bieniemy has been the offensive coordinator of the Kansas City Chiefs, a team that has gone to four consecutive AFC championship games and two Super Bowls. Bieniemy has yet to sniff a head coaching job. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers feature African American offensive and defensive coordinators with a Super Bowl championship on their resume; both were expected to be hot head-coaching candidates this year. Neither has been hired or considered a finalist in for any of them the remaining jobs.

African American head coaches are also held to a higher standard than most white coaches take Jim Caldwell, who as head coach of the Colts led them to the Super Bowl his first season, went 10-6 his second before an injury to star quarterback Peyton Manning suffered an injury that would force him to miss the following season. The Colts went 2-14, and Caldwell was relieved of his duties. It took four years for Caldwell to be given another opportunity; conversely, the New York Jets hired Adam Gase after two straight losing seasons before the Dolphins could change the locks on his office. Caldwell produced three winning seasons out of four in Detroit and was fired for his efforts. The Lions have since hired two white head coaches who have produced zero winning seasons since Caldwell’s firing. Current Lions head coach Dan Campbell, despite posting a 3-13-1 record, has been praised by the media for his team playing hard and improving the culture in Detroit; think back to what I wrote about David Culley as a perspective on that. The Cincinnati Bengals are headed to the Super Bowl; their head coach Zac Taylor prior to this year was 2-14 and 4-11 but was afforded the opportunity to grow with the team.

Now let’s transpose the NFL with the NBA, a league with only one African American owner. Last hiring cycle, there were eight head coach openings, seven filled by African Americans. Thirteen of the thirty NBA head coaches are currently African Americans. The pipeline to head coaching opportunities in the NBA, assistant coaches, is teeming with African Americans. When head coaching opportunities arise in the NBA, African Americans routinely are interviewed as opposed to what in many cases is the token interview afforded to a single African American candidate to satisfy the Rooney Rule. While far from perfect, the NBA has made diversity hires among its head coaches a priority, and its owners are leap years ahead of their NFL counterparts in progressive thinking.

There appears to be no easy answer to the NFL problem. The league is a money-making machine, and its ownership has in their mind no reason to worry about the perception of their hiring practices. The Commissioner’s office has no real say in the matter as the Commissioner is an employee of the owners. Until NFL owners make the collective decision to prioritize diversity in the hiring of head coaches, it will be the same old story for the foreseeable future.

The NFL continues to prove it has no shame

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Reports today say Miami and the Texans have agreed in principle to a deal for Deshaun Watson, but the Dolphins want clarity on his legal issues before going through with it.  Another report states NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league does not have the necessary information to put Texans QB Deshaun Watson on the commissioner’s exempt list, which allows Watson to be paid but not play. While his legal issues play themselves out. This is coming on the heels of finding out the NFL knew about Jon Gruden’s racist, sexist, homophobic e-mails to another league executive on the Washington football team’s e-mail since July and said nothing even after they were leaked. In addition, the league has refused to make public what else they found in their review of over 600,000 e-mails proving once again the NFL is nothing but lip service when it comes to diversity. They can put all the slogans they want in end zones, run commercials until the cows come home about their commitment to change, but in the end, nothing fundamentally changes within the NFL’s good old boy network, and the NFL should be ashamed of that…but sadly they won’t be. 

OUR LIVES HAVE ALWAYS MATTERED OUR VOICES WILL NEVER BE SILENCED

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When a segment of a society willfully marginalizes another segment is not surprising to see unrest. It is not surprising to see the very foundation that it was built begin to crumble. It is not surprising when it starts to crumble from within; For society’s good, the masses must rise and denounce those who spew racism and bigotry. Reject what makes them different, listen, and learn about each other and embrace their diversity. A diversity that has made them stronger. Only then will society be able to say with one voice this the true spirit of our humanity; these are the thoughts, insights, and musing of an everyday African American on the state of race relations in America today.

OUR LIVES HAVE ALWAYS MATTERED
OUR VOICES WILL NEVER BE SILENCED

Available at Amazon.com in paperback or as an e-book.

Spineless Coward with No Principles

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The forgone concussion of Trump’s 2nd impeachment trial only goes to prove what I have said since he first rode down that escalator, He tapped into the hearts and minds of the people who saw America changing becoming more diverse, more inclusive and they felt America was being taken from them. They felt so strongly about it being “our” America not “their” America that they rallied behind the man they felt would be their last line of defense in a way they never have anyone else. The rest of the GOP saw this and knowing that alienating his base would cost them politically and being the spineless cowards with no morals or principles they are they went along with it. Now they are so connected to it they know they can’t get out they know that for for all intensive purposes they are Trump and a vote against Trump is a vote against themselves.

America is not a country – America is a concept

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America is not a country.

America is a concept.

A concept based on the founding fathers’ words in the Declaration of Independence, the document that announces America’s creation. Words that America did not live up to at that time, words that America has fought to live up to ever since, but words in which America was created:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

America is the largest and the world’s only real “melting pot,” A society whose success is defined by immigrants’ contributions from all over sharing thoughts and ideas to create one new culture. It is written in the United States’ very seal, E pluribus unum – “From many, one.”

Sadly, at the very time, America is becoming increasingly diverse; it is becoming more polarized. The concept on which it was founded, the concept that allowed it to become the world’s leading nation, is slowly being forgotten by many of its citizens.  Just as the founding fathers spent four long months debating with each other, listening to each other’s points of view, and coming to compromises that benefited the collective in a real democracy, the citizens must listen to and understand one another. They cannot hope to sustain their democracy by merely pursuing their interests;  They must be willing to make concessions in the hope of finding common ground for the good of America as a whole. 

Online decision-making platform Cloverpop found a direct link between workplace diversity and decision-making.  When diverse teams made a business decision, they outperformed individual decision-makers up to 87% of the time.  When employees with different backgrounds and perspectives come together, they develop more solutions, which leads to more informed and improved decision-making processes and results.  Whether some accept it or not, this is the hallmark of America.  It is what makes America stand out. America is not a specific racial or ethnic identity or religious belief.  America is differing groups with varying moral and religious outlooks, coming together to embrace America’s concept. It is in their diversity that America exists.

In the last four years, we have seen America led by a President who promoted division and hatred.  Stroked fears and tacitly promoted the idea that for a particular segment, they were losing their America.  Ironically it was the person he defeated to become President who truly understood what makes America great when she said:

What we have to do… is to find a way to celebrate our diversity and debate our differences without fracturing our communities.

Secretary Clinton understood that no one group could claim America, and therefore no one group can lose America. America is what it is because it is a beautiful mosaic, and while we may not always see eye to eye, that is fine.  We may have differences, that too is fine.  As Surak, the most influential philosopher in the history of the planet Vulcan, remarked:

I am pleased to see that we have differences.  May we together become greater than the sum of both of us.

The Aliens have decided – We are not Worthy

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Alien #1: Are you prepared today with your recommendation on the humans?

Alien #2: I am.

Alien #1: Then this evaluation hearing shall come to order. Please proceed.

Alien #2: Thank you. As you know, I have always been an advocate of humans as a species because of their cognitive ability. When tasked with evaluating them, it was my hope that I would find them to be worthy of admission into the Collective of Advanced Planets; however, as I studied them, I was dismayed that they have not even identified themselves as one species.

Alien #1: What do you mean?

Alien #2: When faced with their differences, they do not draw strength from each other, learn from each other, grow. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Rather they choose to make it us versus them. They are drawing lines of race, ethnicity, gender, language group, religion, age, socio-economic status, and so on. That, combined with their thirst for power and money, has led them, at best, to turn their back on and subjugate the weak or, at worst, kill each other. Undoubtedly this has stunted their development as a species.

Alien #1: Yet they still do not change. Why?

Alien #2: Well, I have theorized that the human mind, despite all its unique and special characteristics, is lazy.

Alien #1: Lazy?

Alien #2: Yes, lazy. The human mind prefers to be comfortable. It is more comfortable accepting that which is familiar than that which is different. Even when they come to the realization that their actions are morally wrong and counterproductive, they choose the comfort of turning a blind eye rather than the discomfort of confronting it. Their nature is to live in the moment at the expense of their future good. One can see that in how they treat their own planet. Coupled that with their creation of and need for a socio-economic system in which each group strives to climb over the other. I can only surmise that over the course of their history, there has been a loss of a great many minds that, if not extinguished, would have flourished and led to the growth of their species. Regrettably, it is this lack of self-awareness that humans, despite many tremendous qualities, have proven they are not ready to join us.

Alien #1: Thank you; we will enter your recommendation into the record, and the human’s admission to the Collective of Advanced Planets has been denied.

Ignorance leads to Hatred, Hatred leads to Division

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On September 4, 2020, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies Friday to end diversity training programs, calling them “Divisive, anti-American propaganda a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue.” This decision comes amid a nationwide reckoning on racial injustice that Trump has adamantly opposed.

There is a reason Trump disparages those who would educate America on issues of racial injustice. Why he looks to paint those who do so as radical left-wing unamerican extremist, it is so he can easily mislead a segment of American society, to continue to tap into their ignorance and hate, to ensure that his lying and use of misinformation is seen as truth.

Because Trump knows that:

Misinformation leads to ignorance.

Ignorance leads to fear.

Fear leads to isolation.

Isolation leads to mistrust.

Mistrust leads to intolerance.

Intolerance leads to hate.

Hate leads to division.

And division ensures that we as Americans never band together as one but continue to fight each other over the crumbs he and his kind continue to toss us. It is to ensure we remain victims to ensure their way of life.

Matthew 12:25 New King James Version

But Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. –

WE THE PEOPLE

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In an episode of Star Trek The original series, as if there is any other Star Trek, Captain Kirk once said as he read from a version of the Declaration of Independence on an alien world:

Look at these three words written larger than the rest, with a special pride never written before or since. Tall words proudly saying We the People, it was not written for the chiefs or the kings or the warriors or the rich and powerful, but for all the people! …They must apply to everyone, or they mean nothing

The just-completed Democratic National Convention embraced that concept, proudly showcasing America’s future in all its diversity. Race, Nationality, Gender, Sexual orientation, Religion, and Socio-Economic status of all types were highlighted at one point or another. It was a beautiful spectacle to watch, especially when you consider what we will probably witness in the upcoming Republican National Convention. The Republican party, which has always lacked the diversity of Democrats, has been hi-jacked by Donald Trump, a man who cannot comprehend the indisputable fact, America is great because of its diversity. He stokes the fears, racism, bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia of those in MAGA hats who would fight to see that they don’t lose “their country” as if it ever was just their country. Individuals with no desire to see Americans living in harmony as one people, no desire to be part of the coalition of the righteous that rejects their beliefs and is growing stronger every day. No desire to see America finally become the nation it was created to be. A nation in which all people are created equal. He panders to the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class, bragging about the stock market and offering large corporations multimillion-dollar bailouts while allowing the unemployment benefits for those suffering financially to expire. To Donald Trump, it is We SOME of the People

As Americans, how can we ask someone to lead us as a people, one people, when regrettably that person doesn’t have the desire or capacity to understand the meaning of three simple words. WE THE PEOPLE.