To be recognized and appreciated
I don’t know how it happened, but, by the time I could run and yell loudly, I somehow became my family’s official sentinel.
A dubious distinction?
I felt honored.
Anytime, anybody who shared my skin pigment appeared on our TV, I’d run hither and thither issuing the following announcement: “Colored, colored, colored!”
Whatever my parents, brother, or grandmother were doing, they’d hurl themselves, nonstop, into our living room, to get a glimpse of a “Negro” (that’s what we called us back then), singing, dancing, hitting a baseball, tell jokes or even call himself a Supreme Court Justice.
It was as if I’d played a fanfare on a herald trumpet – and my family members scampered from every corner of the house.
It was in the mid-1950s, and I didn’t even have a good working knowledge of what race meant. I just knew that the sight of those people with whom I shared a skin color afforded me the opportunity to wield great power.
I used that to perfection.
I’d realized that the scarcity of Black people on our television set, especially as gifted and talented folks, gave the people who looked like my family members a sense of pride.
We felt that we were being recognized and appreciated.
Isn’t that what we all want?
I don’t claim to be the best singer, dancer, or Supreme Court Justice in America.
Just give me the job.
There’s no need to love me.
I’m qualified.
Just give me a chance.
Except the NFL hasn’t seemed to understand that principle.
Or maybe, most of the owners of NFL teams haven’t.
They’ve made sure that 70% of their players are Black. But, until last week, only 3.1% of their head coaches were.
That means one.
That’s shameful.
It’s only one more Black coach than is on Mars.
But that wouldn’t have gained much national attention if it hadn’t been for one Black coach, Brian Flores, who filed a discrimination lawsuit against the NFL and three teams.
That sparked a national dialogue about the paucity of Black head coaches in a league that’s comprised of an overwhelming number of Black players.
And once again, all Flores really wants is to be is recognized and appreciated as an NFL head coach.
There’s no demand for a minimum number of Black head coaches in the NFL.
Just, perhaps, that there should be a chance given to potential Black coaches to show their stuff.
And if hired – to be recognized and appreciated.
The NFL is certainly behind the NBA in that regard.
The National Basketball Association had 13 Black head coaches at the start of the current season.
That’s 43.3% of them on the NBA’s 30 teams.
Major League Baseball has had problems with the lack of Black managers. There were only two last season.
That’s somewhat understandable since only 8% of the players are Black.
Black kids aren’t as enthusiastic about playing baseball as they once were.
Football and basketball are what they’re forming lines to play.
But at the heart of this, there’s something else that needs to be said.
There are school boards across the country doing away with (what they call) Critical Race Theory.
There are school districts that are claiming that teaching anything about the nation’s problematic racial history, are, therefore, diminishing the existence of white people.
And they’re denying that there’s any “systemic racism” in the country.
Take a hard look at the NFL. That IS systemic racism.
Even if Brian Flores’ lawsuit is without merit, it still ignited a furor that leaped from the lead story on ESPN’s Sports Center to lead stories on most of the major news networks.
It opened yet another wound that exposes the fact that systemic racism lives.
That there are highly competent people in this country who’ve forever been pushed aside because of it.
If parents want to truly give their children a look at reality today, give them a full dose of the NFL.
Not only on Sundays.
But during the rest of the week.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 40-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.